Realms Of Ruin Storytelling NFT Collapses After 5 Hours

A group of YA authors who attempted to start a storytelling NFT have closed Realms of Ruin down after just 5 hours, following heavy criticism.

NFTs are a hot topic at the moment. Dead By Daylight have been criticised for selling NFTs on the sly. Steam has decided to block all games with crypto or NFTs in them. And yet they continue to be incredibly popular – with people dropping thousands on the digital tokens.

A group of YA authors made perhaps the most ill-judged attempt to jump on the NFT bandwagon yet this week. Realms of Ruin was a joint project between Marie Lu, Tahereh Mafi, Ransom Riggs, Adam Silvera, David Yoon and Nicola Yoon. It was set to be a fantasy collaborative storytelling project. As reported by Kotaku, the following description was given to Realms of Ruin:

“Join us in expanding these stories by adding your own, purchasing the official character cards, and playing in these worlds! Your tales can be minted into NFTs whose value could rise as your readership does. As the world expands, the authors will be reading closely to decide which stories and characters are compelling enough to become canon.”

You might be thinking – hold on, doesn’t that describe MUDs and MUSHs? A collaborative, online storytelling game set in a fantasy world? And you’d be right. The difference here is that Realms of Ruin would charge their (primarily teenage) audience to participate, then bundle the stories they’ve helped to create and profit off of them. Can’t imagine why it didn’t get off the ground. The criticism was swift and harsh:

Other YA authors were angry at the plan to profit off the creative work of teens:

The downfall of Realms of ruin

As the criticism rolled in, the team behind Realms of Ruin panicked. They folded – deleting their website, Twitter account and collaborators even scrubbed positive Medium posts they’d written about it. Luckily, YouTuber Dan Olsen (Folding Ideas) managed to catch some of the chat on their Discord for posterity: 

After trying to rally the server and talking about community, the team behind Realms of Ruin folded. 

The clown emojis are really something. Do we think this could be a world record for a collapsing crypto-scam? 

What do you think about the Realms of Ruin scandal? Let us know via our social media channels.

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Featured Image Credit: Johannes Plenio via Unsplash