Yuga Labs has hired Spencer Tucker as its first Chief Gaming Officer, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection announced Friday.
At Yuga, Tucker will supervise the development of the firm’s Web3 gaming projects, starting with Yuga’s “Otherside” metaverse. Earlier this year, Otherside made waves on Ethereum when it saw a massive surge of transactions and $561 million worth of NFT land sales within 24 hours.
Tucker comes from mobile gaming companies Scopely and GREE, where he worked as President of Games and Senior Vice President of Product, respectively.
On Linkedin, Tucker said he was “super stoked” to be joining Yuga, which also owns the CryptoPunks and Meebits NFTs.
“I believe the future of gaming will be powered by player ownership, social collaboration, and creative expression,” Tucker wrote.
Otherside, the much-anticipated metaverse gaming platform from the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, is open for business. Almost.
On Saturday, the Yuga Labs-developed game invited 4,300 players—so-called “Voyagers”—for a first-look tech demo and tour of the immersive, ape avatar-navigated online platform. All Otherside players will be required to embark on or view one of these “First Trips” to be able to participate in the game, which has still not yet fully debuted.
All 4,300 players who...
In a statement, Yuga CEO Nicole Muniz said gaming is one of the company’s biggest priorities, calling it a “main focus” going forward. It's notable for the NFT company, which owns the top four Ethereum NFT collections of all time, according to OpenSea data.
Yuga still has a small team considering its $450 million seed round, bringing the company to a staggering $4 billion valuation. The firm has hired roughly 60 employees so far this year and aims to scale up to 100 total staff by the end of 2022.
Eat your Decrypt-O’s! In the debut episode, Sander Lutz hits the street to ask people about their privacy concerns in the wake of the government’s Tornado Cash crackdown; Kate Irwin shares headlines on the wackiest Web3 stories, from Crypto.com sending a woman $10 million by accident to Eminem and Snoop Dogg getting Twitter hate for their Bored Apes; and Dan Roberts serves up a rant about Gary Gensler. (Production and editing by Zack Edelman.)
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