Welp, Riders of Icarus had a nice run.
Readers will recall that the taming-centric MMO soft-launched almost six years ago under Nexon’s banner with over a million western players, but Nexon’s license ended back in 2019, thereby sending publishing of the game over to Valofe Global, whereupon at least the MMO’s Steam numbers continued to decline to its current two-digit average. Now, Valofe has announced that it’s introducing a play-to-earn token – Rania Token – and pinning its remaining hopes on the blockchain.
“Riders of Icarus PC is going P2E! It’s still the same game we know and love and it’s going to get upgraded. You can soon earn via Wemix while playing with your favorite mounts. Instead of playing just for fun, you can earn money while having fun! We will soon introduce new weapons that will help riders with their adventure, new quests to explore, a new dungeon to challenge, and so much more!”
We do note here that Valofe promised significant activity in the game when it took over from Nexon as well, but that also did not happen. It’s hard to see this new monetization move as anything but a last-ditch attempt to profit from the game before its presumptive demise.
The studio did put out a video promoting its new token, but that is literally all it does, with an extended animated graphic of a purple coin.
We’ve written extensively about the problems associated with the blockchain and NFTs, particularly as they pertain to online games.
Perfect Ten: MMOs that have fallen to the dark side of cryptocurrency
Lawful Neutral: How is an NFT MMO even supposed to work?
Vague Patch Notes: NFTs in gaming are a bad, dumb idea
Vague Patch Notes: Why play-to-earn is a garbage idea
Vague Patch Notes: The metaverse doesn’t exist and isn’t a good idea either
GDC 2022: Control, revenue, scarcity, ethics, and the human challenges of the gaming ‘metaverse’
Vague Patch Notes: No, Little Orbit has not solved the MMO blockchain problem
