It hasn’t even been a day since GSC Game World announced that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will give one player the chance to become the first-ever “metahuman” in history. The company immediately made a new announcement after the first one, stating that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl will no longer include NFTs, meaning the metahuman will not be joining us either. Their initial NFT plans were not received well by the public. Under this tweet, Count Cristo posted an image that listed a number of reasons why NFTs should not be included. Concerns about the possibility of NFTs disappearing, people being able to save a piece of the NFT art by right clicking, poor moderation in the NFT community are making people hesitant about video games trying to profit from NFTs.
In S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2‘s subreddit, users immediately responded to GSC’s NFT plans by posting memes to reject this decision. In response to the community’s objections, GSC Game World decided to cancel all NFT-related plans in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. “Based on the feedback we received, we’ve made a decision to cancel anything NFT-related in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. The interests of our fans and players are the top priority for the team. We’re making this game for you to enjoy — whatever the cost is.”
GSC Game World isn’t the first video game company to receive bashful comments for planning to use blockchain technology and NFTs. Ghost Recon Breakpoint released some new cosmetics NFT items, some of which are only available to players who have over 600 hours of playtime in the game. “I still don’t understand the ‘problem’ being solved here,” a Ubisoft employee said. “Is it really worth the (extremely) negative publicity this will cause?” Another added, “How can you look at private property, speculation, artificial scarcity, and egoism, then say ‘yes this is good, I want that, let’s put it in art?'”
Even their employees were confused and unhappy about the release of those NFTs, let alone their player community. There are still too many uncertainties about NFTs and blockchain technology. Now is probably not a good time to publicly announce or try and profit from NFTs without proven methods to keep NFT transactions secure and transparent.