Exclusive: Immutable is pivoting from Web3 gaming to AI marketing tech aimed at traditional game publishers. After cutting nearly 30 roles, its co-founder says the company still has 10 years of runway following its mega raise in 2022.
Crypto unicorn Immutable has cut almost the entirety of its game development teams as it reorients itself around an AI-powered marketing platform aimed at both traditional and Web3 video game publishers.
The startup cut 29 roles from its game development teams as part of a pivot which will see the majority of work on Immutable’s titles outsourced to as-yet-unnamed companies and only a “very small” internal team focused on games, co-founder James Ferguson told Forbes Australia.
“The major shift that we made last year was that we started opening up the platform from just Web3 games [blockchain games] to Web2 games as well, especially on the growth tools side,” Ferguson said. “How do we bring Immutable Audience, which is our AI growth platform for games, to the whole game market rather than just the subset of the market?”
“This means a radical reshaping and refocusing of the company on this opportunity.”
The Ferguson brothers were cover stars of Forbes Australia’s debut issue in 2022, when Immutable was valued at US$2.5 billion.
Almost four years on, James Ferguson says the startup still has “10 years of runway” after raising US$200 million ($280 million) in its 2022 Series C, with investors including Airtree, Tencent and Temasek backing its bet that gaming would be the first consumer industry reshaped by blockchain technology.
Immutable developed both Web3 games and blockchain infrastructure, with its original business centred around generating revenue each time tokens were minted and exchanged within games running on its platform.
In a Slack message to Immutable staff in early June, reviewed by Forbes Australia, Chief Studio Officer Justin Hulog announced the company would “outsource our Elderym operations”, referencing its Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians games, “to a third party provider.”
“In making this difficult but necessary decision, we will be saying farewell to most of our amazing Elderym colleagues by the end of July,” Hulog wrote. Immutable confirmed the contents of the message but declined to identify which company the work would be outsourced to.
Hulog’s message said Gods Unchained, Immutable’s original hit, would continue to “run as our core revenue-generating Studio product.” Meanwhile Guild of Guardians, its second most popular title, will “transition to Evergreen/ Maintenance Mode.”
“Over the past 8 years, the Elderym franchise has been a core part of Immutable’s growth,” Hulog wrote, acknowledging Immutable’s game development team had been operating in “a challenging market, with a leaner squad, tighter budgets and sustained market headwinds.”
The spectacular retail craze around cryptocurrency seen during the pandemic never truly returned to the sector, despite Bitcoin rebounding following the re-election of Donald Trump and passing US$126,000 last year. Instead of heady rhetoric about revolutionising consumer industries, most crypto boosterism now focuses on its potential to reshape institutional finance.
The Web3 gaming in which Immutable hitherto specialised has been hit particularly hard. The value of the average Web3 game cryptocurrency is down 95% since 2022, according to a recent report from crypto research firm Caladan, with global VC funding to the sector dropping from US$4 billion in 2022 to US$360 million in 2025. Immutable’s central token, IMX, trades at 14 cents – having peaked at over US$9 in 2021.
“Volatility has always been part of that space,” Ferguson said. “The real thing is the opportunity here to build tools that help all games grow rather than just focusing on one niche, while still supporting that niche.”
Crypto to AI
Immutable calls its Audience product “game growth software.” Launched last December, it is designed to help publishers cut through the glut of new, often free games that are released each day on the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store and PC marketplace Steam.
The company says its Audience platform can capture data on existing and prospective players that allow game publishers to both boost sales, downloads and playtime, resulting in more revenue via the in-game transactions that increasingly power the gaming industry.
Among its customers is Ubisoft, developer of the popular Assassin’s Creed games. Immutable says Ubisoft’s recently launched mobile game Might & Magic: Fates saw a threefold boost to conversion from pre-registration to actual download, up to 10.2 per cent, thanks to the Audience platform.
King River Capital doubled down on its investment, saying Immutable has the data and developer relationships that will enable Audience to thrive. “For us, the investment case has always been about infrastructure, not a single game or product cycle,” King River co-founder Chris Barter said. “Immutable is building the platform that will help the next generation of games build and scale globally.”
Ferguson declined to comment on the revenue Immutable has generated from its Audience product. He said Immutable’s current goal is to boost the amount of games on its platform, saying only that the unit economics are strong.
“In the past month we’ve added 40 new games [to the Immutable platform], which at this rate, without any increasing growth, which we are expecting on that side, it’s on track to be about 500 extra games per year, which is the fastest we’ve ever grown,” he said.
“This essentially means we’re likely to add almost the entire number of games we’ve ever brought on the platform in the existence of the company in just the next year as a result of the refocusing on the wider market.”
Immutable’s 2024 financial report, its most recent lodged with ASIC, shows a loss of US$48 million. Its comprehensive income, which included gains to its crypto holdings, was US$232 million. The company last year eliminated many roles throughout the business, the Australian Financial Review reported, seeking to replace some roles with AI as it focused on breaking even on a cash flow basis by the end of the year.
Ferguson said the company will not break even by the end of the year, and that he expects to burn “hundreds of thousands” per month in the pursuit of growing the Audience product.
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