Team 17 had the good idea to offer NFTs for its Worms license. The editor was motivated. But he had not foreseen the outcry even among his partners…
The Saints pomegranates NFT, these registered and “unique” digital objects have been dreaming of studios and publishers since the explosion of the so-called “Meta” universes (thank you the pandemic).
CSC wanted to get started with STALKER 2, but ended up abandoning the idea, Square Enix is keeping an eye on it and Konami timidly celebrated Castlevania’s 25th anniversary with it. On the other side, we find a few publishers with a much more aggressive strategy, including Atari, which invests squarely in it, and Ubisoft, which throws itself into it completely with its Quartz platform, under the digital tomato jets of a large fringe of exasperated players. .
In short, NFTs make your mouth water, and Team 17 was hot to get into it too.
NFTs in Worms?
A few days ago, Team 17 unveiled its green NFT plans to make a small Metaverse around Worms.
The proposal: NFTs with low ecological impact in partnership with the company Coin 4 Planet which uses a green process, “Refeed Farms”, which run on composts spat out by farmed earthworms (vulgarly, it is the idea).
Stars in the eyes, the editor was therefore left with the idea of offering a whole bunch of unique objects (skins and others). To celebrate, a site, MetaWorms.live, and an official Discord had even emerged to chart the future of these NFTs. Except that obviously, the community and a good part of the partners of Team 17 were not really of the same opinion.
The anger of the partner studios
No sooner had the announcement been made and relayed thana number of partner studios have made a real outcry, unanimously pointing to a process that is as dirty for the environment as it is for the games and the players. Principles, widely shared by gamers elsewhere.
Among them, we can mention in particular SMG, the studio behind Move-Out, which has literally dissociatednot wishing to see the name of the studio tainted by NFT stories, as can be read on the official press release shared on Twitter:
We do not want our name associated with NFTs or anything related to cryptos and other blockchains.[…]Rather, let’s look for new ideas, let’s seek pleasure and the discovery of new genres and new audiences, and not easy money and digital manipulation.
Ghost Town Games (Overcooked) also joined the dance and wanted to reassure his community on Twitter also:
We want to reassure you, Overcooked (and all our future games) will never have to do with NFTs. […] We are against NFTs.
Playtonis Games (Yoka-Laylee) to him too react to the casesaying don’t want to hear about NFTjust like the studio Navegentedeveloper of Greak: Memories of Azur.
Finally, it’s Aggro Crab (Going Under) who reacted, but this time with a lot of salt, acid even. The studio was not a dead hand and strongly condemned Team 17 by calling for a boycott of the company.
We think NFTs are not environmentally friendly, not helpful, and just a f****** scam. Please do not harass Team 17 employees or the developers who depend on it, as this decision seems to have caught everyone off guard and is certainly coming from above. Needless to say, we won’t be working with them on any other titles, and we encourage other independent developers to do the same., unless that decision is reversed. I fucking hate it.
Well, finally, no NFT for Worms
In less than 24 hours, after having suffered the wrath of his allies and players, Team 17 does a complete backpedal and cancels all planslike CSG with STALKER 2. Thus, in a short message on twitter, the editor announces having heard the crowds and apologizes flatly:
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
Team17 today announces the end of the MetaWorms NFT project. We have listened to our teams, development partners and our game communities, and the concerns they have expressed, and have therefore made the decision to withdraw from NFTs.
It must be said that it was seriously beginning to smell of smoke. Haaaaaallelujah as they say among the Worms.
