Update: It has come to my attention fans of Fer.al managed to revive the game under the name EMUferal! If you still miss this game, you can play it again with all creatures available to you.
Watch a video about it here.
Wildworks is the company that owns Animal Jam and Fer.al. In 2017 the partnership with National Geographic ended, the old CEO stepped down and Clark Stacey took over. Reportedly this is when everything started going downhill.
On the
27th of November, Fero, one of the official Fer.al discord server admins, announced Wildworks has been working on a blockchain/NFT based game called Cinder. This was quite a shock, as Fer.al is still in BETA with no official release date in sight. Along with this, CEO Clark Stacey wrote a bit about the decision, which you can view
here. However, What Clark had to say only infuriated the Fer.al community more. He seemed to justify his reasonings behind choosing NFTs despite the negative impact it has on the environment. He even went as far as to explain
why NFTs are bad.
inside spoilers I'll put a screenshot on the left and a typed out message to the right for screen readers.
 | I’m going to save the most important question of all for last: WHY. Why are we embracing NFTs and a blockchain-driven game economy in our new game? If you’re just here for that answer, skip down a ways and save yourself some time. Here we go: NFTs are damaging to the environment because of the enormous energy consumption they require I agree this is true of the dominant blockchain in the NFT space, Ethereum. Ethereum, like Bitcoin, depends on a “proof of work” system that requires ridiculous amounts of computing power to validate transactions, and consequently consumes ridiculous amounts of electricity to power, cool, and secure those computers. Most of that electricity is generated with fossil fuels, and the combined carbon footprint of Bitcoin and Ethereum exceeds that of many developed countries. However, [the next part is edited in] I am no longer interested in what you have to say
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Clark Stacey also did an AMA on Discord. I personally wasn't online when the AMA was held, but I've read the most pressing questions have not been answered, especially not race related ones. For those unaware: Wildworks has a long history of cultural appropriation in Animal Jam which has been criticised for years and rarely gets set straight. (second screenshot from the [FAN] Feralians Against NFTs Discord server [
here] ) Pressing questions about solana, the "currency" Wildworks plans on using, also seemed to have gone unanswered.
 | - Cuteypie
— 28/11/2021
We were taught to love and PROTECT the environment, yet this is how we get treated when we speak out? Just food for thought /gen
- crime | carnivore collective
— 28/11/2021
Fer.al's development has been paused while still during beta. Is this because of cinder? Is fer.al going to be a cancelled project or is this just a hiatus?
- daisy !! ♡
— 28/11/2021
You have ONLY provided sources FROM Solona, you need multiple sources to gather a proper idea. This is a BUSINESS DECISION, you should NOT be counting on your fanbase to do your research for you, thats irresponsible on SEVERAL levels. You say that this is going to be part of a game not marketed for children, but as many games and franchises not meant for children have learned, lil dudes are going to follow it anyway, especially when it has a pipeline from children-based to adult. Please, as someone who has played animal jam since the Beta, i genuinely hate to see you go down this route. just, put the money aside for once. and give your POC workers a chance to shine and put in their two cents, because their voices would have been important for a younger me to hear as a poc with little rep growing up.
- Jahgoda
— 28/11/2021
Stop ignoring IMPORTANT QUESTIONS REGARDING OUR FUTURE ON THIS EARTH + How is a NFT based game HELPING THE ENVIRONMENT???? You LITERALLY STATED it'll be LESS harmful which is still harmful??? How is that helpful????? How will that actually BENEFIT the environment? You are contradicting yourself. + Proof Solona is on the route to being carbon neutral by the end of 2021? + What happens if reports end up being wrong and Solona is NOT carbon neutral by the end of 2021? How will you compensate for this environmentally? * again (shouldn't even have to say this), please provide a source OUTSIDE OF SOLONA'S OWN COMPANY SO WE CAN GET MULTIPLE SOURCESliterally even a 5th grader knows multiple sources are important when researching * Stop asking us for information. You are a grown adult. You can do it yourself.If you are unaware of what we are saying that alone proves you have not done enough research.
