TIP-41: Acquisition of Ryu to Accelerate Treasure's Product Roadmap

Proposals Finalized TIPs
1

Summary

This proposal is authored by Ross Krasner, the Co-Founder & CEO of Ryu Technologies Inc. (”Ryu”) and Core Contributor to the Distribution of Games Protocol (“DoG Protocol”). We would like to propose to the Treasure DAO community the following:

  • In consideration for $400,000 equivalent as MAGIC, acquire all of Ryu and DoG Protocol’s assets and IP to Treasure comprising our desktop app/client technology, SDKs, self-serve developer dashboard and management console, developed games and content, and more.
  • The token that was previously planned and associated with DoG Protocol to be reworked to better fit within the Treasure ecosystem and $MAGIC holders.
  • Integrate the Ryu and DoG Protocol core team (n = 4) into Treasure’s core contributing team (under Game Builder Services, Inc., a service provider to Treasure) to accelerate the DAO’s product and technology initiatives while strengthening the ecosystem and partnerships.

We’re huge fans of the Treasure ecosystem as builders, partners, and players, and have very naturally came to this conclusion of wanting to be part of it in a much more real and meaningful way through this proposal.

Thank you to Karel, Yuri, and others from the Treasure core team for their input and thoughtfulness in discussing this proposal before we brought this to the rest of the Treasure community.

Rationale

Background

Ryu was founded in 2018, initially as a studio focused on skills-based mobile games. In June 2022, we moved into web3 and announced the launch of Flame Store as the “Steam of Web3” and a whitelabel desktop launcher solution built for web3 gaming, and also shared that the founder of Steam itself, Rick Ellis, joined Ryu. To-date, Ryu has raised over $4M in funding. We have a strong team of four close-knit members who have worked closely together for 6+ years:

A brief bio of our team is below:

  • Ross Krasner, Co-Founder & CEO (previously LinkedIn)
  • Wyatt Mufson, Co-Founder & CTO (previously Amazon)
  • Nick Fujita, Staff Software Engineer (previously O3 Labs, Bitcoin.com, Crunchyroll)
  • Randolf Tjandra, Senior Software Engineer (previously Crunchyroll)

Ryu and Treasure met last summer (2023) and have worked very closely together since then to work towards bringing to life the Treasure Desktop App to allow games to bring downloadable desktop clients across Windows and Mac to the Treasure community.

The Treasure Desktop App is nearing production readiness, and its launch is being coordinated in close collaboration with the Treasure team as well as game partners (both new and existing) who are graduating from browser to downloadable game clients.

Strong Alignment Between Teams: Culture, Values, and Technology

From a cultural and values perspective as well as roadmap, technology and product fit, the Ryu and Treasure teams are a match made in heaven. We have developed strong rapport between engineering teams and are aligned in our ethos of being community-driven while striving to push the boundaries of gaming made even better through the power of web3.

From an asset perspective, Ryu and DoG have developed powerful, leading desktop launcher technology, gaming SDKs, telemetry and analytics solutions around our whitelabel application and our developer dashboard.

Outside of Treasure, Ryu is the core contributor to DoG Protocol who was a recipient of the Arbitrum Long-Term Incentive Pilot Program (LTIPP) and was awarded 75k ARB to bootstrap the Arbitrum Launcher, a whitelabel launcher specific to games deployed on the Arbitrum network.

The Time is Now to Establish Treasure’s Dominance in Gaming

Steam did not start as a third-party games desktop launcher or even infrastructure. It began at Valve with Half Life, followed by a number of other games (first-party and published) before becoming one of the leading, defacto channels for gaming distribution. This is not too dissimilar to Treasure’s story arc as it is beginning to see some of its core, flagship titles form like The Beacon see amazing success within web3.

As Treasure moves to launch its mainnet in Q3, now’s the time to capitalize on this momentum and accelerate its timelines to arm game developers, builders, and studios with everything they need to launch on Treasure. From our desktop app to a self-serve developer dashboard and management console and to our SDKs and analytics solutions, this greatly complements Treasure’s end-to-end technology and platform stack that is being built out on top of Treasure’s new base layer and enshrined infrastructure. By joining forces, we can bring everything we’ve built, merge it in with Treasure, and accelerate the entire ecosystem’s roadmap tenfold.

Our shared goal? To build the leading decentralized gaming ecosystem and L2 as the defacto home for builders (games or otherwise) to be.

Proposal

Treasure is proposed to acquire all of Ryu’s assets and IP while also expanding Treasure’s core contributing team with the scope as indicated below.

