Raini Studios Shuts Down NFT Card Game After Four Years
Another crypto game is calling it quits. Raini Studios announced Thursday that *Raini: The Lords of Light*, its Avalanche-based NFT card battler, will shut down for good on July 21. Players have until then to claim their final rewards—about $3,340 worth of RST tokens split between June and July payouts.
The game, which borrowed heavily from *Hearthstone* and other deck-building titles, let players battle with NFT cards featuring crypto in-jokes—Dogecoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, even Sam Bankman-Fried made appearances. It was fun while it lasted, but player numbers dropped, and keeping the servers running just didn’t make sense anymore.
Why It’s Ending
Sam Moody, CEO of Ceden (Raini’s parent company), put it bluntly in a Discord post: The game paid out over $1 million in prizes to players, but lately, activity had slowed to a trickle. Maintaining it was costing too much, both for the studio and RST token holders, who were stuck with inflation from dwindling rewards.
It’s a familiar story in crypto gaming. Projects launch with big promises, attract early hype, then struggle to keep players engaged once the novelty wears off. *Lords of Light* isn’t the first to fold this year, and it probably won’t be the last.
What’s Next for Raini?
The studio isn’t giving up on games altogether. Instead, it’s pivoting to two new titles—*Lucha Throwdown* and *Uncaged: The Jon Jones Brawler*—both of which sound more action-focused than card battles. There’s also a shift in how RST tokens will work.
Gone are the play-to-earn rewards that kept *Lords of Light* running. Now, Raini plans to burn tokens (essentially taking them out of circulation) using a cut of studio revenue and a small transaction tax. The idea is to make RST scarcer—and hopefully more valuable—over time.
Moody called the shutdown “bittersweet,” acknowledging the game that started Raini’s journey while looking ahead to new projects. Whether that optimism is justified remains to be seen.
As for RST’s price? It jumped 14% after the announcement, but let’s be real—it’s still down 99% from its 2024 peak. At $0.0016 per token, the market cap sits under $1 million. Not exactly a roaring comeback.
For now, players have a few weeks left to log in, battle, and collect their final rewards. After July 21, *Lords of Light* joins the growing list of crypto games that couldn’t quite stick the landing.
