The NFT Debacle on Team 17’s Shores Reaches a Unique End
Regardless of your thoughts on NFTs as a technology, their existence in spite of massive backlash has been more-or-less the norm. Almost every major NFT project put forward in the mainstream gaming space was met with some degree of pushback. Most went forward anyway, thanks to the enticing profits they bring.
Today, we see an outlier. Team 17, developers of Worms, had planned to create “Metaworms”. For our purposes, this need only be known as an NFT-based project that’d link into their established games. Like all NFT projects in the gaming space, it was met with its own wave of critics. Those detractors were greeted with a unique message when they logged onto twitter just a few hours ago:
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
One potential difference made Team 17’s project unique. Team 17 had developed partnerships with other game development studios. Namely, the developers behind Yooka-Layee: Playtonic Games. That particular studio actually joined the outcry against Team 17, and from the sounds of things, it wasn’t some PR move to distance themselves.
— Playtonic (@PlaytonicGames) February 1, 2022
The people behind Playtonic Games were clearly unhappy with Team 17’s direction, and you can bet that their voice joining the public chorus hit a little closer to home. It’s possible (though unconfirmed) that some internal connections were leveraged to change Team 17’s course. Match this with other allies of Team 17 taking similar action, and suddenly the weight of this crowd is more easily felt.