#NFT's

[bogleech]

Ok but I have seen you talk about this so many times, even referencing it in your old cartoons, so I gotta ask - when and how did you fall in love with neopets, like that?

Wait, is it that obscure now? I didn't know a single person from its inception to roughly 2010 who didn't have a neopets account. It was the single biggest gaming-esque name on the internet for years. Celebrities casually mentioned playing it, it got mainstream marketing tie-ins, it had plush toys people waited in line to buy up and a TCG made by the same company as Magic the Gathering. It's not that I especially "fell in love with neopets" like it's a niche thing but that there was a time it was almost outselling Pokemon, so it's just another huge cultural phenomenon that was a big part of everyone's lives during my teens to twenties, and hits my special interest in creature design since it has THOUSANDS (beyond the pets alone) ranging in quality from extremely creative to just plain heinous. I personally only got invested in it when they introduced the mutant pets, though, because it started out having almost like a "rule" against making any pets that were "ugly." They'd joke about it as a prank for instance, and originally only featured the mutants as part of a storyline they never intended players to actually adopt. They even had a fake alternate version of the site with fake "adoptions coming soon" and somehow didn't anticipate the userbase genuinely wanting the slime creatures.

The Chia and Aisha were my favorites but mainly the chia because that kind of "scuzzy" creature was already my own design aesthetic, polar opposite of the site's established style and reminded me of if Jeff Goldblum got fused with a tardigrade instead of a fly:

Is that just me? I feel like the tardigrade similarity jumps right out but I think it was an accident and they were possibly actually thinking of the rotting giant from Nausicaa:

The fact that they intended its design to be unlovably ugly and were surprised anyone wanted it only made it more sympathetic. Eventually they made mutants available and I got fully invested into playing, at the time having to spend hours a day on their little flash games until I could afford a mutant after months of labor. But then a couple of years later they just abruptly decided they really didn't feel like having its design around anymore and "updated" it, which back then was automatic for all pets owned by all players with no going back:

It had unfortunately been fairly common that they'd just completely, totally redo a pet like this with no warning and no user poll to make sure it's what anyone wanted. You just had to pray they never did it to your favorites.

All the other mutants in that earlier image would also get completely changed or never released at all. They still kept some of the other "gross" mutants and would make even grosser, so that wasn't even part of the reasoning. Just the random whims of mad gods I guess. I think what killed the game for a lot of people was actually when they did this to basically everyone at once, standardizing almost all the pet artwork so they could wear clothes in their new dressup system. It wasn't as drastic as replacing a sludge guy with some kind of hairy leaf guy but it did eliminate hundreds of technically unique designs from the site, and I found someone else's examples they put together so I thankfully don't have to do it myself:

If anyone's not familiar enough with neopets or didn't figure that out from the last paragraph, the ones on the right are just recolors of the same exact art as all members of their species with added accessories (now wearable items) Players used to work hard to get pets they wanted based on their unique poses and personality, but you could only keep the original art for a small number of these. The customization feature kind of attracted a different new fandom, from what people say, but it never approached a fraction the site's peak, which is probably how the brand wound up getting sold to some NFT bros who aren't even involved in the site itself and supposedly never even spoken to its remaining staff outside some business emails? This is unrelated to the brief period it was bought by scientologists and the siterunners had to fight back against their propaganda leaking into it. I really didn't expect to turn this response into a mini article, I should really just make a thing on bogleech.com about it sometime. Some of my tumblr mutuals to this day are people I met through the neopets fandom and probably have equally lengthy memories/complaints.

[421flawlesslabs]

[csolarstorm]

The news has been going around that The Pokemon Company is hiring a "Corporate Development Principal" with knowledge and ties to the blockchain, Web3, and the metaverse.

As much of a nightmare that blockchain Pokemon would be...this doesn't necessarily indicate intent the way we think it does. It's entirely possible that The Pokemon Company just wants industry information. Unfortunately these things are part of our current market. Square Enix is apparently still really into the idea of blockchain games. If this indicates anything, it's that like other video game companies, TPC wants knowledge of current trends.

Pokemon typically plays it pretty safe with the main games. They had to be convinced to even bring them to Switch. (And with the dip in quality control they may have been right.) So if they did somehow dabble in NFT's, I'm guessing it would just be more side merchandise, and it would take a lot of success to get anywhere close to being a part of the main games.

