Attention For This Altcoin: Team Quit Project!

In December 2021, a host of esports enthusiasts set out to create the ultimate Web3 gaming ecosystem, made by pro gamers for pro gamers. With a founding team with esports experience and a successful NFT raising millions, things looked promising for the startup project called More Than Gamers. But a little over a year later, the founders have stepped back and left their community wondering what happened to the promised Web3 game and altcoin project. Here are the details…

No sound from altcoin project

As we reported on cryptokoin.com, More Than Gamers (MTG) brought together prominent YouTube personalities, streamers and esports leaders to create its ambitious vision: Aaron Kirshenberg, founder and CEO of esports league Team New Age (TNA). This; esports executive and co-founder Nicholas Amos, head of marketing Michael Padilla, aka The Fortnite Guy; 3D animated visual artist Aalasady Al-Shureiji aka Ali and design leader Jacob Honeycutt aka 3seater. Kirshenberg then brought in Mat Sposta, founder of NFT collective Chibi Labs, as a consultant to help build the MTG universe after NFT’s launch in early 2022.

“I saw an opportunity in the Web3 space to build a community focused on real gamers,” Kirshenberg said. To kick things off, the team created a 10,000-version collection of NFT profile pictures (PFPs) consisting of a series of 3D characters who will “fight for survival in the Gameers Metaverse,” as the project states. On December 23, 2021, MTG opened minting for the first 7,000 NFTs in its collection. Listed for 0.2 ETH (about $822 at the time), the collection sold out within seconds and netted about $5.7 million from initial sales. The remaining 3,000 coins were listed the next day, bringing the total profit of the minting process to approximately 8.2 million.

The rise of the project

The project quickly gained traction among collectors and players, resulting in increased sales in the secondary market. In its early days, the project boasted that one of the rare “Legendary Player” NFTs was sold for 27.5 ETH, which was around $102,500 at the time. MTG’s early success has drawn an undisclosed amount of seed funding from metaverse investment group QGlobe, a company known for helping Web3 companies facilitate initial gaming offerings (IGOs) through native tokens.

QGlobe co-founder Sarah Austin said in December 2021 she plans to build an MTG metaverse ecosystem that can rival top platforms like Decentraland or The Sandbox. QGlobe previously tipped on its website about “HUGE MTG online tournaments with hundreds if not millions of viewers.” The post-minting collection has collaborated with popular projects like Hype Bears Club, FishyFam, and Awesome Apes to cross-promote allow-list spots. Professional Fortnite player Daniel Keem even worked with aka Keemstar on an MTG PFP and in a token holder-only tournament.

MTG continued to gain momentum by publishing an ambitious project roadmap in March 2022 outlining plans for the broad gaming ecosystem. It promised to create a “metaverse for gamers” and launch a “state-of-the-art MTG game” in the third or fourth quarter. It also marked the launch of ARCADA, a native token where users can earn by staking their NFT. Ahead of the game’s launch, MTG said it will set plans for an in-game offering (IGO) to expand its asset offering.

MTG failed to deliver on its promises

The roadmap also included plans for wider partnerships with major brands, including sportswear giant Champion, which will offer exclusives and wearables on the MTG platform (a tweet about the partnership has since been deleted). Face-to-face meetups, conferences, and even (a complete rebranding) are included in the project’s future plans. But despite its impressive NFT launch and commendable goals, the project didn’t deliver on many of its initial promises that initially lured professional players.

Over a year or so, the project has managed to roll out smaller offerings such as a merchandise store, a minigame, and a tournament with a $60,000 prize pool – but the highly anticipated ARCADA altcoin project never hit the market. Worse still, not all of the original founding members recently stopped running the project. This caught the community members who poured thousands of dollars into the project by surprise and left them with a lot of unfulfilled promises.

“The roadmap has changed more than I can count,” said an MTG token holder and active community member who would like to be known as Steven. “Partnerships never materialized and deliveries didn’t even come close to the marketed game. The founding team behind More Than Gamers were experts at building hype. Prior to the launch of the NFT collection, the MTG team advertised the project with flashy promotional videos across multiple accounts.

Investors of altcoin project hope to cut losses

While some community members continued to hope that the project would deliver on its promises, others decided to cut their losses. Currently, the base price on OpenSea, the project’s secondary marketplace, has dropped from a high of 0.6 ETH (about $2,400 in December 2021) to 0.012 ETH (about $20 today). This marks a 97 percent decrease from the original starting price of the project.

Expressing their anger at the progress of the project on Discord, Ben and Steven have since been removed from the channel. Meanwhile, Kirshenberg remains optimistic about the future of the project and its contribution to its success. “I am still very active. One thing I’m very proud of about MTG is that we have real esports players who actually own MTG.”

It remains unclear why the formerly successful altcoin project has recently undergone a major personnel and strategy change. Where and how the $8.2 million in the initial fund was spent is an even bigger mystery. Kirshenberg says that no matter how the roadmap changes, he is determined to see the project through to the end. He stated that he plans to make announcements about new partnerships and game updates in the coming weeks to keep the community morale high. But it’s worth noting that many partners have withdrawn. But with a few developers currently focusing on the project, on February 14, MTG released a trailer for the upcoming Web2 racing minigame.