Yield Guild Games cuts 35 staff, shuts game publisher to focus on AI

Source: Yield Guild Games Yield Guild Games said it would be closing YGG Play’s website, its web app that launched games and its community-focused rewards site. It would also end all marketing support for third-party games. The company’s board game-style browser game LOL Land and its puzzle game Waifu Sweeper would also be taken down. The Web3 versions of the baseball game GIGACHADBAT and the battle game Ragnarok Breaker would continue as normal. The company said sunsetting YGG Play and its restructure would extend its operating runway to four years, adding it had $20.6 million in its treasury as of the end of the first quarter. Yield Guild Games said it would refocus its resources “into the AI data economy” to provide information that can be used to train AI models. It will initially create a pipeline for gaming datasets, and said its global community “can generate these behavioral datasets just by playing.” The company said it was “an organic next step” and the data would help AI networks understand “human irrationality and emergent behavior,” as video game players “constantly make complex, split-second decisions.” The crypto industry has cut over 5,000 jobs so far this year, with Block Inc. undertaking the largest round of layoffs in February by cutting 4,000 staff, or about half its workforce at the time. Last month, crypto infrastructure company BitGo laid off 15% of its staff, an estimated 90 people, while Robinhood cut 10% of its workforce. Earlier in the year, Kraken laid off 150 workers, and Coinbase cut 700 employees. Gemini also laid off 200 employees in February and Crypto.com cut about 180 staff a month later, both citing the use of AI. Magazine: Solana exec trolls crypto gamers, Pixel tackles play-to-earn issues: Web3 Gamer More on the subject