Immutable Cuts 29 Roles to Pivot From Web3 Gaming to AI Marketing

Immutable, the Australian crypto unicorn valued at US$3.5 billion in 2022, is cutting 29 roles from its game development teams and outsourcing its in-house studios as it pivots from Web3 gaming to an AI marketing platform for mainstream game publishers. Co-founder James Ferguson framed the move as a wholesale reorientation of the company. The shift turns Immutable, once a poster child for blockchain gaming, into an AI growth-tools vendor.

“The major shift that we made last year was that we started opening up the platform from just Web3 games [blockchain games] to Web2 games as well, especially on the growth tools side,” Ferguson told Forbes Australia. “How do we bring Immutable Audience, which is our AI growth platform for games, to the whole game market rather than just the subset of the market?” Immutable confirmed the contents of a Slack message reviewed by Forbes Australia, in which Chief Studio Officer Justin Hulog announced the company would “outsource our Elderym operations” to a third party. The company will say farewell to most game-development colleagues by the end of July; it declined to identify the third party.

Immutable Outsources Its Game Studios and Cuts 29 Roles

The 29 cuts land on the development teams built around Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians, the two titles that defined Immutable’s identity as a Web3 gaming studio. The Slack message from Hulog, sent to staff in early June and reviewed by Forbes Australia, framed the move as outsourcing rather than wholesale shutdown.

Hulog wrote that Immutable would “outsource our Elderym operations”, using the internal name for its games division, “to a third party provider”. He added: “In making this difficult but necessary decision, we will be saying farewell to most of our amazing Elderym colleagues by the end of July.” Gods Unchained, Immutable’s original hit, will continue to “run as our core revenue-generating Studio product”.

Guild of Guardians, Immutable’s second most popular title, will “transition to Evergreen/ Maintenance Mode”, according to Hulog. He acknowledged the team had been operating in “a challenging market, with a leaner squad, tighter budgets and sustained market headwinds”. Immutable confirmed the contents of the message but declined to identify which company would take over the work. The cuts follow a broader shrinkage; the company reduced its headcount from 224 to 150 over nine months, according to CCN’s reporting on Financial Review figures.

1. 2018: Immutable founded in Sydney by brothers Robbie and James Ferguson.
2. 2021: IMX token peaks above US$9.
3. 2022: Series C raise of US$200 million (US$280 million) at a US$3.5 billion valuation, backed by Airtree, Tencent and Temasek.
4. December 2025: Immutable Audience launches as an AI growth platform for game publishers.
5. Early June 2026: Chief Studio Officer Justin Hulog announces the Elderym outsourcing in a Slack message to staff.
6. End of July 2026: 29 game development roles cut as the outsourcing completes.

Web3 Gaming’s Boom Has Flatlined

Crypto market-maker Caladan published the harshest sector post-mortem yet in April, finding that 93% of Web3 gaming projects are now “effectively dead” and that the average Web3 game cryptocurrency is down 95% since 2022. Annual funding to the sector collapsed from US$4 billion in 2022 to roughly US$360 million in 2025, Caladan reported, citing a ChainPlay review of more than 3,200 GameFi titles. Gaming’s share of Web3 venture capital fell from 62.5% of the pool to single digits as capital rotated toward AI and real-world assets.

The wreckage sits in the projects that shipped tokens and NFTs before they shipped games. Pixelmon raised US$70 million in a February 2022 mint and has yet to deliver a public game four years later; The Sandbox took US$93 million from SoftBank without sustaining more than 4,500 daily on-chain users.

• US$3.5 billion: Immutable’s 2022 valuation at the Series C
• US$280 million: the size of Immutable’s 2022 Series C raise
• US$4 billion: total Web3 gaming VC funding in 2022
• US$360 million: total Web3 gaming VC funding in 2025
• US$12 billion to US$15 billion: total capital Caladan estimates flowed into blockchain gaming from 2020 to early 2026

Immutable Audience Becomes the New Core Bet

Immutable Audience is the product the company is making central in place of the one it is walking away from. The product, which Immutable calls “game growth software”, uses AI to capture data on existing and prospective players so publishers can boost downloads, playtime and the in-game transactions that increasingly power gaming revenue. Ferguson’s goal is to bring the platform “to the whole game market rather than just the subset of the market”.

