'Illuvium' Ethereum Game Studio Undergoes Restructuring Amid 'Rebuild'

Ethereum gaming franchise Illuvium has undergone a company restructuring, resulting in layoffs along with some core contributors opting to take pay cuts or receive their wages in the gaming IP’s own token.

The downsizing comes after Illuvium released a trio of interconnected games last year—Overworld, Arena, and Zero—that covered varying genres. Despite its ambitious vision, the community's reaction wasn't overwhelmingly positive following years of development.

In December, co-founder Kieran Warwick admitted that "concerns" about the franchise's gameplay were valid and that things had to change. Part of this included that Illuvium had "significantly" reduced its costs via capping wages at $85,000, among other adjustments.

But this week, Warwick said that more substantial cuts had to be made.

"We made the difficult decision to restructure our core contributor team to bring our monthly burn rate closer to $500,000," Warwick said in a Tuesday statement. "We want to extend our sincere gratitude to everyone affected by these changes."

The statement on X (formerly Twitter) further explains that some employees have "generously offered" to take pay cuts, while others have chosen to receive their salary in the project's ILV token rather than the USDC stablecoin. It also alludes to letting employees go as part of a “leaner” approach, although never explicitly says this is the case.

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In the replies, Illuvium Community Manager DickKingz, also known as Rich, explained that the team is now down to 66 core contributors—down from between 100 to 150 people as of late.

"The trim to 66 was unfortunately a lot of my teammates and friends, and [I] hate to see them go," Rich said. "Hopefully it’s only bye for now, and in the future when things improve, we can bring many back."

Illuvium did not immediately respond to Decrypt's request for comment.

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As a result of the restructuring, as well as some other operating cost cutting measures, Illuvium has gotten closer to its "burn rate" goal of $500,000—it was at $900,000 as of December. This means that the Illuvium franchise now has a 24-month runway to continue development.

Previously, Warwick explained that Illuvium planned to seek fresh funding around March. But in the wake of the restructuring, he confirmed that the franchise isn't looking to raise "right now." 

He had also previously outlined a plan to move the franchise forward. The co-founder proposed focusing on one game at a time—rather than the three games it was developing—including reworking its Overworld to be a more streamlined version of a massively multiplayer online game, or MMO, and reducing in-game microtransactions. 

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It appears that the 24 month-runway will get the project to the point of completing its auto-battler, starting the rework of Overworld, and attempting to keep the community engaged, according to the restructuring statement.

"This is step one in the rebuild. Now we have the runway, and it will continue to be extended," Warwick said on X. "Enormous updates are coming mid-next month: Auto drone runs, multiplayer servers, and leaderboards reactivated."

"28-3 down with two minutes to go in the third quarter," he added, comparing the project to a losing team in a football game. "We're about to run this shit back so hard."

Edited by Andrew Hayward