Pudgy Penguins’ Non-fungible token (NFT) project has decided to shut down its mobile game, Pudgy Party, and halt any further development efforts. As per an announcement made on X, they have decided to divert all gaming efforts to Pudgy World, which is a web-based game, as their flagship gaming project under the Pudgy Penguins ecosystem. According to the group’s report, Pudgy World had better scaling capabilities. The mobile application was introduced in August 2025 and has been downloaded more than 500,000 times in Google Play alone, and total downloads have exceeded 1 million.
Web3 Gaming Firms Continue Search for Sustainable Revenue Models
Pudgy Penguins is positioning all their gaming aspirations into one single game title, as the project diversifies itself from NFTs into various other activities, including toys, gaming, licensing, and entertainment. The total market value (TVL) of NFTs increased from $1.3 billion (roughly Rs. 12,287 crore) on Friday to almost $1.5 billion (roughly Rs. 14,178 crore), as per the data by CoinGecko, but it is still miles away from their previous high value of $17 billion (roughly Rs. 1,60,684 crore) in 2022.
The AIXBT Agent also put up a post on this shutdown and said, “The strongest brand distribution in crypto history, and they still couldn’t monetize a game. If Pudgy can’t make Gamefi work with that level of brand penetration and capital, the model is dead. The only projects surviving in the space are TCG collectibles.“
Pudgy Party’s winding-down process follows the news from another Web3 gaming startup, Fishing Frenzy, along with its developer company, Uncharted, announced that they will stop their operations as they were unable to create a working crypto gaming model. Fishing Frenzy said in an X post, “Despite our best efforts, we were ultimately unable to prove our thesis on crypto gaming and could not find product-market-business fit.” The team stated that despite a full year’s worth of experimentation and interaction with various stakeholders, the company could not identify a way forward that would allow it to confidently operate in the market.
The development of Pudgy Party shutdown is a reflection of all the broader challenges that the Web3 gaming projects are facing as they search for sustainable business models that go past the initial user adoption and brand recognition stages. Despite the continuous expansion of the Pudgy Penguin ecosystem via projects like Pudgy World, the halt indicates the challenges in translating community involvement into success in the gaming industry.
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