WildWorks, makers of Animal Jam and Feral, angered many of its core users with the recent news that it plans on reusing Feral’s technology platform and many of its assets to enter the crypto-gaming space with a metaverse game called Cinder, powered by the Solana blockchain. Already concerned about Feral’s pace of development and unfinished nature, players are now worried about what it means for Feral’s future since the company has moved on to build a crypto gaming experience using Feral’s assets. They’re also less than thrilled about the environmental impacts of crypto gaming and NFTs.
“We understand that many in the Feral community are philosophically opposed to NFTs and blockchain technology in general, but while we’ve attempted to address their questions and concerns, Cinder is being designed for and marketed to a different player,” said Clark Stacey, CEO of WildWorks. “They will lose nothing from the presence of assets we created for Feral also being present in Cinder.” Acknowledging the environmental impact, he also added: “coupled with WildWorks’ ongoing efforts to offset and reduce the carbon emissions of game development, we’re determined that our use of the Solana blockchain in our new game will not increase the company’s carbon footprint.”
But many of Feral’s fans aren’t looking for these sorts of explanations or aren’t satisfied with the current responses. They’re largely opposed to crypto and NFTs. This belief system may also have to do with how the fans still view WildWorks as a kid’s game maker — or at the least, a game maker aimed at the under-18 market. Having begun their journey on the kid’s game Animal Jam, they see the company’s move into the crypto-gaming space as an inappropriate one.
The friction between WildWorks’ business needs, coupled with its desire to explore what it sees as the future of gaming, and the real-world reaction from its longtime fans, is an example of how difficult it can be for companies to embrace blockchain and crypto technologies. This problem is worsened as the blockchain’s potential can often be obscured by the negative aspects of the industry — or, as Stacey put it, the “thieves and grifters and bad art” and the lack of “regulatory guardrails” around crypto developments today. As for Feral, fans’ concerns over its future seem to be valid. Stacey says if the community continues to support the game, it will find a way to continue building it.
(All information was provided by TechCrunch)
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