Pixelmon NFT $70 million dumpster fire
Louis Andres·
News
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Pixelmon disaster as $70 million NFTs look like garbage

Accusations, counter-accusations, promises broken and new ones made. Hello, dumpster fire!

Cheers turned to boos for Pokemon-inspired NFT game Pixelmon as fans showed disappointment over the reveal of some of its in-game assets.

The majority of the discontent came from the fact that the terrible in-game models are nowhere close to the quality of the teased artwork and concept models that the Pixelmon has been posting on their official Twitter account. The final forms of the hideous creatures don’t look like something out of a project that’s worth USD $70 million — which is the amount Pixelmon raised to fund the game.

The backlash started to grow as soon as users were able to load their models after purchasing from Pixelmon’s OpenSea storefront, as they looked completely different from what was promised by the development team. Users and NFT community members took to Twitter to voice their surprise, with many posting and sharing screenshots and videos. They even made it to the mainstream media with 1 News New Zealand discussing Pixelmon, as shared by Twitter user @NFTherder. 

Pixelmon founder Syberer came to the project’s defense in a lengthy Twitter thread stating that “OpenSea has limitations to their 3D compatibility” so they had to downscale the models to fit what the platform could handle.

Regardless of the backlash, Syberer says that the Pixelmon project will continue and that the founders will not go anywhere and see the project push through.

Of course Pixelmon’s market value is now heavily affected, with the floor price for minting Pixelmons dropping under 1 ETH.

Other Pixelmon issues and accusations

Problems also seem to run deep as some community members are saying that the Pixelmon team has been allegedly misusing the funds raised for the project. Twitter user @zachxbt points out that the team went on an “NFT buying” spree, spending around 400 ETH to purchase high value NFT projects such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, CloneX and Azuki.

This is somewhat confirmed from Pixelmon’s end as a screenshot from Syberer’s message on the Pixelmon Discord channel shows that it is indeed their developer wallet that have been making such purchases. The reason? Well, it’s because the market apparently took a dip.

Aside from alleged fund misuse, Pixelmon is also under fire for purchasing pre-existing assets from platforms such as the Unity marketplace and incorporating them into their game, rather than using their own unique creations. Comparisons and even screenshots of conversations regarding this allegation also surfaced as the NFT community continued to dig deep into the matter.

 

Founder Syberer did respond to this allegation of reusing pre-existing assets by saying that they were in fact in contact with Unity animations, but have commissioned them to create 3D models for Pixelmon rather than purchasing their existing creations.

While the future already seems bleak for Pixelmon, Syberer states that the project will push through.

They have also announced that they will be allocating funds, revamp their NFTs, and hopefully make the final product much closer to what they initially promised.