Two popular Web3 games Realms of Alurya and Wonder Wars are shutting down due to lack of funding
The collapse continues in the Web3 gaming industry as two games built on the Ethereum network Ronin – Realms of Alurya and Wonder Wars – have officially announced that they are taking them offline indefinitely due to a lack of funding.
Two hopeful projects – one common end
This week, the development teams behind two popular Web3 games on the Ronin network confirmed that they are shutting down due to a lack of funding to continue developing and operating the games.
“Despite all our passion and efforts, we have not been able to hit key metrics or raise enough capital to make Wonder Wars a sustainable live service game,” the Hello Monster development team shared on X (formerly Twitter).
The project’s closure also comes with the decision to cancel the planned utility token launch. “It would be dishonest to issue a token in its current state – it would be based on pure speculation, with no real use case,” the team wrote.
Realms of Alurya: Unexpected funding cut from publisher
Similarly, Realms of Alurya was forced to shut down due to the sudden loss of financial support from its main partner – Treasure, a blockchain game publishing platform.
“Without any prior notice, Treasure abruptly announced the termination of all agreements and support. This caused our entire roadmap – which relied on committed funding – to collapse overnight,” co-founder and creative director Oscar Soler shared on Discord.
The game had moved to the Ronin network after its exclusivity deal with Treasure was terminated. A “rescue” event – Hunt & Mint – was held to attract alternative funding, but it did not yield the expected results.
Wave of Closures Continues: Ember Sword, Nyan Heroes, and More
Realms of Alurya and Wonder Wars are just the latest in a growing wave of Web3 game closures, particularly as developers struggle to attract players and secure funding.
Not long ago:
Ember Sword, an Ethereum game that raised over $203 million in NFT land pledges, also shut down due to lack of funding.
Nyan Heroes (on Solana) and The Mystery Society (on Ethereum) also halted development for similar reasons.
Gala Games even shut down its popular zombie game The Walking Dead: Empires earlier this year.
Falling Trust in Blockchain Gaming?
It’s not just games, but also Web3 game tokens that are being negatively affected. Among the top 100 tokens by market capitalization (according to CoinGecko), only IMX – the token of Immutable X – is the only representative of the Web3 gaming sector remaining.
Experts warn that the lack of control over funding strategies, dependence on publishers, and the decline in the number of actual players are systemic problems in the blockchain gaming industry today.
Conclusion
The collapse of projects like Realms of Alurya and Wonder Wars reflects the major risks in building Web3 games: from lack of financial sustainability, over-reliance on token speculation, to business models that do not fit with the reality of users.
However, this could also be an opportunity for the industry to restructure, towards products that are truly valuable in the long term, financially transparent, and engaging in gameplay – instead of just chasing speculative trends and unfulfilled promises.