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 | - liyro | IGN: Ballbreaker
— 30/11/2021
Fer.al racism / appropriation list incase you need evidence of it! This is only the stuff I know, so if you know anything more, feel free to tell me and i'll add on. >headdresses and feathers >approving artwork with nazi imagery or from pro nazi artists [hyenine1] >butchering EA myths such as the kirin and having almost all asian myths in game, despite being an incredibly white company >hat with dreads >south east asian and soul food inspired food the myrefolk have [pheasant feet, eyes, bone broth etc] are constantly bashed and seen as gross by all species >kawaii set. treating japan like its trendy and cute >twiggles being treated as lesser humans which. Screams of racism >blocking BLM in chat filters but cop and blue live matters isnt >sparks being white/colonizer coded. the sparks own most of the shops and rule over feral, which screams of colonization. >dahlia being whitewashed. she was originally dark skinned, but now she's pale pink with euro features >ignoring POC/SEA whove said time and time again that constantly bashing their food is. Despicable >rat king masks looks eerily like traditional african + African american masks, komodori/rat religion being seen as creepy >all white staff in an area said to have racial diversity, not uplifting many POC jambassodors from my knowledge >drawing offc art of white jambassodors wearing headdresses >fero headdress pfp >making an item set based on dotd and calling it “spooky” as if honoring the dead is something to be afraid about >released a promo box in 2019 called “wild summer” that depicted a lot of cheesy “native aesthetic” with one of the promo art animals wearing a head feather >adding onto the first point, despite their claims of removing the items and feeling sorry from clark, headfeathers were added again to AJPW + still in store sale today >scottish fold cat bundle in AJPW advertised with a celtic knot, which is traditionally irish, not scottish. >peddler set, SEA stereotype >the matroyshka hat is actually a kokoshnik with very poorly made matroyshkas on it. The fact they don't call it something like matroyshka kokoshnik or just a kokoshnik is very disrespectful (I'm not even sure anyone puts matroyshkas on a kokoshnik) >Ushanka hat/furry hat.They call it the furry hat in AJC and in AJPW, call it the ushanka hat, which is saying ear flap hat hat. Also the way the snowflake is placed kinda looks like how hammer and sickle logos would be placed on ushanksas in real life. >posting CLEARLY when the hyenine reports were at their peak a "no drama llama" post, directly targeted at victims/people who were trying to shed light on his predatory and pedo behaviors + him being a nazifur >No proof of a Native American tribe saying Headdresses and feathers [which can still be bought in PW] were OK ingame. Which tribe? When did they contact you? Do they have headdresses and feathers as a custom in their culture? >Komodori are immigrants but depicted as dirty, constantly have their religion dunked on and are known thieves and criminals. They are also depicted as "sneaky lizards", such as them being in an unknown Secret Society and being pirates.
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The entire Fer.al community has been against this decision the second it was announced and has been voicing their and stressing the severity of the matter since. The admins did not like this however and tried to quiet it down with an announcement on the 3rd of December. It states:
"Hi all 😃
The primary purpose of this Discord server is to provide a safe place for players to discuss all things Fer.al.
Rule NUMBER ONE of this server has always been "Be cool, be civil, & most of all, be kind!" This is an all-encompassing rule, and therefore ALL discussions must remain civil and kind, even when debating whether pineapple belongs on pizza. We appreciate your passion and want to thank some of you for sharing constructive feedback over the past few days. We have created
[email protected], a new email group, to ensure your Cinder-related feedback and questions go directly to the WildWorks management team. If you have feedback on Fer.al or Animal Jam, please use the appropriate in-game feedback features."
Needless to say the Fer.al community went... well, Feral. With WWadmin now online and talking, people started asking questions and voicing their concerns. Genuinely good and professional questions were being asked, but WWadmin only responded to silly joke messages. This infuriated the community only MORE so more people started asking questions.
This is when the silencing began.
WWadmin installed a 5 second cooldown in the general chat this was happening in. #feral. WWadmin still refused to answer important questions and there started being rumours about people getting banned for their genuine concerns. Eventually, WWadmin did start to reply to a couple of serious messages.... but the answers were far from helpful. (these screenshots have to manually be retyped because some of the messages have been edited. my apologies for any mistakes)
 | - Creative_Creature
If you guts at ww are reading this, how do you guys genuinely feel about the situation/NFTs in general? (If you can say anything about this, that is)
- wwadmin (In reply to Creative_Creature)
I am reading and I'll give you my honest thoughts.
