‘Radical reshaping’: $3.5b unicorn Immutable scraps crypto gaming teams

Crypto unicorn Immutable has announced a major strategic pivot, cutting nearly its entire internal game development staff to focus on an AI-powered marketing and growth platform. The company is laying off 29 employees and outsourcing the operations of its flagship titles, including Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians, to third-party providers. This shift signifies a move away from direct game production toward providing infrastructure and growth software for both traditional Web2 and Web3 video game publishers.

Immutable co-founder James Ferguson described the move as a "radical reshaping" intended to capture the broader gaming market through its AI growth platform, Immutable Audience. The startup is cutting 29 roles from its internal development teams, leaving only a "very small" group focused on games while outsourcing the majority of work to unnamed companies. Chief Studio Officer Justin Hulog confirmed in a Slack message that the "Elderym" operations—encompassing the hit title Gods Unchained and the mobile game Guild of Guardians—will be transitioned to external providers. While Gods Unchained remains a core revenue generator, Guild of Guardians will move into a maintenance or "evergreen" mode.

The pivot comes amid a significant downturn in the Web3 gaming sector, where global venture capital funding plummeted from $4 billion in 2022 to just $360 million in 2025. Immutable’s native token, IMX, has seen its value drop from a 2021 peak of over $9 to approximately 14 cents. Despite these headwinds and a reported $48 million loss in its 2024 financial report, Ferguson maintains that the company has "10 years of runway" following a $200 million Series C round. The firm is now prioritizing its Audience platform, which aims to help publishers improve player conversion and revenue through data-driven insights.

Early results for the Audience platform include a partnership with Ubisoft, where the mobile game Might & Magic: Fates reportedly saw a threefold increase in download conversions. Immutable claims to be adding new games to its platform at a rate of 40 per month, projecting an addition of 500 games over the next year. Investors like King River Capital have backed the shift, emphasizing that the investment case for Immutable rests on its role as a scalable infrastructure provider rather than a single-game studio. Although the company will not break even by the end of the year as previously targeted, it plans to invest "hundreds of thousands" monthly to scale its new growth tools.