The Blockverse building game should be a kind of Minecraft with game mechanics to win and rely on NFTs. Thus, more than 1.1 million euros have already been implemented initially. But soon after, the game and all developer contact options disappeared. But then they appeared again and tried to explain everything. You can find out how it all developed here on MeinMMO
What is the Blockverse? Blockverse is a kind of unofficial mod of the popular block game Minecraft. But here you should be able to get your in-game items as NFTs. NFTs are digital “items” based on blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. You can buy and sell them online, which seems very tempting to some players. So you could operate a kind of Minecraft as a “play-to-earn” game and earn real money through virtual work.
What happened after the first sale? At the start of the project, the developers mined 10,000 NFTs based on the Ethereum cryptocurrency and based on the current price (as of January 29, 2022) were worth over €1.1 million. In addition, there were products from secondary transactions, in which the developers also gained shares.
But as soon as the sale was over and all the tokens were sold, the developers suddenly disappeared. The game’s site was dead, Discord was taken down completely, and there was radio silence on Twitter as well.
The suspicion of a so-called “rug pull” quickly arose. This describes an attempted fraud in the crypto scene in which providers simply disappear with the collected cryptocurrency as soon as enough gullible victims have paid for it.
Developers reappear and apologize – fans remain skeptical
How was it? After three days in which angry Blockverse gamers had meanwhile come together in a new discord, the developers suddenly reappeared and released a statement via Twitlonger.
As a result, the ancillary costs (called “gas costs”) and the technical problems associated with such a project have been completely underestimated. This, in turn, created a climate of fear, uncertainty and doubt, which in turn led to toxic behavior in the community. In this mood, the team probably panicked and first deleted everything:
18 hours after takeoff, the [Furcht, Unsicherheit und Zweifel] quickly turned into harassment, threats and doxxing. Noticing all this, the team panicked and unceremoniously deleted the Discord server. Everything else was shut down to prevent the harassment that had existed until then from continuing. Even then, the plan was to reopen the server once everyone had calmed down.
There is absolutely no reason for us to leave the project permanently as all technical works and project infrastructure have already been built so far. It was actually more work taking it all apart than leaving it online, but again, it was all done in the interests of personal safety.
Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get back online yet as the situation seems to have gotten worse. Although we delivered everything we promised, we understand why people aren’t happy with the events and we are committed to keeping our game fully functional online. As such, we plan to reopen the game in the next few days (as originally planned) and continue working on Phase 2.
How did the players react? Thus, the developers claim that they did not intend to do a “rug draw” and scam all users. On the contrary, it would all be a big misunderstanding.
In turn, many users in the community did not buy them. According to PCGamer, who surveyed gamers on the community’s new Discord, the developers’ behavior is seen as a rescue attempt. Because the developers would have left too many traces and would now back down for fear of prosecution:
We have a kind of “data trail”. We have a Coinbase address which has funded quite a lot of stuff and a Cloudflare IP. They thought they were [mit ihrem Rug Pull] fled, and now they know we have the trail they left.
Harsh criticism of NFTs in games is unfair – they’re more than micro-transactions
And after? The community, still interested in a Minecraft NFT, suggested that the devs just give them their assets and take care of it themselves.
The developers actually relented and promised to give away the project assets, but they still wanted to keep the millions from the NFT sale (in the form of 500 Ethereum). However, fans want at least 200 Ethereum (according to the current exchange rate around 448,000 euros) from the sale to continue funding the project.
Most rug draws have little to no refunds, so the community here is realistic about severance pay. We agree that you [die Entwickler] Something [von ihrem Sale] can keep. We just want enough to make the project work.
Apparently, Blockverse operators are also said to be in negotiation with the NFT platform NFTWorlds. So it will be interesting to see how things develop. When we know more here, we’ll let you know.
The subject of NFT is always very controversial among gamers. As a result, Ubisoft’s senior executives recently proclaimed, “You haven’t realized how good NFTs are for you.”