Just as ambitious space combat game Star Atlas proved to be a posterchild for web3 gaming in the boom years, so in the bust.
From a high of 235 staff in mid-2022, developer ATMTA has announced it’s now losing 73% of its current 167 headcount, leaving it with a mere 45 staff but — importantly — at least 12 months of cash.
There are many reasons for the situation but in terms of finances, there are three main aspects. ATMTA raised a significant amount — 33% of total funding — in its own ATLAS token through NFTs sales but didn’t cash out into other tokens, hence experiencing an up-to 99.5% decline in value from the token’s all-time-high in November 2021.
It also lost $15 million when FTX went bust — although some of this was recovered — and it had to pay $30 million in tax liabilities. Further more, it’s been unable to raise additional investment in the current bear market.
That’s the background to the restructuring, which will see the focus of the company switch from the main Unreal Engine 5 space game towards two smaller companion experiences which use the existing ship and crew NFTs.
The first is browser-based SAGE, while the second is mobile move-to-earn game Crew Mobile. ATMTA will also maintain and develop features such as the galactic marketplace, the DAO, faction fleet, and faction claims but on an extending timeframe.
In this way, CEO Michael Wagner — who is personally now taking a minimal salary — says he believes the company can still build on its vision while maintaining optionality in terms of being alive and raising more capital for its long term vision as-and-when sentiment improves.
However, given the time and expertise required to build comparable products such as EVE Online and Star Citizen — which has raised over $500 million — it could be the original idea was “too visionary” and expensive, not to also ignore the team’s lack of experience and the complexity added by blockchain.
This Substack is sponsored by Hiro Capital: Sign up for our Dark Star online event on 1st August, starting 16:00 CEST
Calendar
Agora’s Cyclops collection drops on Ultra — 27th July
CyberKongz’ Genkai NFT collection mints — 27th July
Cool Cats stops issuing its MILK token — 27th July
Aurory’s Blanche hub one-week public test starts — 1st August
Mighty Action Heroes releases APK — 16th August
Let’s meet at Gamescom — 23-24th August
Funding news
South Korean web3 gaming platform Skyplay has announced a $10 million commitment from US investor LDA Capital. It plans to use the cash to expand its game publishing business and add AI avatars, a process it hopes will grow its current 300,000 MAUs audience to a goal of 10 million by the end of 2024.
Skyplay currently offers 10 mobile and PC games, include two Steam VR games, but is mainly pushing its mobile strategy game ClashRow, which runs on the NEAR blockchain using its own CRTL token. Skyplay’s SKP platform token was launched on Polygon in September 2022 and is down 86% from its all-time-high.
Local Love-in news
Despite being a subsidiary of South Korean game publisher 4:33, Delabs has announced its own $4.7 million seed round, which was led by local VC Hashed. I have no insider knowledge but I wonder if this was a token-based deal, rather than a more complex equity deal into an existing company.
As well as Hashed, other investors included local web3 game developer Planetarium (Nine Chronicles), Polygon, investment DAO Merit Circle and degen Spartan Capital.
Delabs is currently working on three very different games: kart racer Rumble Racing Star, survival shooter Space Frontier and ARPG Meta Bolts; something I explore in more detail in Blockchain Gaming World #138: out later this week!
Ronin Gets Genkai news
Successful Ethereum NFT collection CyberKongz has signed up with Sky Mavis to operate various assets on its Ronin blockchain. Part of the deal will see its Play & Kollect ecosystem moving from Polygon to Ronin, while the two companies will also work together to create a game for CyberKongz’ new Genkai NFTs.
In that context, 4,000 of Genkai’s total supply of 20,000 NFTs will be made available on Ronin, with Axie Mystic holders — roughly 1,000 units — being airdropped a free NFT, as will be CyberKongz holders on Ethereum. The rest of the supply will be minted at a 0.25 ETH price from 4pm UTC on Thursday 27th July, with the revealed characters due in mid-August.
As an aside, the Genkai collection will use the ERC721x NFT standard, which allows users to lock NFTs in place or define a guardian wallet, which is required sign a transaction to move NFTs from the wallet in which they are held, effectively providing on-chain 2FA.
Additional Links
Boomland has signed up Helika Analytics as its strategic analytics partner.
Co-founder and CEO Victor Lazarte has left web2 mobile game outfit Wildlife Studios, becoming a partner at VC Benchmark Capital.
Yuga Labs has launched its Made by Apes licensing program so BAYC and MAYC holders can officially sign their activities to a central platform. These licenses will also be blockchain-verifiable.
Aurory has gone cross-chain, adding support to Arbitrum to Solana via its off/on-chain inventory system SyncSpace.
Earn Wheelcoin by walking, cycling or taking the bus
sure, drop me a line to blockchaingamingbiz at gmail
Meet at Gamescom?