Finally some good buyout news: A writer just bought back the game she co-created from a blockchain company so it 'doesn’t end up being turned into AI slop'

After years of buyouts, consolidation, and layoffs referred to as "efficiency" in the game industry, we deserve a little win for the workers, as a treat. Our small ray of sunshine is this: One novelist and games writer has just bought back the rights to the zombie-themed fitness app that she's been writing for over a decade from the blockchain company that had planned to shut it down.

Naomi Alderman is a published author of science fiction novels. And for years she's also been the lead writer for a gamified fitness app called Zombies, Run! It encourages players to get on the move by listening to episodic post-apocalyptic stories, interval training while actively 'running from zombies,' and supplies rewards from workout sessions to upgrade their survival base.

Alderman co-created the app and wrote its years' worth of voice-acted, episodic stories that have amassed over 10 million users since 2012. My best friend has been evangelizing this game to me (unsuccessfully only because I hate running) on the grounds of its excellent story for all 13 of those years, even when its future was looking bleak more recently.

The game's developer, Six To Start, was acquired by blockchain and "fitness metaverse" company OliveX back in 2021. As reported by The Verge, OliveX laid off the majority of Six To Start's staff earlier this year and started looking to sell the developer or else shut it down.

Turns out, Alderman had a clause in her contract saying that she had the right to purchase if it were ever up for sale, she explains in her public announcement, a savvy move she credits to her experience in the publishing industry and one not available to most game writers. "I think I might be the only games writer to be in a position to do this kind of deal," she writes.

"I knew OliveX had been looking for a buyer and I presumed it would be way out of my range, but when they let me know that they were tentatively starting conversations and the price range it suddenly seemed as though it might be possible," Alderman tells PC Gamer. "[I was] excited and terrified when I realised I could indeed put it together!"

"I’m delighted to make sure that Zombies, Run! doesn’t end up being turned into AI slop," she writes in her announcement.

Alderman also delivers a defense of videogames on the whole to folks in the literary world who she thinks often misunderstand gaming—dropping some extremely PC Gamer-approved recs like Return of the Obra Dinn and Disco Elysium—and laments the state of the industry where narrative is still often treated as an afterthought, and where writers can see the work they rarely own the rights to disappear offline without any notice.

"I think the best strategy in the age of AI is: bet on yourself. On what you can do uniquely, on your own weird," Alderman tells PC Gamer. "I think that unique work made well with huge amounts of love is actually going to become more valuable in the AI era."

That huge amount of love is already on display, it turns out. Just before publishing this story, my bestie the volunteer Zombies, Run! evangelist excitedly messaged me to say that an email had been sent out to anyone subscribing to the new Zombies, Run! mailing list with a greeting voiced by one of the series' main characters. "She knows how attached we all are to this fictional dude," my friend says. An encouraging start for the app's new independent era.

In a post on the Zombies, Run! website, Alderman confirms that she's planning new updates, a new season of episodes, and "a welcoming home for all of you for… well, I hope, forever. Forever is the plan."