This Week in Crypto Games: Gala Kills ‘Walking Dead’, ‘Flappy Bird’ Flaps Away From Crypto

The crypto gaming space is ever expanding, and with prominent games releasing, token airdrops piling up, and the constant shifting of the markets around them all, it’s a lot to take in.

Luckily, we’re all over it here at Decrypt‘s GG. And if you’re looking to keep tabs on the latest happenings around crypto video games, this weekly roundup gives you a quick overview of the biggest stories we covered over the past week, along with a smattering of other interesting tidbits from around the space.

Top stories

Walking Dead, dead soon: Gala Games announced last week that The Walking Dead: Empires, a multiplayer survival game featuring Ethereum NFTs, will shut down on July 31. The game allowed players to purchase NFT assets like weapons, supplies, and land deeds—some selling for as high as $67,000 during the 2021 NFT boom.

As compensation, Gala will distribute NFTs with “equal functionality” from other games to current holders, though some users have griped on social media about the value of the expected assets. The PC game had been in open beta for about a year.

Flappy Bird sans crypto: The classic mobile game Flappy Bird has launched on the Epic Games Store for Android without any crypto features, despite previous plans for a token tied to its Telegram version. This new release maintains the original tap-to-navigate gameplay while adding a quest mode, supported only by ads and in-app purchases.

Last year’s Telegram version of the game faced heavy pushback from gamers, and was ultimately shuttered earlier in April. However, it doesn’t appear that Flappy Bird is done with crypto. Last week, following the Android release, the official Telegram channel hosted a community call and wrote, “The Flappy Bird brand belongs to the community.”

MapleStory N launching: Nexpace, backed by Nexon, will release MapleStory N on May 15, bringing blockchain integration to the beloved 2D side-scrolling game. Running on its dedicated Avalanche L1 chain “Henesys,” the game allows players to own and trade in-game assets on-chain.

The 22-year-old MapleStory franchise boasts 250 million users worldwide, with this PC release marking the first official game in the MapleStory Universe ecosystem, which recently switched from Polygon to Avalanche.

Sui gaming stablecoin: Playtron announced plans to release Game Dollar, a specialized stablecoin for gaming on the Sui blockchain in Q4 2024. The token will support purchases, subscriptions, and rewards across Playtron’s GameOS ecosystem, including the upcoming SuiPlay0X1 handheld console.

Unlike traditional stablecoins, Game Dollar will be programmable at the use case level, backed by short-term U.S. Treasuries, and designed to incentivize specific user behaviors. Playtron CEO Kirt McMaster told Decrypt that this programmability will enable new economic models for developers and marketplaces.

ICYMI

• Early Ethereum NFT game Zed Run has been reborn on Base after closing down the original Polygon version.
• Mobile crypto games are likely to benefit from Apple’s relaxed iOS rules about external payments and buying NFTs, which were forced by an antitrust court ruling.

• Solana NFT project Claynosaurz is expanding to Sui, and its upcoming mobile game will also launch on the SuiPlay0X1 handheld device.
• An officially licensed Black Mirror token is launching, tied to a social campaign that includes an AI assistant.
• Gaming giant Ubisoft has teamed with interoperability protocol LayerZero to launch a network for moving gaming assets across chains.

• An official One Championship MMA league game, called One Fight Arena, launched on iOS and Android last week with optional Sui crypto and NFT features.
• Crypto exchange Bitget took legal action against wallets tied to an alleged $20 million market manipulation scheme around the VOXEL gaming token.
• Goblintown: Really Hard Driving launched on Steam and the Epic Games Store.

• Wemade’s WEMIX gaming token plunged in price last week as South Korean exchanges delisted it.
• Ethereum NFT game The Lost Glitches has launched on Steam. It’s not immediately clear how the crypto functionality works in this version, given Steam’s broad NFT ban.
• Game developer Jungle has purportedly abandoned its Web3 plans for mobile shooter FTW. Decrypt reached out to the team for confirmation but did not receive a response.
• Ronin network creator Sky Mavis and Ragnarok: Monster World developer 0x& had a blow-up after the game expanded to an additional network, Cross.

Weekend reads