The founder of Catly, a new video game described as “AI-slop” that debuted at the 2024 Game Awards in Los Angeles last week has a history with failed NFT and blockchain games.

The first game from SuperAunthenti Co., Catly’s trailer left X users questioning how it secured a Game Awards spot and promotion by big-name influencers, such as Pokimane and Ninja.  

The studio’s co-founder, Kevin Yeung, also launched TenthPlanet, a game company focused on Web3, NFTs, digital ownership, and blockchain-based games. In 2022, his studio reportedly planned to launch two blockchain games and sunk $2.5 million into a cat-themed project called Alien Meow. 

This “cat metaverse” planned to “generate in-game value from breeding, much like CryptoKitties,” Yeung claimed. A beta was supposed to release by early 2023 but this never happened. Its other blockchain game, Mech Angel, is also nowhere to be found. 

Read more: The Flappy Bird revival is hiding crypto plans

Gaming news outlet 80 Level was able to confirm claims made by one Reddit sleuth, that SuperAuthenti Co is the shareholder, and owner, of Shanghai Binmao Technology. This studio created an app called Plantly: Mindful Gardening, which featured plants as “digital tokens.”

Staff at Binmao Technology were also found to have spent three months working on a metaverse game called Catly.

So, does Yeung’s new Catly game have NFTs? Nowhere in the game’s marketing or website is there any mention of them, however, its design is reminiscent of NFT projects, with flashy 3D renders used to showcase in-game cosmetics. 

The described gameplay is also very reminiscent of Alien Meow.

Read more: Ubisoft’s new Champions Tactics NFT game was unplayable this weekend

Regardless, some users are concerned that the game might have NFTs. Others are upset by Catly’s apparent use of AI-generated images and compared it to “AI-slop.” Some called it a “100% scam” and raised suspicions about its planned Apple Watch release. 

The Catly X account was created last May and has just over 1,300 followers. It has posted 18 times and is now hiding AI-related comments under its posts. Kevin Yeung has also deleted his LinkedIn profile.

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The player count of Telegram game Hamster Kombat has fallen another 43% in the past month meaning that it’s down a whopping 277 million players since media outlets reported on its explosive growth back in the summer.

Today, Hamster Kombat’s monthly player count stands at 23 million, down 18 million since Protos’ report last month. As recently as August, the game claimed to have 300 million players.

CoinGecko indicates that volume for the token has also dropped from a 24-hour high of $1.5 billion on November 10, to around $52 million today — a nearly-97% decrease.  

The clicker game was supposedly going to release more playable content by the end of October as part of its “season 2.” However, this is yet to happen. 

The game’s roadmap indicates that the game should have “NFT mechanics” by now but again, this isn’t the case. In fact, the only recent development from the Hamster Kombat team (which is oddly not on the roadmap) is an announcement of a DAO. 

Read more: Hamster Kombat loses 86% of its users but gains 3,720% in volume

It claims, “The DAO will allow $HMSTR token holders to make decisions, vote, and determine the future of the ecosystem.” No other details, including a release date, have been provided. 

The game is one of Telegram’s “tap-to-earn” in-app games that utilizes the Open Network blockchain. The team behind Hamster Kombat chooses to remain anonymous and there’s no public company structure, names of employees, or HQ location. 

Another Telegram game, Notcoin, today announced its new “Earn” initiative that it says will reward users for simply holding tokens. 

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The volume of Hamster Kombat’s HMSTR token rose by 3,720% earlier this month, reaching almost $1.5 billion despite losing 259 million users from its player base. 

HMSTR’s volume increased seemingly out of the blue on November 9, jumping from $39 million at 00:27 GMT to $496 million by 14:03 GMT.

The following day, its volume jumped again to $1.49 billion, a mindblowing 3,720% increase in volume and an all-time high, despite the accompanying player loss.

Its price also shot up 125% from $0.002638 to $0.005954. However, HMSTR’s volume and price then fell to $160 million and $0.003931 over the next four days, an 89% and 33% decrease respectively. 

Read more: Hamster Kombat loses nearly 260 million players in just three months

Hamster Kombat volume surge during withdrawal freeze

What caused the sudden volume increase remains unclear. The only news from Hamster Kombat during the surge was an announcement that token withdrawals were no longer available. Across its YouTube and X socials, no other major news was announced.

News of Hamster Kombat’s season 2 was also unlikely to have caused it as this was already announced last October. It was supposed to launch by the end of October but the team still doesn’t have a concrete date. 

