FTX Acquired a Video Game That Sam Bankman-Fried Loved. Now It's Shutting Down

The impact of FTX’s bankruptcy process continues to have ripple effects across the crypto world, and that includes the various firms that the now-defunct exchange acquired before its fall. Storybook Brawl, a Web3 video game that FTX acquired just 13 months ago, can now be added to the list of casualties.

Today, Storybook Brawl creator Good Luck Games announced that the competitive card game will be shut down in a matter of days, after apparently struggling to find a new way forward after its parent company collapsed.

“We’ve explored different options, and unfortunately there is no path forward. We’ll be shutting down the servers on May 1st,” the game’s Twitter account wrote Tuesday. “Please enjoy SBB until then, and thanks for all the memories.”

Decrypt reached out to Good Luck Games, but the studio did not immediately respond.

The studio may be in the process of being liquidated as a result of bankruptcy proceedings—a move that could force the developer to shut off the servers and stop supporting the game. Good Luck Games was acquired by FTX US (a.k.a. West Realm Shires) and fell under the “FTX Gaming” Banner.

In November, Storybook Brawl canceled its world championship event after FTX filed for bankruptcy. It’s unclear how far the studio got in adding Web3 elements to the game, as was planned after the acquisition.

FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was a noted fan of the card-battling game, which is comparable to Activision Blizzard's popular Hearthstone.

In November, after FTX's collapse, he told The New York Times that Storybook Brawl "helps me unwind a bit" and "clears my mind." He also said in a December Twitter Spaces conversation that he was playing the game just hours before he was arrested in the Bahamas.

As a relatively small indie game, Storybook Brawl saw only modest success while it was live. According to SteamCharts data, the game’s all-time concurrent player count on PC gaming platform Steam peaked at 2,770 players in September 2021—six months before FTX acquired it. 

Storybook Brawl’s total player count declined steadily after the acquisition. That’s unsurprising, though, when considering the amount of backlash and review-bombing that the game saw after the FTX deal. Some players vowed to uninstall the game immediately after FTX bought it. Others expressed frustration online over messages that Storybook’s developers were exploring “non-cosmetic” ways to integrate NFTs.

The game’s average player count dropped 59% from 817 average players in February 2022, before the FTX acquisition, to about 331 average players in the past month. 

Notably, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who now faces 13 criminal charges including bribery, previously said in a statement that Storybook Brawl was a game he believed could become an example for “ethical” crypto gaming—whatever that meant.

But instead, with today’s news, the tale of Storybook Brawl appears to be fading to dust.