All the same, I have an exit strategy should NFT's infiltrate the main series. I've been really discouraged with the franchise lately.

Edited: Took out part about the "Corporate Development Principal" being a purely financial position. It actual seems to be related to advising the company about what direction to take, which is why all these outlets are so afraid.

[elalmadelmar]

95% of NFTs are worthless, and most of the most expensive ones are priced between $5-100 where they were once drawing millions US$ apiece

Not a moment too soon, and fully deserved 😎

In conclusion-

[kayliebeanie]

Project Dragon was a game that was in development for 3 years only to be canceled weeks from its announcement and its entire art and development team laid off. The game (which would have been called 'Everhaven' upon release) was intended to be a multiplayer sandbox rpg taking inspiration from both Minecraft and The Legend of Zelda, with an art style similar to that of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, which some of the team members also worked on along with Crash Bandicoot 4.

According to character design/illustrator Nicholas Kole "Our cancelled project of the last 3 years is officially, truly dead as of today (internal attempts to save it failed), and the embargo on the whole body of portfolio work has been lifted". This means that the only way the game has a chance of resuming development is by raising awareness and spreading the word of it's development. More info from Nicholas Kole and #BringBackProjectDragon Even if you're not interested in the game itself, you can find the concept art, animations, 3D models, music and all other completed pieces of work for the game being shared by the team at either of these links, and I think are worth checking out. Some mounts and NPCs

4 of the 5 playable starter races (5th being human of course)

Edit: the decision to cancel the game was made by Forte, a blockchain company that acquired Phoenix Labs last year, who later decided to cancel all other projects so that the studio could focus on Dauntless and Fae Farm, Phoenix Labs' other already established games, rather than take the risk with this new IP.

I advise against sending any sort of hate towards Forte or Phoenix Labs and instead recommend continuing to share love for Everhaven and what it could have been until they realize their mistake.

Also thanks for 10k notes.

[oneofthebestcontent]

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[one-time-i-dreamt]

Mr. Krabs sold the Krusty Krab to make NFTs.

[e32c-af6f]

People who believe NFT's are of value collectively losing their sight as a result of this delusion can only benefit humanity.

[hindbodes]

Please don't screenshot he's a NetNavi.

[probablyasocialecologist]

“Dead NFTs: The Evolving Landscape of the NFT Market” is a new report from dappGambl, a community of experts in finance and blockchain technology. Upon analysis of 73,257 NFT collections, the authors found that 69,795 have a market cap of zero Ether (ETH), the second most-popular cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin. In practical terms, that means 95 percent of NFTs wouldn’t fetch a penny today — a spectacular crash for assets that reached a trading volume of $17 billion amid a frenzied bull market in 2021. The study estimates that some 23 million investors own these tokens of no practical use or value.

[...]

The “Dead NFTs” report observes that the nearly 200,000 NFT collections “with no apparent owners or market share” identified by the study caused carbon emissions equivalent to the annual output from 2,048 houses, or 3,531 cars.

[trainsinanime]

People keep saying that NFTs are worthless now, and always have been, but that's not true. Yes, there has been a lot of criticism and video essays and websites around the topic. But the truth is that even now, NFTs are actually worth something, at least in Germany.

Specifically 10€ worth of groceries.

German supermarket chain Kaufland has a deal where they give you a 10€ gift card if you give them your old (have to have owned them for more than three months) NFTs, which will then get displayed on their "wall of lame". It's 10€ per person, no matter how many NFTs you give them, but still, 10€ is a really good deal at this point no matter how many NFTs you have. If you stick to store brands then you can stretch this pretty far.

Now, some might say that this is just a cynical marketing ploy, an attempt to promote the supermarket chain by appealing to all of our Schadenfreude about one of the most controversial tech topics ever until AI came along. And that's because that's absolutely true.

But on the other hand it is also very funny.

[421flawlesslabs]

https://linktr.ee/flawlessclub

[outside-lookingin]

NFT auction.

We’re here to say there is art that was created that is up for sale for those well to do collectors.

[bunnieswithknives]

Dev thinks the Minecraft movie trailer is epic, I think.

He likes nfts and ai art too smh

[oneofthebestcontent]

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[ayeforscotland]

The Future of the Games Industry!

The Future of the Games Industry!

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