Egg meet face
Stalker 2 NFTs? Well, not anymore!
In what is becoming an increasingly teachable moment for game studios, Stalker 2 went all-in on NFTs on Twitter today, and were met with a less-than-celebratory reception. While the original tweet was deleted, we saved a version of it which you can view below.
Here’s the gist:
“We did we choose NFT? It’s a new technology, and we are eager to do NFT right: give certain fans an opportunity to get into the game without interfering with other players’ experience. That’s why the tokens are entirely optional and have no impact on gameplay or story.”
The message was long and convoluted. There were assurances that essentially amounted to “trust us, nothing bad will happen,” and “it will not impact gameplay.” Implementation of gloves/tatoos, skins/badges, and “collectible cards” were mentioned in passing. “It will not impact gameplay?” Where have we heard that before?
Following the hard NFT sell, fans imploded. Brian Altano of IGN had one of the most scathing responses: “If you can’t fund your game without scamming your audience into buying NFTs, you should probably scrap your game,” which got some support from the community. From there, the game’s official account went into damage control, and a few of the defenses, unlike the big missive, were not deleted.
A little over an hour later, we got this follow-up message: “We hear you. Based on the feedback we received, we’ve made a decision to cancel anything NFT-related to Stalker 2. The interests of our fans and players are the top priority for the team. We’re making this game for you to enjoy: whatever the cost is. If you care, we care too.”
So here’s the thing: anyone even close to the gaming community could have seen this coming from a mile away. At this point you tried to hard sell your own community on exclusive luxury items, hurt your reputation, then completely backpedaled. Nothing was gained from this beyond skepticism with anything the studio puts out from here on out.
I know the NFT industry is the wild wild west right now: but this should be a clear warning to other studios.
The original deleted Stalker 2 NFTs statement:
