‘Stranger Things’ Netflix NFTs Face Fan Backlash

NFT platform Candy Digital has released another “Stranger Things” minigame for Netflix, where players must solve riddles to earn NFTs of the stars of the show. But some fans aren’t happy.

The “Stranger Things” NFTs are 11,111 unique tokens on Candy Digital’s Palm blockchain—an Ethereum layer 2 sidechain—that signify ownership of one of five digital posters.

Back in April, Netflix quietly teased the NFT partnership with hidden messages in the Season 4 trailer for its hit original show.

Last week, about 4,700 players earned a free NFT poster of Eleven, the show’s lead played by Millie Bobbie Brown, by playing a mystery game involving a virtual “Stranger Things” laboratory.

This week, a new round of the minigame is live on the site. Players must solve “I am Hell’s Master” riddles to earn one of four free NFT posters of characters Mike Wheeler, Jonathan Byers, Will Byers, or Argyle. 

Response to the news was mixed. Some crypto enthusiasts and fans of the show said they enjoyed the minigame.

Among those interested in earning NFTs, at least one “Stranger Things” fan reported being repeatedly logged out of their account while trying to complete the challenge.

But when the “Stranger Things” Twitter account shared the NFT news last week, other fans were outraged.

“You think we care about NFTs?” one fan wrote, along with a GIF of a man shooting a gun. Another “Stranger Things” fan wrote off NFT technology as a “grift.”

“I deeply love Stranger Things, but I’m profoundly disappointed that Netflix decided it’d be a good idea to run an NFT grift on its fans,” the fan wrote. “I’m not going anywhere near this trash.”

“I am once again asking Netflix to STOP making NFTs of my favorite shows. I can’t handle the grief,” another fan said, referring to Netflix’s previous Ethereum NFTs released for its sci-fi show “Love, Death and Robots.”

Others called the NFTs “bullshit,” replied with vomiting emojis and crying GIFs, and even told the company to “fuck off.”

NFT backlash is nothing new—in the video game industry, many were outraged by Ubisoft’s push into Tezos NFTs and Square Enix’s interest in NFT gaming. Fan outrage against NFTs has even led to the cancellation of multiple indie game NFT integrations.

Candy’s Netflix NFTs and minigame mark the platform’s first foray into major Hollywood partnerships. Prior to Netflix, Candy established partnerships with Major League Baseball (MLB), the WWE, and Getty Images.

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