'Blockchain-powered' game storefront reportedly shutting down and taking customers' games with it
The elevator pitch behind Robot Cache is simple: what if there was a digital storefront like Steam, but you could sell games to other users once you had finished playing them? Oh, and it was all powered by the blockchain. Sorry to spoil the ending, but it didn't end up making much of a splash since it launched in 2018—and now a Reddit thread from user kallreven alleges that it's gone for good.
"Thank you sincerely for joining us on this journey," reads the screenshot of an email purportedly from the Robot Cache Team. "While we gave it everything we had, we weren't able to attract the user base and sales traction needed to keep the store running. As a result, we've made the difficult decision to shut down the Robot Cache store.
"The store will officially close in 30 days. After that point, the platform will no longer be accessible, and users will no longer be able to play games purchased through Robot Cache, even if they've downloaded a full copy." It's the nightmare scenario of games with DRM. The email continues that the team can't let people keep their games because the site's "verification system" will go offline. Any "iron," the site's digital currency, will similarly be rendered kaput.
We have reached out to Robot Cache for comment since nothing on the site or Robot Cache's social media channels necessarily corroborate this screenshot, but another user claiming to be a Robot Cache customer in the same thread, shadowds, claims to have received the same email. It appears that the storefront has been operating under radio silence for a while. The site's X account hasn't made an original post since 2023, and its Discord server only has one remaining moderator.
"I think none of the original team is still on the company," That moderator, eazykiller, posted on the Robot Cache Discord last May. "Shortly after launch, most of them quit and not even we mods got any communication from the company side since years."
According to a 2018 report from GamesIndustry.biz, the storefront initially sought to secure $15 million via a token generation event, reportedly falling $5 million short. inXile head Brian Fargo founded the platform and spoke highly of it prior to launch, and Robot Cache even snagged an AMD partnership, but the project didn't have legs. We have reached out to Fargo for comment, and will update this story when if hear back.
A 2025 report to investors available on Robot Cache's website states the storefront only generated $532 in revenues from game software sales in 2024. The same report shares that as of December that year, the company had an accumulated deficit of over 30 million dollars.
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