Wildcard
Six months of early access before multiplayer ended
A free-to-play 2v2 PC arena game mixing MOBA and collectible-card play, made by The Wildcard Alliance, a subsidiary of Words With Friends co-founder Paul Bettner's Playful Studios.
- Studio backing (2022 round)
Recorded announced studio backing; allocation to this game and cash actually received were not disclosed.
Funding
| Round | Date | Announced | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series A | 2022 | ||
| June 2025 round (joint with Thousands) | 2025 |
|
Announced is what was said at the time. Cash actually received is rarely disclosed and is not assumed to match.
People
| Name | Role | Period | Now | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Bettner | — | Co-founder of Playful Studios; "Making: Something new!" | Oct 2026 | |
| Katy Drake Bettner | — | Co-Founder, Smartypants (since December 2024) | Oct 2026 |
Timeline
14 June 2022
Playful Studios announced a new subsidiary, with its game described as built on Polygon.
18 June 2025
The company announced a joint round with Thousands; part of the target remained expected within 60 days. Financing terms are recorded below.
26 June 2025
Paul Bettner said the new funding gave the studio the runway to set the date, having earlier pointed to the summer.
21 October 2025
Free to play, after a demo in Steam Next Fest from 13 October. The game itself had no blockchain features; they sat on the Thousands platform and used the WC token.
27 March 2026
Reported by BlockBeats as the token's generation event. WC had earlier been airdropped to early players and NFT holders.
27 April 2026
The Wildcard Premier League, franchise systems and on-chain rewards ended with it. Thousands stayed online until 7 May 2026 so season one prize winners could complete identity checks.
How it ended
On 27 April 2026 Wildcard ended all multiplayer play, including ranked matches, matchmaking and tournaments, on the same day its sister platform Thousands and the Wildcard Premier League announced they were winding down. Thousands said there was "not a sustainable path forward for the network". The team said the Wildcard IP and game systems would be kept, but announced no version to follow, and by September 2026 the game was no longer available on Steam.
What happened next
- Recovery27 April 2026
Thousands said the league's remaining USDC would be airdropped pro rata to franchise owners based on assets held and platform activity, and that remaining WC tokens would be burned and the planned THOU token would not launch. Whether the distribution was completed was not established.
Still alive
Open spot
Wildcard is gone. Is your card game still running?
Spotlight your project here.
Sources
14 sources behind this page.
- 1Former Blockchain Game Star Project Wildcard's Post-TGE Market Cap Drops Below One Million, Peak Round Funding $46 Million · BlockBeats (republished on Bitget News) · Mar 2026
- 2Wildcard is playable in Steam Next Fest from 13th October · BlockchainGamer.biz (Steel Media) · Oct 2025
- 3Wildcard to launch on Steam in October 2025 · BlockchainGamer.biz (Steel Media) · Jun 2025
- 4Wildcard's web3 meta layer Thousands is closing down · BlockchainGamer.biz (Steel Media) · Apr 2026
- 5Wildcard Multiplayer Shutdown Announced · Blockchaingames.fun
- 6Words With Friends Co-Founder Raises $46M for Web 3 Game Studio · CoinDesk · Jun 2022
- 7Wildcard Ceases Operations · eGamers.io · Apr 2026
- 8Wildcard Set for October 2025 Release · GAMES.GG · Jun 2025
- 9LinkedIn profile of Katy Drake Bettner · LinkedIn (self-published profile, viewed by a person) · user-editable
- 10Paul (@paulbettner) account record · Paul on X (account id 14650805), retrieved via twitterapi.io
Show 4 moreShow fewer
- 11Thousands and Wildcard Announce $9M Fundraise Co-Led by Arbitrum Gaming Ventures and Paradigm · PR Newswire (release issued by The Wildcard Alliance) · Jun 2025
- 12Words with Friends Co-Founder raises $46M to launch Web3 game franchise · PR Newswire (release issued by The Wildcard Alliance) · Jun 2022
- 13Wildcard on Steam · Steam (Valve Corporation)
- 14Search of @paulbettner posts mentioning Wildcard, June to mid-July 2022 · X, retrieved via twitterapi.io · Jun 2022
Every figure above is clickable and opens the sources behind it. Copies were stored when each source was read, so a citation still resolves after the page it came from is gone.