LogInThe surprising part is that someone was actually there to notice.
I know it might sound shocking, but Ubisoft's Champions Tactics, a recently released NFT game, is not really up to a particularly good start, becoming quite literally unplayable over the weekend due to a game-breaking matchmaking bug that would cause players to instantly lose no matter which characters they had spent their money on.
Ubisoft
In case you missed it, Champions Tactics was launched a couple of weeks ago to as little fanfare as possible, as Ubisoft neither announced nor acknowledged the release on its main social media pages, YouTube channel, or even in the 'News' section on the studio's website. Despite their best efforts to keep things hush-hush, the game still received its fair share of promotion from the gaming community, which mocked Ubisoft – a studio already plagued with numerous issues and controversies – for pushing the despised trends of NFTs and blockchain gaming in 2024.
While the game is a typical web3 project focused on siphoning hard-earned cash from players, some adventurous daredevils actually downloaded, installed, and even booted up Champions Tactics, eager to see what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately for them, playing the game was impossible over the weekend because of a user named Paulstar111, whom players initially assumed to be a cheater responsible for breaking the game's matchmaking.
The thing is, each time players were paired with Paulstar111, they would instantly lose before the match even began, resulting in a loss of rating points. When those affected by Paulstar111's unbeatable lineup demanded to ban the player, the mods did just that, sending Paulstar111 to the shadow realm for "weird behavior." However, this did little to fix the game's matchmaking, as players soon found themselves matched with another "cheater" named Schilleri11, who, like Paulstar111, seemed to follow Sun Tzu's wisdom that the greatest victory is the one that requires no battle.
The punchline to the joke that is Champions Tactics was revealed on Monday when Ubisoft developers returned to work, only to discover that both Paulstar111 and Schilleri11 were just as confused as the rest of the players and weren't responsible for rendering the game unplayable. As it turned out, the matchmaking bug was caused by the game's own code, which the developers temporarily fixed, promising to implement a more robust long-term solution in the future.
"We sincerely apologize to Schilleri11 and Paulstar111, as the problem was due to a matchmaking bug, and they were banned for security reasons. We have, of course, lifted their bans and kindly ask everyone to be understanding towards them," said the team (via PC Gamer).
As it stands, the matchmaking should be working properly by now, and those few individuals who actually decided to acquire the useless figurines can sleep soundly knowing they won't lose rating points until another bug inevitably surfaces.
Speaking of figurines, back when we first reported on the game's release, the most expensive character on Champions Tactics' marketplace was selling for $63,000 in crypto – already a mind-boggling figure considering it's an NFT game we're talking about, not a luxury car.
Well, what do you know? Over the weekend, the $63K Swift Zealot became only the fourth priciest figurine, outdone by a trio of Liquid Acolyte, Balanced Fleshreaper, and Savage Trooper (creative names, I know), which are currently listed at an absolutely insane $144 million, $264 million, and $330 million, respectively. While it's obvious that no one would ever purchase them, the prices perfectly describe Champions Tactics itself and the concept of blockchain gaming as a whole – utterly ridiculous.
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