After launching a non-blockchain version on Steam in March 2024, Mino Games CEO Sash MacKinnon has confirmed what many had predicted. The studio’s roguelike deck-builder Dimensionals is dropping all its blockchain features to instead become a pure web2 game.
In a long explanation posted on X, MacKinnon highlights some of the challenges resulting in the decision to scrap blockchain. Some commentators have reacted harshly and offered their differing takes on the matter.
Part of the problem – MacKinnon says – was timing, with the game’s genesis NFT sale being a free mint in early 2023, which coincided with leading NFT marketplaces OpenSea and Blur making royalties optional, leading to a collapse of the NFT market. “The revenue that we had begun generating from royalties immediately went to zero. The free “factory” NFT business model we had committed to subsequently collapsed with this change.”
Significantly, MacKinnon also launched the FreeNFT project, which was subsequently acquired by Gabe Leydon’s Limit Break. Now Limit Break has spent the past year building its ERC721C standard, which is currently being used by the likes of OpenSea and Magic Eden, and finally enforces creator royalties in NFT trading.
Another reason for concern was the amount of bots overwhelming the system, giving the team “deep concerns about the security of the space moving forward.”
MacKinnon continues explaining that the impact of the bear market in combination with the project’s inability to leverage the release of free NFTs via FreeNFT meant that the project couldn’t scale and was left trying to build community with a bunch of angry NFTs holders who had lost money. It’s not the first, and won’t be the last, time these NFT traders make their voice heard.
Moving on, after talks with advisors and investors – from which Mino had raised a total of $15 million for Dimensionals – the company set out a new business strategy, communicated via Discord. This, says MacKinnon, was a mistake, and should have been done in a more transparent way.
However, even after Mino decided to make Dimensionals a pure web2 game, the story wasn’t over. Testing the game with streamers, they discovered a vocal minority who had an extreme reaction because it had been a web3 project.
“This puts streamers in a very difficult position, even if they were interested in the technology (most of them are not), streaming a web3 game would crater their viewership and distance their audience. They would spend their time on stream and on social media defending the technology to a vitriolic audience who wants none of it. It’s just bad for business,” he says.
Perhaps the most striking part of the analysis is MacKinnon’s view on the web3 gaming audience, which he calls a niche that is incompatible with traditional gamers. “Web3 games currently have no distribution, no marketing and no audience outside the web3 niche.”
Of course, Mino’s version of the arising challenges has not stood unopposed. Some call it a “slow rug”, whereas others think MacKinnon “overhyped” the whole thing.
Nevertheless, it certainly demonstrates the problems the sector faces, as well as highlighting the wide variance in audience motivation between web2 and web3 gamers.
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