Sky Mavis co-founder accuses Ronin game of making secret deal
Ragnarok: Monster World says it upheld all “contractual obligations.”
Ragnarok: Monster World and Adobe modified by Blockworks
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Sky Mavis has accused one of the games using its Ronin chain of “secretly” making a deal with another blockchain in violation of a preexisting agreement.
The game in question, a mobile fantasy title dubbed Ragnarok: Monster World (RMW), uses both the Ronin and Cross protocols.
Sky Mavis co-founder Aleksander Larsen accused RMW of being unable to keep up with increased competition since the Ronin blockchain became permissionless in February. Being a permissionless chain means game developers no longer need Sky Mavis’ approval to build on Ronin.
“The team behind the game ignored our advice and has since lost favor with the community. To make matters worse, they secretly signed a deal with a separate blockchain, breaching our agreement,” Larsen wrote in a post on Saturday.
“Naturally, this comes as a surprise, given the support we’ve extended to them. The trust has been broken to such a degree that we are ending our professional relationship with 0x&, the team behind Ragnarok Monster World,” Larsen continued.
The Sky Mavis co-founder initially said that the game’s assets would be removed from Sky Mavis products, like Ronin Market, entirely. In a subsequent post, however, Larsen said the assets will remain on the Ronin marketplace but would lose their checkmark there — indicating a lack of endorsement from Sky Mavis.
“This will be our last statement on this matter,” Larsen said.
RMW’s Genesis Land Launchpad and Presale are still prominently featured on the Ronin Market’s homepage as of Monday morning (and its Landverse collection still has a gold check).
RMW denied that any “secret agreement” was made and contended that it upheld all “contractual obligations” with Sky Mavis.
“It is unfair to frame this situation as a ‘loss of trust’ based solely on unilateral interpretations,” RMW argued.
Others have suggested that RMW’s decision was a play to remedy dwindling funds. Blockchain foundations, DAOs or leading labs typically offer substantial grants to game developers to integrate their chains — and RMW may have chosen to go “multichain” to get more funding.
“We’re going to see this even more,” Moku co-founder Hantao Yuan predicted in a post about the issue. “Them moving to another ecosystem for a grant just means they have survived for now.”
Blockworks has reached out to 0x& for comment.
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