Azurbala today released an art preview for their Azurians NFT. It’s safe to say that it didn’t go down well with their top fans, who had various different kinds of negative feedback which they were swift to share on Twitter.
Azurbala’s Azurians Preview
Last night, Azurbala released an art preview of their new Azurians NFTs – a collection of 80 NFTs given out to some of their strong community.
It didn’t seem to match the aesthetics which they’ve built up, specifically, the jungle/castle theme. To clarify, the profile picture NFTs are bizarre, almost unexplainable, and look totally unrelated.
The full preview video can be found here, through Azurbala’s Twitter.
Reaction from their Fans
Certainly for the Azurbala team, the reaction to the new Azurians wasn’t quite what they’d hoped for. Immediately upon the launch of the art previews, Twitter went crazy over them.
One user, @_ShaniceBest, said: “Respectfully wtf is this fam? What vibes were being directed here?” – this mirrored the general message that people were putting across.
Another user, @brianhc, added: “This project got really weird, really fast. From a yacht club valet to demonic jungle characters created by burning books.”
Another interesting point that Brian added was the sharp decrease in floor price – 40% – since the promo/preview video was launched.
Basically, someone called their bluff. @_MouseDev said: “Calling it now. The reveal is fake. great PR move to get mass attention on the project before replacing it with better art.” Although, immediately, one of Tally Labs’ team members shut this down.
Response from the Team Regarding Azurians
The collection’s founder, Jenkins the Valet, has written a response to Twitter upon reading feedback and the initial reactions to Azurbala’s Azurians.
He said: “Thank you to everyone who took time out of their day to join spaces and offer constructive feedback. We took a risk. It didn’t pay off. We just wrapped a call with the full team going over the feedback + discussing the next steps. We’ll course correct. Tally Labs is here to stay.”
(To clarify, Tally Labs is the company behind Azurbala and some other projects.)
What is Azurbala?
To clarify, Azurbala is a collection of ‘storytelling NFTs’, which are currently trending, created by Jenkins the Valet and their team. Bored & Dangerous holders can burn their NFTs in exchange for an Azur Root (a sacred item within Azurbala that can be redeemed for a PFP NFT). It is a fantasy-based NFT collection made up of factions, each of which (including House Calypso, The Sprawls, and more) has its own dedicated experience on the NFTs’ website.