After many months of discussion, we have decided to pivot away from distributing DIO entirely to focus on gameplay and content. Unfortunately the legal risks and costs associated with using cryptocurrency has led us to the decision, and we have put blockchain development to the back of our product backlog, until further notice.
Unfortunately the ramifications of having virtual assets with real world value that players can make money on, puts our company under regulatory scrutiny, and requires a lot of legal work, anti-money laundering procedures and customer data collection (KYC), which we are not sufficiently funded to deal with at this time. We are an indie studio after all.
We believe that it's better to focus on the videogame, and potentially returning to the idea of tokenized virtual items in the future after the game is sufficiently developed. We should focus on the gameplay, art and animation, and minimize the risks on the legal side as much as possible.
While we believe that a play-to-earn videogame with tradable virtual assets brings and incredible amount of value, the most important thing for us, and for players is to create an amazing gameplay experience, that is fun to play, and fun to watch. We can revisit the idea of digital scarcity and virtual currency in-game when we are ready, and when the market and technology has matured.
Existing DIO holders will still be able to use them in-game on virtual items such as cosmetics, customizations and virtual items, as we will request them back in exchange for the in-game currency.
The good news is, that we are opening up the Decimated pre-alpha demo to everyone in our discord channel. Head there now: https://discord.gg/n9NNpHV