Bitcoin’s price change may have contributed to HSMTR’s volume surge as its price rose from $76,000 on November 9 to $80,000 by November 10. However, it only really began to shoot up in value on November 11 after Hamster Kombat’s volume had already started to drop.

Hamster Kombat does appear open about aspects of its volume. Yesterday, it announced that it had recorded a $1.3 billion 24-hour spot volume and a $4 billion 24-hour perpetual trading volume. It also claimed it has “11 million $HMSTR on-chain holders!”

Protos found its July monthly player base of 300 million had decreased 86% and lost 259 million players by November 4. Its monthly player count now stands at 52 million.

IntoTheBlock data shows the number of daily active addresses fell from roughly 700,000 in late September to just 20,000 yesterday. 

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Ubisoft’s latest NFT game, Champions Tactics, was branded “unplayable” during its opening weekend after a bug meant that just two players won every matchmaked game before they could be played.

YouTuber and crypto gaming analyst Jauwn disclosed the apparent exploit on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday. He claimed that the game had been unplayable since Friday and that an alleged malicious actor had found a way to become the only player that other gamers matched with. 

Two accounts, Schilleri11 and Paulstar111, were at the heart of the controversy with one of them reportedly ranking at the top of the leaderboards after already playing 56,000 matches. 

Read more: Hamster Kombat loses nearly 260 million players in just three months

However, the Game Director for Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles claimed today on Discord that the NFT game is playable again — for now. They noted it wasn’t the work of a malicious player and that a matchmaking bug was the cause. 

Both Schilleri11 and Paulstar111 have been unbanned and the devs wished, “everyone to be understanding towards them.” They added, “The bug might reoccur, and we are currently working on a long-term fix for it!”

Read more: Otherside got $450M from Yuga Labs but its latest game is ‘virtually unplayable’

Regardless, the fact a bug of this magnitude was allowed to persist on a game produced by a triple AAA publisher worth $2 billion didn’t sit well with Jauwn. “When the first crypto game made by one of the largest game publishers of all time is nothing but a passionless grift,” he said, “it says more about crypto games as a whole than you might think it does.”

He added, “The fact that they have nobody supporting the newly launched game over the weekend is kinda hilarious and awesome at the same time. Ubisoft’s employees give so little of an F they’re happily clocking out and going home while the game melts down.”

Champions Tactics is a PC game that involves battling collectible figurines that are also sold as NFTs. Currently, its marketplace lists one NFT for a staggering $129 million, and the second highest is listed for almost $57,000. On the other end of the scale, many of these figurines are worth between $5 and $6. 

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Hamster Kombat, the tap-to-earn Telegram game that boasted a massive 300-million-strong user base back in August, has reportedly shed 259 million players.

The game’s active monthly player count currently stands at almost 41 million and its token, which launched at a high of $0.009993 on September 26, has dropped by 76% to $0.002392 today.

Earlier this year, Telegram’s CEO described Hamster Kombat as “the fastest-growing digital service in the world,” and claimed it’s part of a new era of mini apps that would bring blockchain to the masses.

However, despite the promise of crypto riches, the game’s sloppily put-together AI art and tedious gameplay haven’t been enough to retain its once-strong player base.

Hamster Kombat’s chequered history 

Local media in Nigeria reported that many players were left feeling betrayed and cheated by Hamster Kombat’s token airdrop. Indeed, BeInCrypto reported that most users could only sell their HMSTR tokens for a single-digit figure despite months of grinding on the app. 

Hamster Kombat also frequently delayed this airdrop and disqualified many players unfairly caught off guard by its new anti-cheat system. In total, a reported 2.3 Million users were banned, and 6.8 billion HMSTR tokens were confiscated.  

Read more: Otherside got $450M from Yuga Labs but its latest game is ‘virtually unplayable’

The game even spooked governments. Iran’s military deputy chief claimed that it was distracting voters from its election and called it a “soft tool” used by the West to challenge Iran’s religious government. The chairman of Russia’s State Duma Committee also called for a ban while branding the game a scam. 

More recently, on October 12, Hamster Kombat posted a disclaimer distancing itself from Gotbit which had just been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission and accused of offering “market manipulation as a service.”

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The latest game from Otherside, an NFT gaming firm backed with $450 million worth of funding from Bored Ape Yacht Club’s Yuga Labs, debuted last weekend with chaotic, buggy results.

Project Dragon, a third-person shooter hosted in the Otherside ‘metaverse,’ launched on Saturday. In the game, players compete to hold and capture objectives across an 8-bit city map. 

