An official announcement from Good Luck Games, the developers of video games, including the famous Storybook Brawl (SBB) has announced plans to sunset its operation. The April 25 announcement revealed that the Bahamian crypto exchange FTX’s departure from the digital space negatively affected the performance of the gaming company.
The developers of the Storybook Brawl admitted that their efforts to pursue new ways to support the firm operation had yielded no positive outcome. From the developer’s statement, the video game company was acquired by FTX in 2022.
Factors Influencing the Closure of Storybook Brawl
A review of FTX and Good Luck Games mergers and acquisition report demonstrated that the bankrupt crypto exchange supported the operation of the Web3 gaming company. Following the fallout of FTX, the gaming company has been seeking promising opportunities to support the firm to remain afloat.
In an April 25 tweet, the company confirmed that Good Lucks Games would be seizing from operation on May 1. The gaming company has urged the players of the exclusive card game to take advantage of the remaining days before the closure of the SBB servers.
Following the April 25 tweet, market critics debated that the studio’s closure demonstrated that the gaming company was at the edge of liquidation. Citing the ongoing legal action against FTX, they argued that the now-defunct crypto exchange could not support the video games.
At the initial M&A agreement, the FTX US agreed to offer technical and financial support to SBB through the FTX gaming arm. However, the current bankruptcy proceedings battling FTX have prompted the company to withdraw its consent.
It was reported that after the crypto exchange filed for Chapter 11 of Bankruptcy protection, the operation of Storybook Brawl went south. Last November, the SBB developers failed to participate in the World Championship event in the Bahamas due to challenges the parent company faced.
Storybook Brawl Acquired by FTX
In a previous interview with The New York Times, FTX co-founder Sam Bankman Fried confessed that the creative card battling feature on the SBB assisted him in unwinding. He stated that the SBB features outmatched the Hearthstone game created by the Activision Blizzard team.
During his November arrest, Bankman Fried attest that he played competitive card battling games during his productive hours. Besides SBB being among the best video games for Bankman Fried, the Web3 community has supported the game from the first day it went live.
It was noted that after the launch of the SBB, more than 2770 users subscribed to the video game platform in September 2021. These numbers began to decrease after the closure of the M&A deal with FTX.
In a separate report, the acquisition of SBB by FTX created heated dialogues among the gaming community. Most of the SBB players were negative about the acquisition due to legal action facing the crypto exchange.
They protested over the “non-cosmetic” approaches adopted by the SBB developers in the attempt to launch the nonfungible tokens (NFTs) features on the gaming platform. The 2022 acquisition compelled most of the players to exit the SBB platform.
In February 2022, the number of SBB players decreased by 59%. It was reported that the number of players in February averaged around 817. After the acquisition, the number plummeted to 331 players.
Since the SBB has attempted to restore its 2021 market position, it has proven futile. The SBB’s current announcement dooms Bankman Fried’s long-term objectives for the card battling game. In the acquisition report, Bankman Fried was optimistic that SBB would be the first “ethical “Web3 game.