I think that many NFTs being created in the world right now are trash and will lose their value. I think NFTs in games have TON of promis, and are something I'm really excited about.
Would I spend thousands of dollars on some weird piece of artwork NFT? No. I would not and have not.
Would I spend money on NFTs for some games I think look cool? Yes, I have and I will continue to do so.
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 | - Minshi
I mean this is the nicest way possible, but will we ever be getting another community manager?? Someone we can have more contact with who can listen to our feedback?
- Yaamstrocity | Loki
i respect y'all. and what you're trying to do, saying to be kind. but as some have said. we've sent feedback over the entirety of ferals development and there's a lot of it that's been entirely ignored. important questions we're asking now aren't being answered (not just here)
- WWadmin (In reply to Yaamstrocity | Loki)
Come on... The team has implemented so many things you all suggested. Like, a crazy amount. We simply cannot respond to every feedback, criticism, question or comment. It's not possible.
- Lizzy Fizzy X3
Looks at Yandere Dev
Looks at this situation
- Thesuncatcher | Dreamer
We talked directly to Clark but he didn't care. Why does CinderNFT keep silencing people. What is Feral's state.
Bumping this yet again.
|
 | - TwistedHeart
Unless there is crypto that doesn't harm the environment, there will never be support from us. If you're saying Solana is less, that still means it's harming the environment.
- wwadmin (in reply to TwistedHeart)
But you support using Discord? Swiping your debit and credit card? Driving a car? Having lights on in your house?
Nearly everything we do as humans hurts the environment. We each have to do our part to limit the impact. To say "I'm never going to support NFTs/or crypto until they don't harm the environment" means you also can't support anything that uses electricity
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These replies are... not helpful, I say as I try to stay as unbiased and composed as I can be when explaining this. At this point many had a hard time staying composed as well, yet a large number of people did and respectfully asked and demanded questions to pressing matters. Then when wwadmin saw things were not going as they wanted them to go, they turned on a SERVER-WIDE 30 MINUTE BREAK and stopped responding. It is till on a 30 minute break as I type this.
With the community now in the dark about their future, many started saying their goodbyes. Many took their 30 minute break to write lengthy messages about why this is wrong, how they're feeling and how much grief this situation has caused them. Some MODS ended up leaving too.
Everyone collectively mourned and connected with each other for hours as no official sources dared to say anything... So people in the community started doing it for them.
They found the official site for the NFT game and were infuriated even more when they read the descriptions and the release date. [official website:
Cinder.io]
 | [official Cinder website]THE CINDER PROJECTCinder is a digital dreamworld made possible by blockchain technology. It’s a crypto-native social hub, creative commons, and free-form MMO community that’s evolving rapidly and empowering players in new ways. The world we inhabit is connected to Cinder through the Solana blockchain. The creatures of art and math we know as NFTs can cross into Cinder and dwell there as citizens. They offer us a bridge to this new world, and ask us to shape it with them. |
 | PLAYABLE NFTsThe Cinder Fae are 11,111 exclusive avatars designed and curated by our artists, ready to enter the world of Cinder the day they are minted. Each is an extraordinary work of digital art, and they also represent exclusive, playable game avatars. All possess a combination of traits that will never be duplicated in Cinder. NFT owners will also enjoy many exclusive benefits outside the game:• Community OG tag on Discord• Access to exclusive IRL and Cinder events• Surprise airdrops • Beta access to new features• Whitelist access to future drops• ...and much more to be announced |
 | COMMUNITYYou can connect your NFT avatar to Cinder on the day it’s minted and join other NFT holders in the world immediately. No vague roadmaps to a working virtual world someday in the future -- Cinder will be there on day one.How can we promise this? Because we’ve been building and testing the platform for Cinder for two years with another game. It has its own community and wasn’t engineered around blockchain tech, so we took some scaffolding from that world, formed a new team devoted to innovation in crypto gaming, and set them loose with the head start of a fully functional MMO platform.We’re building a platform anyone can use to create their own amazing avatars, fashion, and hangouts; tokenize, collect, play, and OWN them; and trade/sell them through an easy-to-use marketplace. |
 | Phase 1:- Beta development and testing
- Cinder branching complete
- Cinder Fae NFT production complete
- Solana blockchain & wallet integration
Phase 2: - November 2021- Cinder announcement
- Cinder.io launch
- Influencer partnerships
- Discord/Instagram/Twitter launch
- Countdown to mint!
