Yuga Labs
CompanyUnited States · Founded 2021
Documents about Yuga Labs
June 2023: Web3 Gaming Monthly Market Update
This monthly market update for June 2023 analyzes trends in web3 gaming, focusing on Unique Active Wallets (UAWs), secondary market NFT transaction volumes, and fundraising activities.
- Web3 gaming investment saw a sharp 41% month-over-month decline in June 2023 as venture capital shifted focus toward artificial intelligence.
- Unique Active Wallets (UAWs) across the sector fell by 2.4%, while secondary market NFT transaction volumes decreased by 4.6%.
- Bitcoin-based NFT activity experienced a significant 44% drop, indicating a substantial cooling of interest in that specific segment.
Former Epic, Riot Exec Mike Seavers Joins Yuga Labs
Yuga Labs, a Web3 and NFT company, announced the hiring of Mike Seavers as its new Chief Technology Officer, effective May 22.
- Mike Seavers, former EVP of Development at Epic Games and former CTO at Riot Games, has been appointed as the new Chief Technology Officer of Yuga Labs, effective May 22, 2023.
- Seavers replaces outgoing CTO Kerem Atalay, who will transition into a role as a strategic advisor for the company.
- Yuga Labs is a prominent web3 and NFT company known for properties including Bored Ape Yacht Club, Otherside, CryptoPunks, 10KTF, and Meebits.
Animoca Brands: Building the Open Metaverse
This Naavik deep dive, published September 26, 2022 and written by Lawrence Hsieh, profiles Animoca Brands, founded in 2014 as a mobile gaming studio, and its strategy of delivering digital property rights mainly via NFTs and gaming.
- Animoca Brands raised over $500M in 2022 so far, and the article describes its fundraising as building a war chest during the crypto winter.
- The company's most recent raise was a $110M round led by Temasek in September 2022.
- The Sandbox's Alpha Season 2 had about 350K MAUs, a tenfold increase over Alpha Season 1, and Alpha Season 3 participation was expected to be similar to Alpha Season 2 or even lower.
Yuga Labs and the Future of the Yugaverse
This Naavik deep dive, written by Abhimanyu Kumar and published May 22, 2022, examines Yuga Labs, the Miami-based company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and its related projects.
- Yuga Labs raised a $450M seed round at a $4B valuation, led by a16z alongside other investors.
- The April 30, 2022 Otherside land sale sold 55,000 plots at $6,100 each, resulting in about $330M in additional revenue for the company.
- BAYC accounts for more than 90% of PFP sales volume, according to the author's analysis of trading data.
Unlikely Story
Nathan Brown's May 2022 newsletter argues that the game industry's rush into NFTs, blockchain and the "metaverse" has become a refuge for fading stars and struggling companies, one that increasingly resembles an elephant's graveyard.
- Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has acquired a 5% stake in Nintendo, making it the company's fifth-largest shareholder.
- Improbable has pivoted to the metaverse through its new entity, M2, which secured $150 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz to develop 'Otherside' in partnership with Yuga Labs.
- Improbable’s previous cloud-computing platform, SpatialOS, struggled with scalability and high costs, with one developer estimating server maintenance at $5 per user per month.
Sony's Epic Strategy
Sony's $1 billion investment in Epic Games, alongside an equal contribution from LEGO parent Kirkbi, values Epic at $31.5 billion and brings Sony's total commitment to $1.45 billion across three rounds (2020, 2021, and 2022) for roughly a 3% stake.
- Sony invested $1 billion in Epic Games, bringing its total stake to $1.45 billion and valuing the company at $31.5 billion to secure a 3% share.
- The partnership centers on integrating Sony’s intellectual property into Fortnite and leveraging Unreal Engine 5’s technical features, such as Lumens, Nanite, and MetaHumans, to improve production efficiency.
- Sony is shifting its business model from hardware-dependent sales to a service-based ecosystem, aiming to increase user lifetime value through a diversified portfolio of interrelated properties.
Elden Wrung: It Hurts so Good
This March 2022 edition of a games-industry newsletter argues that gaming's traditional business models and labor practices are under pressure as the sector becomes mainstream and faces competition from adjacent industries.
- Elden Ring achieved significant commercial success by selling over 12 million units within its first three weeks, proving the continued viability of high-difficulty, premium-priced titles.
- The video game industry is experiencing a 'talent war' as traditional publishers lose leverage to Big Tech and crypto firms, forcing a reevaluation of compensation and labor practices regarding workplace toxicity and crunch.
- Sony is aggressively pivoting toward live-service multiplayer expertise through the strategic acquisitions of Haven Studios and Bungie to future-proof its portfolio.
Hidden Discovery Insight: Analyzing Player Review Word Length
This GameDiscoverCo newsletter from March 2022 examines whether the word length of Steam reviews can reveal how casual a game's audience is.
- Review word length serves as a reliable metric for player persona, as casual games generate a higher frequency of one-word reviews compared to complex, niche titles.
- Long-form reviews are strongly correlated with 'core' player behavior, characterized by larger Steam library sizes and higher average in-game playtimes.
- Tencent’s global gaming investment strategy reached a massive scale of $32.4 billion in 2021.