‘Axie Infinity’ Developer Sky Mavis Lays Off 21% of Staff, Confirms New Game

Sky Mavis—the development firm behind the NFT game Axie Infinity and the Ronin gaming network—laid off a significant portion of its employees.Sky Mavis co-founder Nguyen Thanh Trung wrote in a Nov. 23 tweet that the company “made the tough decision to let go of 21% of our workforce.” He claimed that the decision was unrelated to the firm’s budget or financial health.“Instead, it is a strategic move that allows for a sharper focus and positioning Sky Mavis for hypergrowth in 2025 and beyond,” he explained. The firm is shifting its priorities with its long-term plan, focusing on the Ronin wallet, Mavis marketplace, Axie Infinity and a related new game, Web3 game publishing, and expanding the Ronin Network.Axie Infinity is a play-to-earn game featuring NFT collectibles such as artwork and videos that became significantly popular in early 2021. A Sky Mavis representative told Decrypt that the next Axie Infinity game will come out in Q1 2025, “leveraging the lessons and institutional knowledge we’ve gained over the past few years.”The Ronin Network is an Ethereum (ETH) gaming-focused sidechain that serves crypto games, including Axie Infinity, which Trung claims is now the third-most-used crypto network.The bridge connecting the Ronin Network with Ethereum has also been hacked multiple times. The last one occurred in early August, when the bridge lost approximately $12 million worth of assets—but the white hat hacker who preemptively hacked the protocol returned most of the funds shortly thereafter.Trung also hinted at the changing regulatory climate, presumably in reaction to Republican candidate Donald Trump’s victory in the United States presidential elections. “As crypto-friendly policies gain traction, we anticipate a wave of innovation and adoption for utility-driven Web3 projects,” he wrote.During his campaign, Trump vowed to loosen restrictions on digital assets and blockchain technology firms in the U.S. Trung’s comments suggest that the prospect of those changes had real impact on the strategy of the company going forward.“The bottom line is that the token design space will now massively open up. I believe that’s most bullish for DeFi and gaming, which we believe are the most consequential sectors that have the most long-term substantive value in this industry,” a Sky Mavis representative said. “We believe this regulatory shift will drive significant adoption, not just for blockchain gaming but for the broader Web3 industry.”Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication to include comments from Sky Mavis, including details about the new Axie Infinity game.Edited by Stacy Elliott and Andrew Hayward