Phase 3: - January 2022- Cinder NFT avatar drop
- Cinder.io game portal live
- Cinder game live
- Roadmap reveal
Phase 4:- Avatar editor beta
- Room editor beta
- Live events for NFT owners announced
- In-game personal NFT galleries
- Countdown to new avatar mint!
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The fer.al community has been used. NEVER in the entire development stage was the Fer.al community made aware THIS would be the end goal. We've been lied to.
• They told us Cinder would be an entirely separate game from Fer.al, instead it turns out to be a complete copy. The Fae, the world you see there. It is all Fer.al.
• Fer.al is still in BETA with no release date in sight. Yet Cinder, will BE RELEASED NEXT JANUARY. further confirming a large majority, if not all the Fer.al code, has been copy pasted for Cinder.
• Wildworks has already made influencer partnerships, making those familiar with Animal Jam's Jambassadors very uneasy.
People in the community have also been silenced when trying to inform those uninformed by removing their comment or straight up blocking them. The situation is very dire and unprofessional, hence why I felt like I needed to make this post. Wildworks has a literal DECADE worth of untrustworthiness, data/security breaches, cultural insensitivity/appropriation/racism, not helping minors when groomed and shown a SEVERE AND WELL-KNOWN LACK OF SUPPORT FOR THEIR USERBASE.
Even if you are personally involved in NFTs, you do NOT want to invest in Wildwork's game. They have shown a lack of support for every community they've created and only seek monetary gain. They will not help you when your NFT has been stolen. They will not help you when your account has been hacked and your personal info has been leaked. This is a pattern they have had for a long long while with Animal Jam and you do not want to invest in repeated behaviour.
Some other helpful screenshots and knowledge I think are good to know, but could not find a good place to insert them in. This also includes a summary in the second screenshot:
 | [proof of Clark talking badly about the community]
floof
— Today at 19:44i found an archive of the article where clark calls us a lynch mob: http://web.archive.org/web/20211204011753/https://clarkstacey.medium.com/doing-the-math-on-solana-nfts-c1d074f273a6 it’s in the final paragraph. One final point bears mentioning, however. Participating in uninformed cross-network online lynch mobs entails far more energy consumption than Solana NFT transactions. At the end of the day, our path to global decarbonization requires all of us to individually examine where our electricity comes from and how much of it we use for everyday tasks. WildWorks is looking for innovative ways to reduce our games’ carbon footprint, and NFTs will be one way we do that in 2022. What are you doing? yeah, screw this guy. mods, feel free to pin. i think the original version of the article needs to be seen too. don’t let clark cover his tracks. |
 | [Short summary of events] - ArchaicArchaeologist
— Yesterday at 04:16
Stage 1:-WildWorks CEO Clark Stacey announces that a new, NFT-based, block-chain game will be in the works, and has been for a bit. -Everyone, knowing the NFTs are cryptocurrency and highly immoral (dangerous to the environment and highly dangerous security wise), disagreed. -The discord has been up in flames for about a week in protestStage 2: The Announcement-Pending lack of formal communication in about 5 days, we finally received an announcement by wwadmin tonight to remain "kind" and "civil" and to not be "toxic" -Everyone promptly responded thusly: -Everyone was trying to get answers from wwadmin about various things (Racism, pile problems, cultural insensitivity, lack of communication, etc) -WWAdmin pointedly dodged these questions to respond to "haha funny" questions -Everyone began to grow angrier -WWAdmin increased the timer on #feral to 5 mintes. -More pointed questions, still no answers. -Reveals that there has been banning of people asking these pointed questions. -Riots. -30 Minute Slow mode timer ON ALL CHANNELS -RiotsStage 3: Misc Things** -Cinder is reportedly using the same "sources" as fer.al, as according to WWAdmin, everyone noticed the similarities, this was never re-answered -WWAdmin compared the intense usage of energy from NFTs to "using discord" and "swiping a credit/debit card" or "driving a car". This was then changed. Many people found out they are an AVID NFT owner/supporter -Clark Stacy has an openseas account with a 4K$ Cat Girl NFT, and that wwadmin themselves is a very big supporter of the Cinder server, with around 70-140$ in nitro boosts
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 | [Information about how else blockchain transactions impact the world] - Fresh_Hell
— Yesterday at 02:59
it's worse than that. this is a false equivalence. blockchain transactions use a criminal amount of the world's electrical power. it's the direct cause of power shortages experienced sporadically in many major cities. people have died in extremes of temperature because of this. because of a power shortage caused directly by cryptocurrencies, and especially by the nft boom. cryptocurrencies, and now the recent nft boon, are the direct cause of the growing global silicon shortage. this silicon shortage directly affects everyone's daily life. there are students who can't do their school work because of it, people who can't do their jobs. they can't earn money because they don't have a working computer. they can't buy a new computer because the silicon shortage has rendered them prohibitively expensive. worse still, it has been disastrous for healthcare, especially in highly digitized countries. blockchain isn't just a horrific environmental problem for the future. it's a horrific humanitarian problem right now. it kills.
