Solana Game Developer Automata Announces Mass Layoffs

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Solana’s game developer, Automata (ATMTA), will undergo “significant job cuts” to preserve Star Atlas’ development capabilities. After the reorganization, the Automata team staff will be just 45 in late 2022, down from 235 he had.

According to reports on July 24, announcement ATMTA CEO and co-founder Michael Wagner said on Discord that the reorganized team will instead shift focus to “delivering SAGE and the newly announced Crew mobile app.” Meanwhile, development on the combined software development kit (SDK) for Unreal Engine 5 and Solana “will resume at a significantly slower pace,” he said. The SDK serves as the basis for the Star Atlas game.

In an explanation of the change, Wagner wrote that around 33% of the project’s revenue was used as the in-game token Atlas, which the team “held tight”. This token has lost about 80% of its value over the past year. In addition:

“We also had to pay significant taxes approaching $30 million. And as you already know, the FTX bankruptcy left us with about $15 million out of the Treasury, which was a significant portion of our liquid cash balance.”

The developers said the team had managed to recover a “substantial portion” of FTX funding in January, but the runway was still “significantly reduced.” Wagner also said it was “unlikely” for the project to reach the equity and debt financing agreement signed in January.

“It is a grim fact that current AAA quality development rates are capital intensive and currently unsustainable without significant changes in business strategy.”

At the same time, the Solana blockchain saw its highest ever usage rate in the first half of 2023. Network uptime was 100% in the second quarter. The Solana Foundation introduced a grant earlier this year to support the ecosystem.

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