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Tuesday, June 10, 2025

A Rash Of Web3 Game Project Closures

Last weekend was an inauspicious time for CCP Games to announce EVE Frontier's exit from its closed alpha. Recently five Web3/blockchain gaming projects announced they were closing. I call them projects because as far as I can tell they never reached a commercial launch ready state. The games were:

Ember Sword - The game was advertised as ...

... a classless, free to play MMORPG set in the fantasy world of Thanabus. With four regions and a combat system based on equipped weapons rather than fixed classes, it offered a mix of PvE and PvP gameplay. The game was supposed to feature a player-driven economy and NFT-based land ownership, built on the Ethereum network.

Players could trade cosmetic items, own land plots, and take part in shaping the game world. At its peak, Ember Sword boasted a large, engaged community and received major backing from high-profile investors, including Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin and YouTuber Dr Disrespect.

In development since 2018, the game conducted a massive land sale in 2021, raising $203 million from 35 thousand applicants. The game did reach an early access launch in December 2024, with critics describing the gameplay as underdeveloped and unengaging. The game announced its closure on 21 May.

Tatsumeeko: Lumina Fates - The game, developed by the Singapore-based Tatsu Works, was described as...

a fantasy MMORPG-lite that combined exploration, farming, combat, and player-driven narratives within the vibrant world of Ielia. It was designed to function natively on Discord, iOS, Android, and web browsers, expanding on the team's experience from their gamified Discord platform, Tatsu.GG. 

The game raised $7.5 million in 2022 with plans to use Ethereum and Solana for in-game economies and NFTs. Tatsu announced the closure of the project on 19 May. The company plans to return to its roots as a developer of "lightweight, community-based experiences."

Nyan Heroes - The game had an admittedly unique theme, cats piloting giant mechs. But despite four playtests attracting over 1 million testers, the developers had to close down the project as the most recent build "failed to drive the player numbers" they needed to continue and no buyer could be found to continue development.

Those investing in the project's cryptocurrency and NFT's were hit hard when the news of the closure dropped on 16 May.

After the news broke, the game's $NYAN token lost over 40% of its value. It is now down nearly 99% from its all-time high. The Genesis Cat NFTs were hit just as hard, dropping over 70% in price. The floor value now sits around 0.024 SOL on Magic Eden.

Blast Royale - Blast Royale was a mobile game whose developer announced it was shutting down but making the game open source. The game was described as "a fun, frenetic adrenaline fuelled short session game that is about packing as much fun onto the blockchain as possible."

According to an official Discord announcement by Blast Royale’s core team member Renny, the studio tried exploring “every path and possibility,” and after doing so ended up deciding to ultimately discontinue development of their top-down battle royale.

Essentially, the company ran out of funds and wasn't able to find any investor or avenue through which they could raise more money to extend their runway. They don’t have the financing needed to continue paying their team for their hard work, and as a result need to stop development and ultimately close down entirely. In an earlier Discord announcement on April 25th, Renny did share that they are facing “some serious financial challenges” as the TGE didn’t help out as much as they hoped, and the existing in-game economy isn’t generating enough revenue to cover development costs.

Rumble Kong League - A 3v3 basketball game endorsed by Steph Curry, the game was massively underfunded.

Once known for its flashy marketing and NBA star endorsement (Steph Curry), the project fizzled out. Their $FAME token launched with just 12 ETH of liquidity, according to web3 content creator StarPlatinum. Unsurprisingly, the price tanked. Community mods stopped getting paid, the team announced they were "starting from zero," and the project was reportedly sold to a company in Brazil. 

And while five projects closing in seven days is bad, the total for 2025 is up to 17, as two of the closures occurred after the below tweet went out.

I realize that only two of the five games were MMOs, the timing only two weeks after the latest spate of closures was not exactly good optics for CCP Games. I also think the closures justifies the studio's emphasis on gameplay rather than real world wealth in marketing EVE Frontier. Because the money aspect just isn't sustainable in the long run. Enjoyable gameplay, as people have witnessed over the years, can make a game last for decades.

Posted by NoizyGamer at 1:00 PM
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