Asset Acquisition:

  • At this time (after discussing with the core Treasure team), the acquisition is planned to be structured as an asset acquisition from Ryu Technologies Inc. (a Delaware C-Corp) into a new entity to be structured that will be owned by Treasure Technology Foundation (a Cayman Foundation).
  • Assets to be acquired are listed below (non-exhaustive):
    • Whitelabel Launcher Application:
      • Multi Platform Support: Web, desktop (Windows and macOS), and mobile
      • Marketplace Support: Treasure and OpenSea support. Other marketplaces and AMMs able to be aggregated and implemented as needed
      • Inventory: Viewable on-chain and off-chain assets
      • Game Client Support: Enable the downloading, updating, and playing of games. Support launcher overlay in-game, allowing for more immersive, meta experiences to connect the games back to the Treasure ecosystem
      • Gameplay Rewards Support: Allow for the award of units offchain for completing in-game actions. If enabled, units can be exchanged for real world prizes, NFTs, game assets, tokens, and other items (both offchain and onchain). Game developers are able to fund campaigns with $USD or $ARB or $MAGIC depending on launcher to offer rewards.
      • Payments: Integrated with Stripe for purchasing games or support in-app purchases (IAP).
      • Analytics: Event tracking exposed via SDKs to game developers, allowing for the tracking of app interactions and events.
      • Identity: Primary login powered by Treasure Connect, Treasure Identity, and the Treasure Development Kit (TDK). TreasureTag/gamertag integration.
    • Developer Dashboard:
      • Manage games (paid and free games)
      • Upload builds (macOS and Windows)
      • Submit game updates and metadata
      • Setup internal testing of games
      • Connect existing Web3 assets (tokens + NFTs)
      • Create ERC-1155 non-consumable in-app purchases
      • Create off-chain in-game tokens
      • Game analytics (installs, launches, sales)
      • Manage admin users and team access
    • SDKs:
      • Engine Availability: C# (Unity), Unreal Engine 5, Typescript/Javascript, Swift (macOS)
      • Developer Documentation: Instructions to use the developer dashboard and SDKs
    • Infrastructure:
      • Containerized backend service and game servers: Deployed with AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service. For Battle Blitz, deployed with GCP Google Kubernetes Engine.
      • Real-money gaming matchmaking and compliance platform: Geofencing, Payments, Skill based matchmaking, Skill based pseudo random library, RMG SDK for native iOS, Unity, and Unreal.
    • Other:
      • All repositories, code, and content in Ryu’s GitHub
      • Miscellaneous Figma files: design concepts, ideation, and more
    • Developed Game Titles
      • Battle Blitz
        • AAA quality multiplayer third-person shooter game built with Unreal Engine 5, integrated with UE5 SDK, available for Windows only, built by Rick Ellis (developer behind Half-Life 2, Fear, Condemned, Paradise Bay and others).
        • Youtube Trailer, Live Game Link, Whitepaper
      • Crystal Quest
      • Mini Games
      • Unreleased Game
        • Fully onchain game in development with an original and novel game concept
      • Mobile Skill Based Real-Money Games
        • Cash Blocks VS, built in Swift for iOS
        • Art assets for: Solitaire, Bingo, Blackjack Boost

Treasure’s Consideration to Ryu:

  • $400,000 equivalent as $MAGIC paid as follows to a wallet indicated by Ryu:
    • On the closing date, MAGIC tokens with a total value of US$200,000, as calculated using the thirty (30) day time-weighted average price (TWAP) of the closing date
    • Thirty (30) days after the closing date: MAGIC tokens with a total value of US$200,000, as calculated using the thirty (30) day TWAP of the closing date.
  • The token that was previously planned and associated with DoG Protocol is set to be reworked to better fit and support the Treasure ecosystem and $MAGIC holders, with no guarantee that a new token will be launched. If a token is launched at any time in the future, Ryu’s shareholders should receive a minimum of the greater of 7.5% or half of the team allocation of its total supply allocated on a pro-rata basis based on their fully diluted percentage ownership at the time of this deal closing. Details pertaining the token utility, tokenomics, vesting schedule, structuring, and more to be established at a future date, if at all.
    • In the event that no token is launched by the two year anniversary of the closing date, 1,000,000 $MAGIC will be granted by Treasure to Ryu’s shareholders, allocated on a pro-rata basis based on their fully diluted percentage ownership as of the closing date.
  • Through Game Builder Services, Inc.:
    • Offer Ryu’s founders (n = 2) employment at-will as W-2 full-time employees
    • At Treasure’s discretion, employ or engage Ryu’s 1099 contractors (n = 2) on an at-will as W-2 full-time employees or on a contract basis
    • Compensation packages to be negotiated between parties at a future date in line with competitive, market standards with base and long-term MAGIC incentive plans structured as follows: 1-year cliff (25%) and 3-year linear unlock of the remainder (75%) thereafter.
    • Ryu’s team, under Game Builder Services, Inc., will work full-time in support and for the benefit of the Treasure ecosystem.
  • Reimbursement of bills associated with this transactions closing costs as well as the dissolution of Ryu Technologies Inc., up to a maximum of US$20,000. Reimbursement will be issued as USDC paid to a wallet indicated by Ryu or as USD via wire transfer or ACH to a bank account owned by Ryu.

Note: Due diligence and the initial closing process has commenced to parallel track these efforts but this acquisition is conditional upon both: (i) DAO approval and ratification of this proposal; and (ii) successful diligence and closing as facilitated between Ryu and Treasure’s core teams. In the event the acquisition does not proceed, the Treasure DAO community will be informed.

Next Steps

The polling process begins now and will end at on July 12, 2024 at 10:08pm UTC. If quorum is reached, a following Snapshot vote will be conducted shortly thereafter.