Automata a game company based in Solana, will see “a significant headcount reduction” in order to maintain its ability to produce Star Atlas.
After the reorganization, the Automata team will only have 45 employees, down from 235 in late 2022. Michael Wagner, CEO and co-founder of ATMTA, stated in the July 24 statement on Discord that the reorganized team will instead concentrate on “delivering SAGE and the recently announced Crew Mobile App.”
Meanwhile, work on an SDK that combines Solana and Unreal Engine 5 will “resume at a significantly slower pace.” The Star Atlas video game is built using the SDK.
In his explanation of the modifications, Wagner stated that the crew “steadfastly held” the in-game Star Atlas (ATLAS) token, which was taken as about 33% of the project’s earnings. The token’s value has decreased by about 80% in the last year. In addition:
“We also had to pay a material tax liability approaching $30 million. And as many of you already know, we lost approximately $15 million from our treasury with the collapse of FTX, which represented a significant portion of our liquid cash balance.”
According to the developers, the team recouped a “sizable portion” of the FTX cash in January, but the runway is still “greatly reduced.” Wagner added that it was “unlikely” that the project’s January equity and debt finance agreement would be closed.
“It is a hard truth that our current high rate of AAA-quality development is capital intensive and, at present, unsustainable without a significant shift in business strategy.”
The Solana blockchain also experienced its highest usage ever in the first half of 2023. In the second quarter, the network was completely operational. This year, the Solana Foundation started offering funds to assist the ecosystem.
