I am sure that most of you reading this by now have heard of the “Crypto game that failed.” Or that the game that “Sam Bankman-Fried Loved” is shutting down. (Though at time of writing it has been shut down for a few weeks.) While it is easy to write this off the crypto market killed this game, there is more to the tumultuous past of Storybook Brawl than many seem to remember.
To clarify, I am choosing to tackle this piece as a person who actually loved Storybook Brawl. Had my own frustrations at the way things played out for the game. And thoroughly believe that we as a community of gamers lost a game that dared to dream in a crowded market. Given all of that I wanted to take this time to clarify that while I am no fan of the crypto sphere on the internet, as listeners to our podcast would know well, there is more to this story than its final chapter. So with that out of the way, let’s turn back the cover and go through the various chapters of Storybook Brawl’s life and death.
The Game which Dared to Dream
Storybook Brawl was a fairytale themed auto battler. Players would be loaded into a lobby of eight players/bots and build boards based on various fairytale archetypes; such as dwarves, royalty, dragons, monsters. The game was represented as a true battle of good and evil, with champion characters that would apply different effects to your boards and ultimately influence the kinds of boards you would try to get. Add into the formula spells and treasures, which you got through combining three of the same character, and you had a rather interesting auto-battler on your hands.
While I could sit here and sing Storybook Brawl’s praises. And I certainly have multiple times. The reality of the launch situation is that Storybook Brawl was entering an already flooded market of auto-battlers. While the game did gain some popularity, I feel like it was always going to have a hard time competing against other auto-battlers like Teamfight Tactics and other recognized IP’s such as League of Legends entering the sphere, which had established player bases long before this game was even announced.
I couldn’t even argue that it would have had a better time as a deck builder because it would have had to compete with Hearthstone, Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel, Shadowverse, MTG Arena, etc. There isn’t much of a market this could have entered to stick out from the crowd. In fact it could be argued that the cutesy fairytale aesthetic hindered people from attempting what was a great game because it didn’t fit what they normally looked for.
Storybook Tries to Make Money
Just like other auto-battlers, Storybook Brawl was free. Which did help drive interest in people at least trying it out. But given that it was free, how does a game like that make money? Well selling premium currency of course.
While I would normally be very adverse to most forms of microtransactions, I did not personally dislike these and neither did most of the community. The understanding that the game needed to make money some way to stay running could be why many were okay with this. You could use the currency, in the form of diamonds, to purchase new champion characters and purchase skins for existing characters. None of it was groundbreaking.
But not owning a champion didn’t lock you out of using them, as the game rolled four champions out of the roster, and the first two always being ones you could pick regardless of having them unlocked. It simply gave no incentive to spend money there. Add to the above reasoning with the feeling that unlocking new champions just didn’t feel rewarding for the effort that goes into them, and you have a game where skins sales had to carry the game.
While there are plenty of people out there willing to spend thousands on games they enjoy. (Check out my piece on how the Games industry uses marketing tactics to get people to spend money here.) There simply wasn’t that kind of content to spend it on. Skins and champions did not release regularly enough, nor the ability to buy anything more substantial or effective to change game play to drive players to spend more money.
The First Fall
Well, given that they couldn’t generate large amounts of money with so little to offer. It was only a matter of time until the game would be forced to close down, whether that nail in the coffin would be from being unable to afford further development costs to failing to be able to keep the game’s servers paid for. Come March of 2022 it was made public that the game was failing and facing imminent closure. But as I titled this section, this is the first fall for Storybook Brawl.
As it would happen, Storybook Brawl had caught the attention and fascination of one Sam Bankman-Fried. Mr. Bankman-Fried acquired the developers of Storybook Brawl and gave them resources via his Crypto/web3 company FTX.
Trust me, I will explain everything relevant to our tale. No prior knowledge regarding the crypto sphere of the internet required.
The FTX Era
This acquisition could not have been at a worse time in the gaming industry as a whole. With the push during this time to create web3/NFT games, the writing might as well have been on the wall that this would be a temporary patch for Storybook Brawl. Shortly after the acquisition by FTX, there was a mass exodus of the player base as many abandoned the game. Mainly accusing the developers of being a sell-out, while others just wanting absolutely nothing to do with a game held by a Crypto company.
This exodus would prove slightly founded. Shortly after the acquisition it was talked about by the development team that they were considering various ways to incorporate crypto and NFT products into the game directly. While I personally feel that the developers might as well have been making these statements under the threat of losing their funding from their new parent company, many would not accept these statements and this would cause yet another exodus of players.
During this time the development team behind Storybook Brawl held tournaments with real prizes in order to try to draw a new player base. But for the most part those events remained dominated by similar names, as it was clear that the concurrent user base had left and moved on. This part of the story always causes me a bit of sorrow, as I truly loved this game, but also couldn’t bring myself to support a game that was changing directions and getting involved, willingly or not, with web3/NFT gaming. (If you want a good idea of why gamers don’t want anything to do with crypto gaming, feel free to look up the story of Jake Paul and his CryptoZoo project. That is certainly a good tale that showcases what can truly happen with these kinds of projects.)
This era would be short lived for Storybook Brawl however. Come November 2022, FTX would face many of the same issues that other major crypto companies fell too, as many rushed to leave the crypto sphere and caused a market crash across the whole board. On 11 November 2022, FTX would see its CEO, Mr. Bankman-Fried, step down and go from one of the lead companies in crypto to filing for bankruptcy. So where does this leave Storybook Brawl?
The Second Fall
Unfortunately this did not leave Storybook Brawl and its development team in a good spot. Suddenly their funds were hindered and they found themselves in a similar situation as before. Look at the guillotine up on the hill, with the blade being sharpened and Storybook Brawl heading to the block. Unfortunately, there was no saviour to come save them this time. And rather suddenly, with an announcement in April announcing the end of the game on 01 May, 2023. Ironically this closure announcement brought many back to the game, including myself.
Final Thoughts
The main reason I tackled this piece is all of the bad press surrounding the closure of Storybook Brawl and various outlets using it to shoot future possible crypto games in the foot before they take their first steps. Honestly, as I wrote above, there is more to this story as Storybook Brawl was never built to be a crypto-game and doesn’t deserve to leave the gaming world being remembered for that. Despite the route Storybook Brawl took, it was still a charming game for sure and its presence will be missed by those who enjoyed it. Perhaps this is not the true end for Storybook Brawl, but for right now it has been lowered unceremoniously into the gaming graveyard.