NFT has always been a field that I care about and pay attention to.

Although its overall development has been quite poor over the years, with even once-leading projects like Bored Apes falling silent and gradually fading into obscurity, I still hope that this field, which once created brilliance and left me with deep memories, can be revitalized.

Recently, Shenchao published an article titled "When Pudgy Penguins Made a 'Non-Crypto' Game" (full text can be found in the reference link at the end), exploring a new path attempted by the NFT project Pudgy Penguins.

For many readers who follow the NFT space, Pudgy Penguins can be considered the only standout in recent years. Its massive distribution of tokens last year not only rewarded Pudgy Penguins holders but also broadly benefited many veteran players in the crypto ecosystem, marking the only instance in recent years that brought NFTs back into the spotlight.

However, the growth process of Pudgy Penguins has been full of twists and turns.

Initially, it was a top-tier project, but later it collapsed due to issues with its founder and was taken over by the current team. After the current team took over, they did not immediately follow the popular practices in the NFT space to develop games and expand the on-chain ecosystem. Instead, they took a more traditional IP approach, developing toys and merchandise based on its IP.

Once it regained a certain level of recognition through offline channels, it returned to the on-chain space, first issuing tokens to boost popularity, followed by launching a Layer 2 expansion on Ethereum, and then developing its gaming ecosystem based on this expansion.

Recently, it launched a new game called Pudgy Party on the Apple and Google stores, which even briefly entered the top 10 of the free games chart—Senchao's article revolves around this game.

The biggest feature of this game is that it shows almost no traces of Web 3; there are no wallet connections, no tokens, and no NFTs.

It does not promote "play-to-earn," nor does it offer "token rewards," and there are no NFT transactions. All the key elements we imagine a Web 3 blockchain game must have are absent from it.

If a player who has never been exposed to the crypto ecosystem plays this game, they would only see it as a casual mobile game and would not think it has any connection to Web 3. If a player familiar with the crypto ecosystem but not with Pudgy Penguins plays this game, they would find it hard to imagine that the team behind this game is a crypto (NFT) team.

However, it is precisely this "hidden" approach that, in my view, makes it more likely to "break the deadlock."

The brilliance of this approach lies in the fact that it no longer obsessively thinks about how to force crypto elements onto the public but instead sheds all constraints and first introduces the public to the Pudgy Penguins IP in the most familiar way.

When this game becomes popular, and more and more traditional internet players start to chase this IP, the team can naturally inform players that the essence of this IP comes from a crypto asset, which is specifically represented by those ten thousand Pudgy Penguins NFTs.

By that time, the Pudgy Penguins IP will have a broad audience and strong consensus. At that point, there will be no need for the team to guide or tempt; the big players in the community will inevitably pursue NFTs, actively learn how to set up wallets, and search for how to enter the NFT market to buy Pudgy Penguins NFTs.

In this way, the awareness that "NFTs are 'luxury goods' and 'status symbols' in the virtual world" will naturally be established.

This is a bottom-up construction method, and this method has always been a successful way for projects in the crypto ecosystem to initiate, transmit, organize, and operate.

In fact, some of the well-known projects in the NFT ecosystem were also built through this bottom-up approach in their early stages. However, when these projects attempted to expand their value and scope, they often couldn't shake off the "crypto" burden, always thinking about where to insert "tokens" and in what scenarios to add "NFTs," leading to dissatisfaction with whatever they did, resulting in a "neither here nor there" situation—if they don't include "crypto" elements, it feels like it's not a Web 3 game; if they do include "crypto" elements, they are often met with resistance from many traditional users.

Now, the new path that Pudgy Penguins is trying may provide a new idea for the future development of NFTs.

Of course, this approach is still in its early stages, and there is a long way to go before it can be deemed successful. But in any case, I find this exploration very innovative; it has shed all burdens and returned to a more natural way.

Reference link: https://www.techflowpost.com/article/detail_27971.html

We are scheduled for an online discussion on September 13, 2025 (this Saturday) at 7:30 PM.

Last time, we couldn't have the discussion due to network issues. This time, I will try to choose a good network. I suggest that if anyone has questions and is worried about not being able to communicate online, they should try to post their questions in the comments of this post.

https://x.com/Dao_Views/status/1964855926403612862

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