So far, it’s received a mixed reception. Some users, many with NFT profile pictures, have praised the game, while others have described it as ‘chaos,’ ‘buggy,’ ‘unresponsive,’ and having ‘terrible aim lag.’

One player said on X (formerly Twitter) that they quit the game after just 15 minutes of gameplay. “Still can’t believe that after millions of dollars and several years, this is the product they came up with,” they said. 

Read more: Yuga Labs directs royalties to bankrupt FTX US

Another complained, “We were supposed to have a fully functional metaverse by the end of 2023. We are approaching the end of 2024. We have none of that and every game has been a failure.”

One user had a more mixed response to the release. “It was pretty buggy, aim lag was terrible, and it wasn’t really all that fun to be completely honest,” they said. However, they added “A lot of potential here, I just hope it eventually comes to fruition (sooner rather than later).”

Yuga Labs raised $450 million in March 2022 and reportedly used these funds to build its ‘metaverse’ games project, Otherside. Both Yuga Labs and Otherside have released various games and events, including Dookey Labs, Trip 1, Trip 2, and an upcoming Dookey Dash sequel. 

This year, Yuga Labs gave up the intellectual property rights to two of its games in order to ‘unshackle’ its team. The NFT firm also announced numerous employee layoffs this year. 

CEO of Yuga Labs knew the game would be chaotic 

Project Dragon was apparently playtested with just a few hundred players but then launched with a player count of over a thousand. 

Yuga Labs CEO Greg Solano said on X, “Bad news: Doing this at scale revealed some bugs that didn’t show up when we did internal tests with only a few hundred.” As a positive, he said “It’s hilariously chaotic. On a platform level, shit’s working.” 

Read more: Bored Ape floor price plummets amid game launch and NFT crash

Solano did note before launch that this would be the case. He said, “This is early af. This is the worst version of Project Dragon you’re ever going to experience because we’re going to be iterating on this game every single month.”

Indeed much of the praise was based around the fact that it was chaotic, despite making parts of the game virtually unplayable. Others also defended the game’s early state. 

Saturday’s Project Dragon launch was the first in a series of events scheduled for the coming months as part of an ‘always-evolving experience’ of demos. To play the game, players were told to log in with their X account and wallet of choice to create a Yuga Labs ID.

Players also needed an NFT from one of 13 sets, including Bored Ape Yacht Club, Otherdeed, Grailed Moonbirds, Meebits, and HV-MTL to name a few.    

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Crypto-clicker game Hamster Kombat has reportedly caused sales of electric massage devices in Russia to surge as players seek new ways to game its mind-numbing coin mining process.

Hamster Kombat launched in March 2024 and, according to its website, the idea is to “Make your way from the shaved hamster to the grandmaster CEO of the tier-1 crypto exchange.”

Along the way, you’ll apparently “Buy upgrades, complete quests, invite friends, and become the best.”

In reality, this translates to simply jabbing at an on-screen image of a hamster as fast as you can to collect coins.

However, despite these devilishly simple mechanics, the game is still apparently too taxing for many of its claimed 250 million players and increasing numbers are turning to electric massage guns to automate and speed up their clicking.

According to Russian news outlet Vedomosti, E-commerce site Wildberries said that sales of such devices almost tripled in June by 179% while rival retailer Ozon also saw a 33% rise in sales between June and July compared to 2023. 

Their popularity among Hamster Kombat devotees means that many of the guns are now even advertising themselves as a ‘quick pumping’ method to mine the precious coins.

Read more: Crypto trading hamster outperforms Bitcoin, Warren Buffett, Cathie Wood

Despite all of the game’s talk of crypto and coins, it isn’t yet ‘play-to-earn’ as users aren’t able to withdraw anything with real monetary value. Instead, they’re waiting on a promised airdrop, set to happen this month. 

Hamster Kombat also has its own unbelievably popular YouTube channel and news segments. One video reporting on FTX and PayPal’s stablecoin garnered 10 million views, while the channel itself has 33 million subscribers. It once managed 54 million views on a single video.

Read more: Web3 games that rose and failed in 2023

Another crypto-clicker game, Notcoin, rose to popularity earlier this year and employs gameplay mechanics that are nearly identical to Hamster Kombat. Indeed, a spokesperson told the Block that Notcoin helped inspire the game. 

Protos emailed Hamster Kombat to see what it plans to do about the rising use of massage devices to exploit the game’s mechanics and to find out more about the team’s refusal to share who is behind the Telegram-based phenomenon. We will update if and when we receive a response.

