NFT game refuses refunds — there’s no money

Untamed Isles, a cryptocurrency Pokemon-like game, is refusing refunds to Kickstarter backers, as the crypto crash depleted all of the developers money.

Untamed Isles, which is a turn-based MMORPG that used cryptocurrency, has shuttered development. The developers raised over $720k AUD, but now the company says they are out of money for refunds.

The game, which was similar to an online Pokemon, had the option to “play to earn”, which is code for the game using cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is a fake type of digital currency, which cannot be traded or sold quickly for real goods and services. Cryptocurrency relies on decentralised technology, making it hard to regulate and easy to steal — something many crypto users have discovered over the past year.

First noticed by PCGamer, the development news for Untamed Isles came as no shock to anyone paying attention to the markets. Crypto is down severely, and has remained down as fears of a recession linger on the horizon.

Developer Phat Loot Studios mentioned this in their blog post: “The truth is that the cost of development is high and there were lots of bumps on our way to this moment. Since we started the journey in 2020, the economic landscape has changed dramatically both generally and specifically for cryptocurrency, and we are not confident in the current market. We ran out of financial resources and we can’t carry on the development at this moment.”

Untamed Isles was an MMO game as well, featuring fishing and other social activities. Picture: Phat Loot Studios

The game received a hefty chunk of its funding from Kickstarter, a platform that allows users to pitch ideas and receive donations from an interested public. On their official page, however, they explain that people shouldn’t expect refunds: “Due to our cash reserves being empty, we are not in a position to refund our initial backers. We are truly sorry about this and wish this scenario was different.”

This has, as you can expect, gone over quite poorly with the backers. In the comments section of their Kickstarter post, a lot of users demanded refunds, with some even threatening higher consequences: “I smell a lot of lawsuits in your future, this is fraudulent at best, you spent all of our money “investing” in crypto instead of using the funds for the game that you are supposed to be making,” one user wrote.

This shift in public thinking about crypto is due to a large majority of people realising that NFTs offer no tangible value. GameStop, a brick-and-mortar store that sells video games in the United States, recently launched an NFT Marketplace where users can buy and sell GameStop-specific NFTs. The market recorded its worst day recently, with no signs of rebounding due to a lack of users and interest.

Minecraft, one of the largest and most popular video games in the world, recently announced that not only would it not support crypto technology, but that it would outright ban blockchain and NFTs from interacting with its game.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.