MMORPG went on ‘hiatus’ after crypto investors bailed, deny misappropriating funds

by · August 19, 2022

Phat Loop Studios, the company under fire last week for abandoning its Kickstarter and crypto-funded MMORPG Untamed Isles, is now denying accusations that it lost backers’ funds by investing in crypto.

The company came under fire last week after announcing a “hiatus” of its Pokemon-like open-world video game, with some in the community accusing the developers of using game development funds to bet on the crypto markets.

In a statement on Wednesday, the developers behind the project, which raised over $841,000 NZD ($525,000 USD) on Kickstarter, insisted that all funds raised “were used by the studio to develop the game.”

The company stated that the reason for the suspension is that “the company has exhausted its available funds” after “several investors” pulled out recently “due to concerns about both the financial market and the crypto market.”

According to the initial announcement of the hiatus, the project had been targeted for an October release, but Grant stated that development on the project had been put on hold as the company was unable to “financially keep up with the demands.”

Grant stated that the main reason for this was due to the “economic landscape” changing for cryptocurrency, making it difficult to continue pursuing the project, which employed “more than 70 employees” to work “relentlessly for more than two years ” to build project.

“The crypto market crash meant that investors lined up earlier this year pulled out” that were needed to “get through to our runway to launch,” Grant said.

The game was originally designed to launch with NFT implementation, but plans for this were later dropped outside of an optional external marketplace.

This angered many who questioned the legitimacy of using the crashing crypto market as an excuse for the project’s failure if it was based on “gaming first, crypto second.”

It’s unclear how much the project actually planned to integrate cryptocurrency into the project at all, but Mr Grant stated that “until the crypto situation is resolved – and we’re sure it will be at some point – then we’ll have to hibernate development on this project .”