Since the launch of “Bored Apes” in April 2021, their influence has been growing. Due to some very positive public relations, Bored Apes has become almost synonymous with the NFT space for many industry outsiders and adjacent sectors.
This notoriety has propelled Apes’ parent company Yuga Labs into a very critical industry position, and it’s fair to say that people hold very high expectations for almost every project they’ve come into contact with.
Most community high hopes are centered on the NFT metaverse space called Otherside. Announced in March 2022, as a game metaverse where Bored Apes and other NFT holders can enjoy large-scale multiplayer gaming experiences.
The initial interest was massive.
In April 2022, the minting of Otherdeeds land deeds for Otherside sparked a historic trading frenzy, burning over $1.5 billion worth of ETH, one of the largest burning events in Ethereum history. But since that event, the value of these Otherdeeds on the secondary market has also been declining.
During this time, Yuga ran several Otherside test demos, with another scheduled for this week. They have also partnered with external development studios such as AccelByte, Bad Rhino Studios, and Hadean to drive the project forward.
However, that’s the thing. Despite having all the resources and technical partnerships, Otherside is still in development and will continue to be so in the foreseeable future, leaving Otherdeed holders still unclear about what they have purchased.
Yuga’s executive appointed to usher Otherside into the “gateway of web3” was replaced last week, less than a year after taking the position, indicating potential internal issues.
Great things take time,
Yuga is clearly seeking to address some significant technical ambitions, but they also face an uphill battle to meet the very high expectations set by the community for themselves. Their problems can be attributed to their own success, their project’s increasing disconnect, and the lack of support from gaming studios.
Building a great multiplayer game is incredibly difficult, even one following other successful formulas.
The issues Yuga faces in setting expectations are more apparent because other emerging crypto gaming projects have been able to achieve early success without the pressure of land sales in the nine figures like Otherside. Nifty Island is one of them, a virtual world and NFT gaming platform that supports player-created content and various game modes, from battle royale to racing.
This is an interesting point of contrast with Otherside, as Nifty Island’s beta was just released last month and has fewer resources than Yuga, yet is already a year ahead. More importantly, after playing some of the beta, I believe Nifty Island absolutely embodies what Yuga hoped it already had with Otherside. The game modes are fun, there are plenty of in-game tasks, NFTs from dozens of different series can be used as avatars, and every player can customize an island for free.
Its rise shows how a small, focused team can outcompete larger, more cunning competitors. The gaming platform is the metaverse experience that the NFT space has been calling for since 2021.
In comparison to small independent games, Otherside certainly has higher expectations, but with most Otherdeed game buyers already seeing a decrease of more than 2 ETH in implied value, Yuga may be more expected to make a hit game with Otherside than any AAA game developer has ever been.
Nifty Island’s early-stage success is not just a case study—it’s still playable today.
As the virtual world continues to evolve, the lessons learned from the success of Nifty Island and the ongoing journey of Otherside will undoubtedly influence the strategies taken by new projects for experimentation, public building, and setting appropriate community expectations.
