How many times do we need to teach you this lesson old man?
NFTs. If you’re a game developer, logically they should stand for “No Frickin Thanks” except maybe a bit more profane. You’d think by now that the burning buildings and mobs of angry people would deter developers from proudly announcing NFT projects, but here we are.
Team17 announced on January 31 that they would be partnering with Reality Gaming Group to mint NFTs on the Worms video game series. The announcement, as has become commonplace, was met with overwhelming backlash by the general public. But eventually word got around to Team17’s partners, meaning the backlash would start having real, tangible effects on their business.
Take Aggro Crab, developer of Going Under (Team17 published the game). Aggro Crab took to Twitter to announce quite bluntly that they would be ending business relations with Team17 and encouraging other indie developers to do the same.
sigh pic.twitter.com/I4PIQB6o1H
— AGGRO CRAB (@AggroCrabGames) January 31, 2022
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PlayTonic took to Twitter to oppose the use of NFTs as well.
— Playtonic (@PlaytonicGames) February 1, 2022
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Well not even 48 hours later, Team17 is changing their tune and walking back their plans. On Twitter the publisher announced the end to the MetaWorms NFT project, if by “end” you mean “never started.” It does go to show that for the moment at least, game developers announcing NFTs are a really great way to damage your business, lose partners, and ultimately end up cutting it all anyway and having to ask for forgiveness.
Team17 is today announcing an end to the MetaWorms NFT project.
We have listened to our Teamsters, development partners, and our games’ communities, and the concerns they’ve expressed, and have therefore taken the decision to step back from the NFT space.
— Team17 (@Team17) February 1, 2022
MMO Fallout 