STALKER 2 Developer GSC Game World announced yesterday that they will be adding NFTs to the game. The public reception, as you can imagine, was not friendly.
NFTs (and the blockchain itself) are an environmental disaster, a pump-and-dump scam and a pointless attack on existing technology and systems that don’t need to be fixed all at once, so no matter what approach you’re trying to attack them – or all three if you like, I’m not here to stop you – they suck .
I think the fan reaction can best be summed up with this top rated comment on Reddit that just said that
They literally didn’t have to do anything to get me excited about this game and still screwed it up.
You would Consider that a video game studio that was somehow connected to the internet in 2021 would see this coming, but then:
Anyway, 24 hours after the announcement, and after the studio took all those 24 hours of flak, the studio decided it was time to tweet an “apology letter” which, of course, did not apologize for anything other than one perceived “miscommunication”:
DEAR STALKERS,
WE WOULD LIKE TO GIVE A DETAILED COMMENT ON YESTERDAY ANNOUNCING THE 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 INCREDIBLE TEAM, AND A DREAM OF A GAME YOU WILL LOVE DEEPLY. LIKE ALL OTHER DEVELOPERS, WE NEED TWO MAIN RESOURCES: TIME AND MONEY.
STALKER 2: HEART OF CHERNOBYL IS REALLY THE BIGGEST, MOST COMPLEX GAME WE EVER CREATED. ALL FUNDS WE EARN DURING THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS (INCLUDING THE POTENTIAL INCOME FROM NFT) WILL BE IMPROVED INTO THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE LONG EXPECTED GAME TO MAKE IT EVEN BETTER.
WHY DID WE CHOOSE NFT? IT’S A NEW TECHNOLOGY AND WE ARE REMINDED TO «DO NFT RIGHT»: GIVE CERTAIN FANS THE OPPORTUNITY TO INCREASE INTO THE GAME WITHOUT KURDING OTHER PLAYERS ‘EXPERIENCE. THEREFORE, THE TOKENS ARE FULLY OPTIONAL AND HAVE NO EFFECT ON GAMEPLAY OR STORY (NO WEAPONS, QUESTS, PLACES, ETC) AND CAN ONLY BE ACTIVATED BEFORE THE GAME RELEASE.
YESTERDAY WE ANNOUNCED THE FIRST TOKENS – THE FACES OF SEVERAL NPCS. YOU ARE NOT PART OF THE HISTORY, TOO. BUT SOME OF THEM THOUGHT WE WOULD GO A LITTLE TOO FAR FROM HERE. THEREFORE WE WANT TO DISCLOSE OUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE OF NFTS TRANSPARENTLY. WE WILL IMPLEMENT (NICKNAMES OF THE OWNERS ON SOME IN-GAME DESK / WALLS / ETC. FREE UPDATE AFTER THE STORY CAMPAIGN) AND COLLECTION CARDS (ONLY DMARKET PLATFORM, NO INTEGRATION IN STALKER 2).
DMARKET HAS BEEN SELECTED AS A PARTNER AS A VIDEO GAMES BLOCKCHAIN PLATFORM ONLY. THEY LOVE GAMES, AND THEY WERE LOVED TO WORK WITH US ON THIS KIND OF SOFT NET REALIZATION. DMARKET WORKS ON A PRIVATE BLOCKCHAIN SYSTEM WITH BRIDGES TO OTHER NETWORKS (SUCH AS POLYGON AND SOLANA WITH PRIORITY TO OFFER LOW ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND MINIMIZE CO2 EMISSIONS AND OTHER NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT.
IN THIS STATEMENT, WE ARE AS HONEST TO YOU AS WE CAN. WE DO NOT ASK FOR ASSISTANCE BUT WE HOPE YOU CAN HEAR US AND UNDERSTAND OUR REASONS.
THE TEXT HAS BECOME LARGE: THANK YOU FOR READING IT UNTIL THE END. PLEASE ACCEPT OUR APOLOGY FOR THE MISCOMMUNICATION OF YESTERDAY AND ALL THE FEELINGS THAT MADE YOU. WE KNOW THAT YOU ONLY WISH THE BEST FOR OUR GAME, AND WE APPRECIATE IT.
WITH LOVE,
GSC GAME WORLD TEAM.
Even that “excuse” – and that’s really just a list of explanations for things they’ll do with or without your “assistance” – sucked because not long after the tweet was posted (and viewed) back out ) GSC went and deleted it.
An hour later they tweeted this instead, announcing the decision to “cancel everything NFT-related in STALKER 2” with that incredible statement after outlining in their previous tweet how NFTs would help fund development essentially accuses fans of robbing GSC Game World of a fraudulent source of income:
Life and game updates are coming your way quickly.
.
