“We have listened to our Teamsters, development partners, and our games’ communities, and the concerns they’ve expressed, and have therefore taken the decision to step back from the NFT space,” the company said.

After fan outrage, it seemed to have no other choice. Wilson’s comments came shortly after Team17, developers of the 75 million-copy-selling Worms franchise, abandoned plans for an NFT “MetaWorms” project. And so we’re going to evaluate that over time, but right now, it’s not something that we’re driving hard on,' Wilson said, in response to a question about any potential investments in NFTs or blockchain gaming. And I think the way we think about it is we want to deliver the best possible player experience we can. Whether that’s as part of the NFT blockchain, well, that remains to be seen. “I believe that collectability will continue to be an important part of our industry and the games and experiences that we offer our players.

Three months ago, CEO Andrew Wilson said NFTs and blockchain gaming were “the future of our industry.” But on an earnings call Tuesday, Wilson said EA is not currently “driving hard on” crypto projects. This week, it was Electronic Arts’ turn to reverse course. One of the most popular recurring stories over the past two months has been for a game developer to announce some sort of NFT integration in a forthcoming video game, inspiring a massive backlash, only to later disavow the project and apologize. Outside those working on play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity, hostility toward crypto in the gaming community tends to be overwhelming. And while you’re always going out a limb when you try to draw conclusions about such large, diverse groups, I can’t help but feel like I’m seeing a trend in the way they have responded so far to efforts from industry to sell them various blockchain-related things. Today, let’s talk about the very different reactions that two different types of fandoms are having to blockchain-based products - and whether that tells us anything about what average people might actually want out of crypto.

Spotify plans join collectibles craze