TEAM17 CANCELS NEWLY-ANNOUNCED NFT COLLECTION
Worms studio Team 17 has announced that their NFT collection will be cancelled. This was just days after the announcement. Fans quickly voiced their disapproval online, even though the studio attempted to emphasize the eco-friendly nature of the MetaWorms collection.
Over the past year, the NFT market has experienced incredible growth, and game developers have quickly gotten on board with the trend. These announcements often receive a lot of negative feedback from fans. Some people see these as environmental complaints. The high processing power required to sustain NFTs can make them very harmful to the environment. Others feel that releasing these “products” is a greedy attempt at stealing more money from customers. The case of STALKER 2 was a case in point. The developer announced that NFTs would be included in the game’s release, but it was met with so much backlash that they dropped the plans that day.
Team17 is now facing a similar fate. Although they had just revealed MetaWorms a few days back, they now confirm that the collection will not go ahead.
The announcement states that ‘We have listened and taken into consideration the concerns of our Teamsters, our development partners and our communities in games, and have decided to withdraw from the NFT space.
Team17 made a concerted effort in making MetaWorms more attractive than other NFT offerings. MetaWorms sought to address the first issue with the technology. The company stated that they wanted MetaWorms to be “environmentally friendly”. They claimed that producing 100,000 copies through their Etherium sidechain would consume the same amount of energy as the average UK household’s annual kettle use.
Team17 and Reality Gaming Group, who would have been responsible for creating and managing the NFT collection, were planning to invest a portion in ReFeed project. Coin 4 Planet is a project that uses real-life worm farm technology to turn food waste into fertilizer. They can regenerate soil that has been damaged by synthetic fertilizers and is, therefore, able to keep it fertilized.
Nearly all reactions to Team17’s Discord server were negative
The team also addressed concerns that the collection was limiting game enjoyment by introducing a paywall. Fans were assured that the NFT collection would not be part of their existing game catalogue. They also stated that they did not include NFTs in any future titles.
However, these efforts did not please fans. People were quick to criticize MetaWorms after the announcement. Even on the Discord server, the studio used the discord server. Team17 was likely forced to cancel its plans due to such adverse reactions.
