The Pudgy Penguins team has announced that it is ending development of the mobile game Pudgy Party, which launched less than a year ago. The studio said it is reallocating resources to Pudgy World, describing the browser-based project as a larger and more promising product for expanding the Pudgy Penguins universe.
“We’re incredibly proud of what Pudgy Party achieved: reaching No. 1 on the App Store, surpassing one million downloads, and building a strong player community. At the same time, we can already see that Pudgy World is on the verge of surpassing those milestones and going even further, which is why we’re now fully focused on its development. We’re grateful to every player and community member who supported Pudgy Party and helped make it what it became,” the team said.
Community Reaction
The announcement was met with backlash from players, with the main criticism centered on the game’s NFT-based skins. Users purchased these items for significant amounts of money, with comments mentioning prices of up to $5,000 for a single skin. With the game being shut down, those assets effectively lose much of their utility, as the team has not confirmed whether the items will be transferable to Pudgy World.
Some community members have proposed a compromise: allowing skins to be carried over to Pudgy World, granting former owners special status, or providing equivalent items in the new game. Others have suggested making the old skins unavailable to new players so they remain a distinctive badge for those who played Pudgy Party.
For many players, the issue goes beyond the money they spent. Because every unlocked skin could be resold on a marketplace, some users viewed Pudgy Party as a way to earn money and invested heavily in cosmetics with the expectation of future returns.
Some reactions have been even more critical, describing the closure of a game from one of the largest teams in the space as a troubling signal that raises questions about the long-term reliability of similar projects.