|
 | [Information about electricity and fossil fuels] - Geologist Tofu
— 01/12/2021
If any crypto company says they're carbon-free: they're a goddamn liar. They utilize materials that more than likely have been extracted using fossil fuels, processed using fossil fuels, shipped using fossil fuels, etc. And the energy itself to power these computers is astronomically huge, allow me to put it in perspective. The average American household uses as much energy as there is stored in a 20 foot shipping container filled with AA alkaline batteries in a year: aka ~9155 kWh. Now, the amount of energy used in one single day of Crypto mining is equal to 24,000 of these containers, that is equal to ~219,724,027 kWh. That is enough energy to provide every commercial building in the United States for 2 whole months. All of that in a single day. Source: https://qz.com/2023032/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin-use/
|
 | [Clark AMA answer. These gloss over the cultural appropriation, confirm Solona is not Carbon Free and confirm Feral is tied to Cinder via NFT finances.]
- Why were cultural representation issues in feral never addressed? You've butchered the Kokoshnik by naming it the "Matroshka Hat" while also never bothering to put Slavic mythology or cultural elements in feral, you've also misrepresented Mayan culture multiple times! There's also countless other instances present in Feral. The least you could've done was made an "inspiration dex" where people could see the real life culture/item it was based off
Thats a very good idea - Clark, would you be able to wait until Solana is nearly completely enviro friendly if you do this?It's why we're doing it now. Cinder will not begin minting until the end of the year, when Solana has reached its carbon neutral goal
- I cannot change your opinion alone, but many people don't want this game At All. You are simply ignoring the people who line your wallets with money, the only audience who would actually think of playing Cinder. If that was true I woudn't be here with you now. Again, this is not the audience for Cinder. I've described the Cinder demographic already. I'm not here to change your opinions about NFTs. I'm here because I respect this community and think they deserve to understand our reasoning behind this decision. Yes, I AM aware that we may lose many of you as supporters of WildWorks. That's not my intention, and I hope our actions will prove our intentions, but I am well aware of the risk. And yes, I care a great deal about that or I wouldn't be here talking to you. My 16 year old daughter is the quintessence of the Feral community. We're doing this because I believe ultimately we will be serving our audience better, and be better able to support all of our games, including Feral.
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WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS INFORMATION?
• If you are currently in the Animal Jam or Fer.al community, simply do not give them any money anymore.
Cancel your membership. Do not buy a new season pass.... And if you can get it over your heart, try to move on. Though I'm certain people will understand if you don't Fer.al and Animal Jam have been safe spaces for me too and it has caused my great grief these past few days. It's ok to feel betrayed. It's ok to feel hurt. Your feeling are genuine and valid. Take care of yourself first, okay?
• Share this around.
Make people in the community aware of what's been going on... Everyone deserves to know the TRUTH of what Wildworks is doing and how it's impacting the world. Especially what the company teaching you about the environment is actually doing to the environment.
• Add more information.
If I got something wrong or you've got more information about the situation, PLEASE DO ADD IT! There's been a lot of information being thrown around in the little time this all happened. it is very likely I might have missed something. I would very much appreciate everyone's help!
• Share how you feel/ bump this thread
It's important people are aware of this and because it is such devastating news, feel free to speak your truth here. It's ok to grief a video game. It's ok to grief all the friends you made, characters you created and all the fun you had. You're not alone in feeling all this hurt and I hope you feel comfortable enough to open your heart here.
