Pixelmon was one of the most exciting NFT projects ever to exist. What started as a small-scale campaign for a new metaverse game with game mechanics using non-fungible tokens soon became a massively funded business-facing massive social pressure to deliver the expected product.
Unfortunately, once the game launched, even the most passionate fans of the project were deeply disappointed. The teasers and advertisement campaigns that displayed promising high-quality artwork were nothing in comparison to the actual product, which has been considered “ugly,” “unfinished,” and “comical” by critics.
The creator of Pixelmon, who was revealed to be Martin van Blerk admitted that the final product is not what they expected or the community deserved.
According to Martin and the PR team of the company, the massive pressure from the community and investors led to the early release of the game. Furthermore, they claim that the project wasn’t supposed to reach the scale that it did, and their limited experience and team scale couldn’t handle the task adequately.
Despite the errors made, Martin and his team have committed to doing justice to the project by making sure it receives the necessary updates that would eventually bring it to the vision that everybody had expected.
Despite those promises, many fans are still distraught with what had just happened. Some go as far as to claim that there should be a “legal precedent” for what had just happened.
When contacted, the New Zealand minister of the digital economy, David Clark, said that the current government does not have rules and procedures to regulate NFTs.
He went on to add that “However I note that cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other emerging trends are being looked at internationally, and there are a number of different approaches being taken”
The dubious and often vague guidelines that NFT marketplaces offer are not a surprise for many veterans in the community who have either personally suffered or have witnessed many disappointing projects or outright scams with no way to hold the “culprits” accountable.
Although many approaches can be taken to NFTs, some claim that the easiest way is to extend the Fair Trading Act according to which “engaging in misleading conduct and making unsubstantiated, false or misleading representations about the supply of goods or services.”
This interpretation has faced some refutation by spokespeople from the Financial Markets Authority, which claim that “If an NFT doesn’t represent a financial product or a financial service isn’t provided, it likely won’t fall within the FMA’s regulatory remit.”
Despite the lack of regulation, the New Zealand government has gone out of its way to advise people on investing. They claim that consumers should keep in mind the highly volatile nature of crypto and NFTs and invest in platforms based in New Zealand as this way, they can receive a minimum amount of protection compared to other platforms.
