Summary

• FTX acquires Good Luck Games and their successful indie autobattler, Storybook Brawl
• Anti-NFT hivemind has apoplexy and bombards Steam review page

This week has been overwhelmingly rant-centric, but news keeps finding its way in front of me that evokes that response. One such article, and the one that also happens to be the most pertinent to this article, was Study Finds 69% of Gamers Hate NFTs, But Only 12% Understand Them. The kneejerk reaction to NFTs by the gaming community is puzzling to me, not only in the sheer volume of detractors of NFTs and blockchain in games, but in the ferocity of it too.

FTX, previously Blockfolio, has been a staple of crypto for some years and their recent interest in gaming has been a welcome addition to those of us in the space. In February this year, FTX launched their gaming division, then in March the VP of Warner Bros. Games joined as Head of Gaming Partnerships, and FTX also invested in the blockchain gaming platform, C2X, on Terra.

In a recent but far smaller move, FTX acquired Good Luck Games, creator of the indie but successful autobattler card game, Storybook Brawl. All good news then, nothing unpleasant could come of that.

Storybook Brawl Gets Annihilated on Steam Because of FTX Involvement

Storybook Brawl is a free-to-play TCG-style autobattler in early access and was released in the summer of 2021. It was well-received and built itself a decent fanbase. The reviews up until March of this year, to use Steam’s language, were overwhelmingly positive. Then the FTX news landed and a hoard of anti-NFT gamers grabbed their pitchforks and rushed the reviews.

Allow me to offer a smattering of recent reviews:

This is just 3 — there are many more with new additions every hour, including people who have played the game for less than 3 hours, gleefully jumping on the bandwagon.

I appreciate that blockchain and NFTs in gaming are divisive, even if I can’t see why that’s the case (presuming it’s on a carbon-neutral blockchain, that is.) But, the backlash seen here is almost a meme. Many of the reviews of Storybook Brawl in the last few months appear to suggest it was stagnating, and given how seamlessly blockchain and NFTs integrate with autobattlers and TCGs, it’s not overly surprising that the developers, Good Luck Games, took the hand offered to them.

This is not only an opportunity to right the course of a popular indie game, but to expose it to a volume of players it will have never come close to. If FTX can oversee proper integration of NFTs and Play-to-Earn (P2E) mechanics without making it play-to-win, it could propel the game into the limelight, despite what the Steam review army might suggest. That said, the success will be unlikely to occur on the Steam platform, given their stance.