Stalker 2 Cancels NFTs, Interests Of Fans And Players Is 'Top Priority' For The Team

Wise decision, after I saw the backlash they got yesterday with people cancelling their pre-order all over the internet. Maybe make a poll first, to see if the fans would like something. Then you wouldn't get burned this much. I don't think many people are gonna re-pre-order after this.

NBA says: this is why we play. Gamers upon seeing this news: this is why we complain.

Good. This is why gamers should always complain.

Translation: We saw enough preorders cancelled that it started to make our investors worried. So plan b is we will wait till after we launch and have your money then announce this again under a new name. But we really do care about you......r wallets 😉

This should read as NFT's "delayed" for Stalker 2. Once they release the game and the sales start to tail off they will no doubt introduce it. The NFT's introduced by the likes of Ubisoft etc will have calmed the water by then. People are only outraged for a short while. COD and Fifa dominate sales charts for that reason, everyone complains yet people still buy them yearly. This is not a consumer centred move.

If only the fan base of fifa was like this then maybe you'd get a fifa that's actually not a copy paste

It's always good when companies listen.

Whilst I also don't like the idea of NFT's I don't know why it bothers people so much? So what if the game you want to play has NFT's, how does that effect you if your not interested in them? Just carry on playing the game as you intended

@UltimateOtaku91 It's a cancer that will keep spreading

Keep up the pressure. All it takes is for one big game to include them, and people get bored of talking about them, and the floodgates will open.

It's happened every time before with microtransactions, season passes, lootboxes, battle passes, endless tiers of "special editions".

There was pushback when they first came out as it sounded like stupid ways to squeeze more cash out of the customer, but eventually the publishers' greed won out, and there's people who'll defend them and say that the whole industry will collapse if they don't hold you by your ankles and shake.

@themightyant I've played 120 hours of Assassin's Creed Odyssey and not once was I bothered by its MTX. I guess it depends on which game we're talking about, but as long as stuff like MTX and NFTs are optional and unintrusive to the experience, then I'm not bothered by them. I was going to play Stalker 2 regardless if it had NFTs or not.

@BBB Precisely. I'm sure the pocket pain they felt was severe, so they've done some damage control to prevent further losses. Really satisfying X)

@Alan_cartridge_ Honestly, it wouldn't be a surprise. I thought the same thing right after reading the article. You never know, maybe they'll surprise, but it also wouldn't be surprising if they snuck them in later. It wouldn't be the first time. We'll see, but it's at least good news for now.

Good. Create fun games to engage costumers, instead of predatory crap.

Watching the greedy squirm always warms my cockles.

@LtSarge The issue is they aren't normally unintrusive. Content gets carved out, and whole in-game ecomonies get designed around them. And even when the game isn't super scummy, the whole business model is based around exploiting a handful of vulnerable people.

It also mentally trains younger kids to be more receptive to this. We're quite fortunate because we are looking outside in to this, but younger gamers will just be born addicted to this practice.

Especially since covid, and our increased need to be online, I've seriously been considered having an outright ban on F2P games in my house.

@themightyant I complained about horse armour back in the day, and in retrospect, horse armour is benign compared to the things people defend today.

Like, at least horse armour was a single direct transaction. You paid a set amount of money, and got a set piece of content. Compared to RNG lootboxes, or convoluted or timed battle passes, or endless online markets of uninspired cosmetics that exist purely for the money, I'd be happy if horse armour was the worst thing that existed.

@Richnj If a developer intentionally makes an area harder just for the sake of forcing the player to spend money on MTX or NFTs in order to make things easier, then yeah that's bad. But there are games that don't do that and as far as we know, Stalker 2 wasn't like that. Not to mention that it's been in development for half a decade and they were going to implement NFTs now at the tail end of their development. So I don't think it would've had that much of an impact on the core experience.

They tried it and got caught. Might resume my preorder but this is typical of a major developer

I am now skeptical. Doubt they announced this without developing a framework, so as soon as the game is out and they have that initial wave of sales, and things start to slow down, they likely will reintroduce the garbage. Avoiding it for a year at the very least, got plenty other things to play.

@UltimateOtaku91 it’ll affect everybody regardless of if they buy NFT’s or not. Once games start being designed around NFT’s just like they are Microtransactions now, the issue is everybody’s.

@themightyant
Agreed. It's all predatory, and people with addictive personalities really have issues with this kind of stuff.

It’s always great when publishers and developers listen to the consumer. NFTs don’t bother me if they are handled correctly. Could be a way for companies to pay artists after their creation is over so they can get royalties from the sales. Anything that pays artists what they are worth makes me happy.

Meh, give it time and it'll be back. Remember when ms said "always online", backtracked, and now the devs are doing it instead of a platform. Like when jim ryan said "generations" then started releasing things on ps4/5. Yeah, "companies" don't care about people, just profits.

I swear these companies are beyond tone deaf. It's astounding to me that they had to actually publicy announce this nonsense and recieve massive backlash to figure out it isn't a good idea. The crypto dude bro in management that came up with the ridiculous idea should be fired.

Yea, this is a great instance of vote with your wallets. However, I think things like NFT are inevitable. Once huge games and huge companies with numerous casual fans endorse it, once companies find a way to make it attractive to the many, it will come.

And just like that, they have my attention again.

I still don’t know what NFTs are 🤷🏻‍♂️