Worms gets the NFT treatment, to developers’ surprise

By Otto Kratky Updated January 31, 2022

Team17, the publisher behind numerous indie darlings, announced its intentions to get into the NFT business with its Worms IP. However, the company quickly walked those plans back, at least partially, telling Eurogamer that the NFTs would not intersect with any of its games at all.

Being made in conjunction with Reality Gaming Group, a developer currently working on their own NFT-laden trading card game, Team17’s set of NFTs are based on the Worms franchise. Called MetaWorms NFT, a press release announcing the collaboration said that the “Worms digital collectibles are one-of-a-kind and cannot be copied, which makes them scarce and potentially quite valuable.”

Team17 claims that, by working with Reality Gaming Group, it has been able to make “environmentally friendly NFTs.” The same press release goes on to say that 100,000 Worms NFTs can be minted with the same amount of energy 11 homes would use on tea kettles over the course of one year.

Internally, the company’s announcement of any NFT plans reportedly came as a surprise. Eurogamer has reported that multiple teams within the publisher were completely unaware of the MetaWorms NFT project until it was revealed. Others inside the company who did know of the plans reportedly objected to them but were seemingly ignored.

The backlash to Team17’s MetaWorms NFT project being revealed has also apparently led to the company walking back part of its plans. In a statement to Eurogamer, the indie publisher said that it “has no plans to introduce NFTs or play-to-earn NFT mechanics into any of its indie games label titles.”

Team17 is the latest gaming company to announce an NFT collaboration. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 developer GSC Game World announced that its upcoming game would have NFTs that players could buy to become an NPC in-game, although the decision was reversed entirely. Ubisoft likewise has announced Ubisoft Quartz, a program that lets users earn NFT cosmetics, which are just regular cosmetics with serial numbers printed on them.

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Otto Kratky is a freelance writer with many homes. You can find his work at Digital Trends, GameSpot, and Gamepur. If he's…

Gaming

Every canceled video game NFT project (so far)

Jon Bernthal's character stands with soldiers in Ghost Recon Breakpoint

Gamers aren't fans of NFTs. Whether it's because of their environmental impact, pay-to-win implications, or rampant fraud in the space, it's clear that many people don't want NFTs in their video games. Despite that, companies and people related to gaming have tried to get into the NFT and blockchain space.
As a result, the backlash against many of these announcements is extreme. While some companies remained undeterred, others have canceled NFT integration outright. Some developers have even shut down or ended support for games with NFTs. As the amount of NFT-related cancellations and backtracking is growing, we've rounded up every gaming-related NFT project that's been canceled, shut down, or walked back since the trend began in late 2021.
Discord
The first notable NFT integration cancellation in the gaming space involved Discord, which many people use to chat while playing games. On November 8, 2021, Discord Founder and CEO Jason Citron tweeted an image showing the crypto wallet service MetaMask integrated into Discord.
https://twitter.com/jasoncitron/status/1457841222995693570
Discord users immediately responded to the post with vitriol, and Citron confirmed that Discord did not plan to move forward with this integration just two days later. "Thanks for all the perspectives everyone," he said. "We have no current plans to ship this internal concept. For now we're focused on protecting users from spam, scams, and fraud. Web3 has lots of good, but also lots of problems we need to work through at our scale."
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

On December 15, 2021, developer GSC Game World announced it would partner with DMarket to put NFTs in the highly anticipated shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl. The game was going to let players use cryptocurrency to buy items and let some people scan themselves and get put into the game as a "metahuman."
While GSC Game World initially defended the choice, the announcement was met with so much hate that the developer canceled the initiative the next day. "We hear you," its statement reads. "Based on the feedback we received, we've made a decision to cancel anything NFT-related in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 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."
This was the most ambitious mainstream gaming NFT integration that we've seen yet, and even then, people didn't like it. It demonstrates that there will always be some backlash against NFT announcements, even when it's doing something unique in-game.
Sega

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For game developers, GDC 2022 was a battle for reality

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With this year’s Game Developers Conference returning to an in-person format for the first time since the pandemic began, there was a full house for this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards. Host Osama Dorias took the stage for an opening monologue filled with puns and nods to the biggest stories in the video game industry today. The audience warm-up work reached its peak when Dorias hit on one of gaming’s most controversial topics.

“I promise, there are no NFTs,” he quipped, eliciting loud applause and cheers from the crowd – the biggest pop of the evening.

Gaming

Lost Judgment gets a surprisingly big expansion this month

lost judgment kaito files dlc release date young in the

Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio confirmed that The Kaito Files, Lost Judgment's story expansion starring Yagami's brawny sidekick, Kaito, will finally release on March 28.
Like Kaito, this expansion is beefy. Sega revealed that The Kaito Files will contain four chapters of new content. Within that, players will experience the new Bruiser and Tank fighting styles exclusive to Kaito, as well as "Primal Focus" techniques where Kaito uses his heightened senses of smell, sight, and hearing to investigate certain crime scenes. It seems like The Kaito Files might be one of the densest expansions to grace any RGG Studio game.

The Kaito Files' story takes place after the events of Lost Judgment. In it, Kaito searches for a missing ex named Mikiko in Kamurocho with someone claiming to be his son. In classic Yakuza fashion, tensions escalate and bombastic fights against Japan's toughest criminals ensue. Considering that most of Lost Judgment's main story took place in Injincho, trotting around Kamurocho will be a welcome change of pace.
To access this DLC, players will need to own Lost Judgment already. Those who want to purchase just The Kaito Files will need to pay $30, half the price of the full game. Alternatively, players can pick up the $90 Ultimate Edition of the game and get access to this expansion as well as the Detective Essentials Pack and School Stories Expansion Pack DLC.
Like Lost Judgment, The Kaito Files will be available across PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S when it launches on March 28, 2022.