S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Developers Remove NFTs After Fan Uproar

Image: STALKER 2

Developers STALKER 2 GSC Game World announced yesterday that they will be adding NFTs to the game. The reception from the public was, as you can imagine, unfriendly.

NFTs (and the blockchain itself) are an environmental disaster, a pump-and-dump scam, and an unnecessary attack on legacy technologies and systems that don’t need to be fixed all at once. whichever approach you want to take them from – or all three if you will, I’m not here to stop you, they suck.

I think the fan reaction was best summed up by this best voted comment on Reddit, which simply said

They literally had nothing to do to keep me excited for this game and they screwed it up anyway.

You would think that a video game studio connected to the internet in some way in 2021 would have seen this coming, but then:

Anyway, 24 hours after making the announcement, and after being criticized for all of those 24 hours, the studio decided it was time to tweet an “apology” letter, which of course didn’t. apologized for nothing except a “miscommunication”:

DEAR HAPPY,

WE WANT TO MAKE A DETAILED COMMENT ON YESTERDAY ANNOUNCEMENT OF NFT BONUSES FOR STALKER 2.

GSC GAME WORLD IS AN INDEPENDENT GAME DEVELOPMENT STUDIO. WE DON’T HAVE AN EDITOR, BUT WE HAVE WONDERFUL PARTNERS, AN AMAZING TEAM AND A DREAM OF A GAME YOU WILL SINCERELY LOVE. LIKE ALL OTHER DEVS, WE NEED TWO MAIN RESOURCES: TIME AND MONEY.

STALKER 2: HEART OF CHERNOBYL IS TRULY THE BIGGEST AND MOST COMPLEX GAME WE EVER CREATED. ALL FUNDS WE EARN DURING THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS (INCLUDING NFT’S POTENTIAL INCOME) WILL BE SPENDED ON IMPROVING THE GAME WHILE WAITING TO MAKE IT EVEN BETTER.

WHY DID WE CHOOSE NFT? THIS IS NEW TECHNOLOGY, AND WE LOOK FORWARD TO “DOING NFT RIGHT”: GIVING SOME FANS THE OPPORTUNITY TO “ENTER” THE GAME WITHOUT INTERFERING THE EXPERIENCE OF OTHER PLAYERS. THIS IS WHY THE TOKENS ARE FULLY OPTIONAL AND HAVE NO IMPACT ON THE GAME OR HISTORY (NO WEAPONS, QUESTS, LOCATIONS, ETC.) AND CAN BE ACTIVATED ONLY BEFORE GAME EXIT.

YESTERDAY WE ANNOUNCED THE FIRST TOKENS – THE FACES OF SEVERAL NPCs. THEY ARE NOT EVEN INVOLVED IN HISTORY. BUT SOME OF YOU THINK WE WOULD GO A LITTLE TOO FAR FROM HERE. THIS IS WHY WE WANT TO TRANSPARENTLY DISCLOSE OUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE NFTS. WE WILL ENHANCE (THE NICKNAMES OF OWNERS ON SOME OFFICES / WALLS / ETC IN GAME (REMEMBER THAT THIS IS A BIG OPEN WORLD WE ARE TALKING ABOUT), GLOVES / TATTOOS, SKINS / BADGES FOR MULTIPLAYER MODE FREE UPDATE AFTER STORY CAMPAIGN) AND TRADING CARDS (DMARKET PLATFORM ONLY, NO INTEGRATION IN STALKER 2).

DMARKET WAS CHOSEN AS A PARTNER AS A VIDEO GAME-ONLY BLOCKCHAIN ​​PLATFORM. THEY LOVE THE GAMES, AND THEY ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO WORKING WITH US ON THIS KIND OF SOFT NET ACHIEVEMENT. DMARKET WORKS ON A PRIVATE BLOCKCHAIN ​​SYSTEM WITH BRIDGES TO OTHER NETWORKS (SUCH AS POLYGON AND SOLANA WITH THE PRIORITY OF PROVIDING LOW ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND MINIMIZING CO2 EMISSIONS AND OTHER NEGATIVE IMPACTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT.

IN THIS STATEMENT, WE ARE AS HONEST WITH YOU AS WE CAN. WE DON’T ASK FOR SUPPORT, BUT AT LEAST WE HOPE YOU CAN HEAR US AND UNDERSTAND OUR REASONS.

THE TEXT TURNED OUT TO BE VERY BIG: THANK YOU FOR READING IT TO THE END. PLEASE ACCEPT OUR EXCUSES FOR YESTERDAY’S BAD COMMUNICATION AND ALL THE FEELINGS IT CAUSED. WE KNOW YOU WISH THE BEST FOR OUR GAME AND WE APPRECIATE IT.

WITH LOVE,

GSC WORLD GAMING TEAM.

Even those “apologies” – and in fact, it’s just a list of explanations for the things they’ll be doing with or without your “support” – was crap, because shortly after posting the tweet (and have been called again) GSC went and deleted it.

An hour later, they tweeted this instead, announcing the decision to “undo everything NFT in STALKER 2” with this incredible statement, which after explaining in their previous tweet how NFTs were going to help fund the Development essentially blames fans for depriving GSC Game World of a fraudulent source of revenue:

Game life and updates are coming fast.