37
Towards the end of last year I was riding pretty high on a project from a company known as DMG Entertainment, responsible for Valiant Comics one of the top comic book companies in the world. Previously known as Valiant Entertainment and founded by former Marvel editor-in-chief, Jim Shooter, the company tried branching out into the Metaverse, riding the high that it was seeing in the crypto market.
They released their Genesis Mint Pass, giving exclusive rewards such as free minting of their supposed six character NFT drop - characters that are supposed to be for their "upcoming" play-to-earn Metaverse game. They also released their first of these six characters, Punk Mambo, and everything seemed to be going according to plan. So let me take you on a little time-line:
January 26, 2022:
Season 1 Genesis Mint pass goes up for minting. There were only 500 available, at a mint price of 0.3 ETH ($750) + Gas (0.022 ETH ($55) = ~$800. Grants free minting of all six character drops, access to Discord/Twitter events/Giveaways, etc.
January 26 - February 9, 2022: First Character Reveal
Artwork revealed on Discord for the Punk Mambo character reveal, the first of "six" to be released. How to get the NFT posted two days later on 2/11/22, here:
Mint price was to be determined at 0.077 ETH/NFT, with a max free mint of five NFTs per Mint Pass (+ gas). Also released some info on NFT rarity, collaborations, POAP events and more in that time.
February 20: Punk Mambo minting for Mint Pass and allow/white-list open.
February 22: Public mint goes live.
In this time, the final artwork is also revealed, more partnerships are revealed, RaritySniper added, and Punk Mambo giveaways as a way to keep the minting moving forward. Also - a lot of comic book shilling, as well as "weekly comic book readings" on their Discord.
March 27: Punk Mambo sells out. Talks about the upcoming play-to-earn game increase, soft leaks and "updates".
A tracker is added for how long you have held a Genesis Mint Pass and/or each and every Punk Mambo NFT you have, supposedly to be used later for the play-to-earn game, never revealed exact details on this.
**The community managers, most of the project people, and more are let go at this time - with no comment from the company etc., this was unknown for ~3 months at the time until I reached out to one of the community managers (on 7/25/22) who mentioned it to me.**
"The Valiant Community comes first.": So here's a SHOE COLLAB, buy now with 30% off! - This after five weeks of silence since the NFT mint/P2E game announcement stuff.
This was posted from their new "community manager", a bot because as mentioned previously - they released the vast majority of their staff.
"You've waited long enough. Prepare for...!" (Nothing.)
July 25: "The Future Revealed..." June 29th - the next Iconic character will be revealed, along with updates for the P2E game, more character drops, and more!
Ninjak coming soon! (On August 19th, find out more! Also, we have a four paragraph story reveal for the game on that date so don't miss it... oh, and don't forget those four paragraphs are spread over three weeks, just to keep you on the edge of your seat....!)
August 19, August 26, and September 2 respectively: Three, brief "story-like 'introductions'" to the play-to-earn game. Nothing revealed about it, just some brief, little quest dialogue thing. No trailer, no hints at rewards, no use for the "hours" we've held the NFTs, nothing.
Since September 2, 2022 (~100 days): Radio. Silence.
So in the long run, am I sad? Maybe a little. Not because the project didn't work out. Not because I lost, what at the time was ~$1k (about $550 now), but because what I thought were a few fail-safes, were not fail-safes after all. I figured a fairly renowned legitimate business would not try to do something like this to it's investors. A few people on the team are known in the crypto community, and they as well got screwed over by this project. I'm not saying there's no hope, there's really no reason for me to even try to sell the Mint Pass and two Punk Mambo's that I have as I'd get $50 back, so if they just so happen to decide to care again I've got a head start I guess.
Let this be a warning to you all, even if everything looks good, even if you check a hundred boxes - things can and still do go wrong. Don't invest money that you can't afford to lose, because one way or another, shit happens.