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Gamers downloading cheats for the first-person shooter Call of Duty are reportedly being targeted by crypto-draining malware that has so far compromised the details of more than 4.9 million accounts.

Call of Duty cheat provider Phantom Overlay was made aware of the malware campaign this week after users started to make unauthorized purchases. Phantom Overlay provides a marketplace for Call of Duty gamers to buy cheats, such as aimbot and player detection behind walls.

As reported by malware sleuth VX Underground, an unknown entity is using malware to steal the credentials of cheaters before publishing them online. The culprit has also infected users with crypto-draining malware capable of stealing bitcoin from Electrum wallets.

Malware campaign spawns unlikely alliance

VX claims that “in a bizarre twist of fate,” video game company Activision Blizzard is working alongside cheat providers to help users infected with the malware because “The scope of the impact is so large.”

Indeed, VX reports that the accounts of an estimated 3,662,627 Battlenet, 561,183 Activision, 117,366 Elitepvpers, 572,831 UnknownCheats, and 1,365 Phantom Overlay have been compromised, making up 4,915,372 accounts altogether.

Read more: Fake crypto wallet in App Store for four years drained $120K in Stacks

Phantom Overlay reportedly approached gaming forum Elitepvpers, which confirmed that over 40,000 of its accounts were comprised

VX Underground claims that the amount of crypto stolen and the malware delivery methods are currently unknown. VX also clarified that not all of the comprised accounts are cheaters, adding that some impacted users were utilizing software for latency improvement, controller boosting, and VPNs.

Protos has contacted Phantom Overlay, Elitepvpers, and Activision Blizzard for comment and will update if we hear back. 

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The price of bitcoin has gone up by over $200 since the leak of the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA VI) trailer unexpectedly served as an advertisement for the cryptocurrency, by featuring a prominent watermark that read “Buy $BTC.”

A low-quality version of the video was published on Monday afternoon. In response to the leak, GTA VI creators Rockstar Games decided to quickly publish the high-quality version of the trailer — a week ahead of schedule. “Our trailer has leaked so please watch the real thing on YouTube,” Rockstar shared on X.

Some crypto enthusiasts called the leaker “an absolute king” because he “shilled our bags.” Right after the leak, bitcoin’s price spiked by $700 (1.2%), from $41,700 to $42,400 before cooling back down to $41,940 at press time.

Bitcoin’s free advertising didn’t last long, however. The account, @gta6trailerleak, was soon taken down. Some users have been keen to keep the video circulating on the leaker’s behalf.

Bitcoin has been on a steady pump this past week, up 12.7% from $37,400 to $41,900 at press time. It marks a 150-day all-time-high.

Read more: GTA creator Rockstar Games bans NFTs and crypto

The GTA VI trailer notably didn’t include a release date, nor did it mention which consoles it would be released on. The video game, which has reportedly cost over $1 billion to make so far, will be released in 2025 on Xbox Series S/X and Playstation 5. Plans for a PC version have not been announced.

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Match Group CEO Bernard Kim says dating apps are a far more worthwhile way to spend your time than mobile games — but only after he spent $50,000 in just three months on mobile strategy game Clash of Clans.

The former Zynga president made the remarks at New Street Research’s online dating summit while discussing the relative merits of mobile games versus apps like Tinder.

“I’ve personally spent $50,000 in three months in Clash of Clans, and I still look back at that with lots of shame,” Kim told the on-stage interviewer.

“I’m like ‘oh my God, what did I really get out of that experience?’ Nothing, other than, like, a really amazing wall, which is not cool today.”

Kim then went on to claim that, in contrast, potentially meeting your wife on a dating app is “an immeasurable reward that will last a lifetime and lead to unbelievable happiness.”

Read now: Here’s how insiders dump blockchain game tokens using Sybil attacks

As president of Zynga, Kim was previously heavily involved in the developer’s move into blockchain gaming and NFTs. Despite this, he now appears to be turning his back on the idea of big money in-game purchases, instead focusing on the more wholesome rewards of finding love online.

This is likely a wise move. Match Group –– which owns dating apps including Tinder, Match.com, and Hinge, and counts Hollywood big-hitter Ryan Reynolds among its investors — has seen its stock price plummet in recent months. It’s fallen 16% in 2023 and nearly 60% in the past 12 months.

As such, dropping nearly $17,000 a month on a game about wizards and goblins isn’t a great look.

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