What is the most popular NFT based pet game in crypto?
If you guessed Axie Infinity, you're right, but the Neopets Metaverse team wants to change that. At least, that is the announced plan.
The project, which launched last September, aims to bring the once-popular pet-collecting game, which peaked in the early XNUMXs and has been slowly winding down ever since, to Web age three.
According to a Medium post from October XNUMX, the Neopets Metaverse team plans to create a "broad yet immersive environment where players can interact" and establish a "complex economy integrated with the Solana blockchain" where players they can earn gold for real money, all based on the original Neopets. Game.
It may seem like a dream come true for many fanatical Neopets players, but the Neopets Metaverse project has been received as more of a nightmare. Fans of the original game have come together to reject the project, taking to social media and fan sites to voice their protests.
At first glance, critics of the Neopets Metaverse project might be considered blinded by longing, hostile to any modification of the twenty-five-year-old game that many of them played as children. Many critics of the project also seem inclined to the knee-jerk negative reaction to NFTs seen in many online communities.
The backlash has led to a change of guard among project staff, current project officials say. And despite the sacrifices of reforming the Neopets Metaverse, fans are wary of the project, for what appear to be legitimate reasons.
Disappointing drop from NFT
In November XNUMX, the Neopets Metaverse team announced their next NFT build: twenty five hundred randomly generated Neopets that would theoretically be compatible with the future Neopets Metaverse.
But after receiving a lukewarm reaction from fans, the team behind the project decided to reduce the number of NFTs in its genesis from XNUMX to XNUMX, with XNUMX NFTs set aside for the project.
However, despite the drop, the compilation did not sell: only four thousand two hundred and twenty five NFTs were sold. The rest were burned, angering fans who demanded that NFT buyers dump the remaining supply. Buyers took to Twitter to lament the clumsy writing process, a minimum cost of around €XNUMX-XNUMX, and the bots that jack up costs in seconds.
The quality and style of the NFTs were also a drawback. Herdy, a pseudonymous Neopets player who claims he's been playing since XNUMX, told CoinDesk that NFTs were "crappy and ugly compared to most comparable customizations available in the traditional place."
Although the art of NFT may have been complicated, the sale earned the Neopets Metaverse project €XNUMX million, according to enthusiast site Jellyneo.
A series of scandals
However, the poor quality of certain of the NFT arts was not the biggest drawback for the Neopets Metaverse team.
Allegations circulated online that the Neopets Metaverse project had used art generated by a Neopets enthusiast site called Dress to Impress (DTI) as an example of NFT already before the crash, and even that the DTI site had been used to create each and every NFT. Users pointed out an issue unique to the enthusiast spot software in the image, and it was quickly removed and replaced without explanation.
In an interview with CoinDesk, project manager Danning Chen declined to comment on the crash, but sent a follow-up email from the project team noting that the current Neopets Metaverse team is new and has made personnel changes to the project. month of December two thousand and twenty-one after the sale of NFT. . .
“Some of the original team members who worked on the project have already left, we are looking into what happened,” the email stated.
Fans of the project demanded recognition and an excuse from the Neopets Metaverse team, as well as its owner JumpStart, the company behind a popular series of educational computer games for kids.
JumpStart, which was acquired by Chinese gaming company NetDragon in XNUMX, did not respond to CoinDesk's request for comment, but did confirm the official Neopets Metaverse partnership in other interviews and on social media.
Along with accusations of art theft, the cultural clash between cryptocurrencies, often harsh and also irreverent, and the Neopets, who cultivated a soft family atmosphere through the use of rigorous filters, infested the project.
Fans, including Herdy, have pointed out that the project's lack of moderation on Discord and, at times, antagonistic presence on social media has failed to sustain the healthy and friendly culture of the original Neopets place.
“The project fostered homophobia, racism, and transphobia on their Discord,” Herdy wrote to CoinDesk, referring to an accident in the project's Discord chat where an anti-gay slur was allowed to linger for hours, and a moderator accused users of lamenting. from "fudding", referring to FUD, the popular cryptographic acronym for "fear, insecurity and doubt".
"It's particularly damaging since Neopets has so many LGBT+ members," Herdy added. "He never made excuses.
Last October, the Neopets Metaverse Twitter account had to delete a tweet containing a "soyjak" meme mocking "NFT Hateoooors" after Twitter users complained it was offensive.
An expensive trailhead nowhere?
Neopets players might be ready to put the past behind them if the project succeeds in resurrecting their childhood favorite, but that's looking increasingly unlikely.
In an updated roadmap posted on the first day of the week, the project team released details of their plans to bring Neopets into Web three.
The project's plans for the first and second quarters of XNUMX are vague: hiring game developers, releasing a trailer, and also letting fans know about the plans for the game's structure.
In accordance with the roadmap, by the third quarter, an alpha version of the game will be available for those with "priority access".
Those are lofty goals for a project that Chen says currently only has 5 full-time team members.
The lack of resources seems obvious with some quick Google searches. A search for "cartoon fantasy town" brings up the background of the project site, a Shutterstock image that can be licensed for €XNUMX. It is ignored if the team's current roster includes a digital artist.
What seems to be specific on the team's roadmap, however, are the financial milestones: In QXNUMX, a Medium article touted plans for a "private sale of native tokens to investors and strategic advisers." A "Metaverse Initial Offering (IMO)" has also been planned.
By next year, the project hopes to launch the beta version of the Neopets Metaverse game, such as holding an "NFT primary sale of Neopets lands, where neopians can expand their Neohome on their land, interact and travel to other places." other lands.”
When asked how the game will be funded, the Neopets Metaverse team told CoinDesk that the initial investment will come from proceeds from the NFT sale, "coupled with ancillary investments from our parent company, NetDragon Websoft," as funds collected from IMO and "private sales to investors".
I smell the carpet
– Samuel (@damitsamiam) November 2021, XNUMXFor whom it is?
Many Neopets fans have expressed their fear that this project looks a lot like a cash grab, if not just a rug pull waiting to happen. If it's just a misguided experiment at best, it wouldn't be the first in Neopets canon.
The brand promoted and failed to deliver a number of projects, including a mobile app (locked indefinitely), an anime series (locked), and even another crypto project: Neopets CryptoQuest, a short-lived Ethereum-based collectible card game since two years ago. one thousand and eighteen who died after a few months.
Fans like Herdy are outraged that NetDragon money is being used to launch new projects while their beloved original game is on life support, maintained with spaghetti code.
“Practicing money and resources away from the rest of the Neopets brand could potentially lead to things like the closure of the classic venue,” Herdy told CoinDesk. “This is clearly the last thing fans of the Neopets brand want.”