Audience launched in December 2025, built for the publishers who face a daily flood of new releases on the Apple and Google Play stores, as well as on PC marketplace Steam. The product combines direct, consented player touchpoints with automated activation across email, Telegram and Discord.

Ferguson said the Audience side of the business is growing at the fastest rate in the company’s history. “In the past month we’ve added 40 new games [to the Immutable platform], which at this rate, without any increasing growth, which we are expecting on that side, it’s on track to be about 500 extra games per year, which is the fastest we’ve ever grown,” he said. “This essentially means we’re likely to add almost the entire number of games we’ve ever brought on the platform in the existence of the company in just the next year as a result of the refocusing on the wider market,” he added. The shift is also a redirection of capital; Ferguson said Immutable will not break even by the end of the year, and that he expects to burn “hundreds of thousands” per month in pursuit of growing Audience.

This means a radical reshaping and refocusing of the company on this opportunity.

James Ferguson is the co-founder of Immutable; he made the comments in an interview with Forbes Australia. The 2018 startup was founded with his brother, Robbie, who serves as president.

The pivot comes as crypto founders without an AI angle find capital harder to raise. AI companies took about 80% of global venture dollars in the first quarter of 2026, according to Crunchbase data. The AI boom has stranded pre-ChatGPT startups as venture capital concentrates at the top, and Immutable’s new pitch fits that pattern by selling infrastructure rather than tokens.

How Ubisoft’s Latest Launch Became the Proof Point

The clearest evidence for Immutable’s new thesis is the customer it has already signed. Ubisoft, the French publisher behind the Assassin’s Creed franchise, used the Audience platform for the global launch of Might & Magic: Fates on 4 February 2026, and the result, per Immutable, was a threefold boost to conversion from pre-registration to actual download, up to 10.2 per cent.

Ferguson’s team credits the platform’s direct, consented player touchpoints, activated across email, Telegram and Discord. According to Immutable’s case study on the Ubisoft campaign, Audience drove 2.8x higher Day 1 player conversion and 3.0x by Day 14 for Might & Magic: Fates, working alongside Ubisoft’s own publishing push. The game is the 12th instalment in a series that debuted in 1986, and Immutable’s platform now counts 2 million monthly active users and 5 million Passport registrations. The reach combines with Ubisoft Connect’s 138 million registered users to give the title “a warm audience from day one”, in Hulog’s description.

The Ubisoft campaign shows how the platform performs at Web2 scale. Ubisoft has the marketing muscle to evaluate Audience against in-house alternatives, and choosing the platform over internal tooling is itself a signal. “Partnering with Ubisoft is a defining landmark for Immutable,” Hulog said in the partnership announcement.

Investors Back the Pivot, Even as the Books Bleed

The pivot has not scared every investor. King River Capital, an existing backer, doubled down on its investment in Immutable and framed the move as a continuation of a thesis the firm has held since the company’s early days.

For us, the investment case has always been about infrastructure, not a single game or product cycle. Immutable is building the platform that will help the next generation of games build and scale globally.

Chris Barter is the co-founder of King River Capital; he made the comments to Forbes Australia. Separately, Ferguson told Forbes Australia the company still has “10 years of runway” after the 2022 Series C raise of US$200 million (US$280 million) from Airtree, Tencent and Temasek. Immutable’s 2024 financial report, its most recent filing with ASIC, shows a loss of US$48 million, with comprehensive income, including gains on crypto holdings, of US$232 million. The company has cut headcount from 224 to 150 over nine months and now uses AI to handle a majority of in-game content and art creation at a fraction of the previous over-US$1-million-a-year cost.

What Immutable Is Counting On for the Next Decade

Ferguson’s pitch is that marketing software scales further than token economics. Web3 gaming’s “first boom and bust cycle” has forced startups to drop staff or close down projects, CCN reported, and the sector is unlikely to fund another crypto-native spending spree. The Audience side of the business addresses a much larger customer pool; every game publisher with an app store listing is a potential customer.

The runway claim gives the strategy room to play out. “10 years of runway” after the 2022 Series C raise buys time for the Audience platform to add the 500 games per year Ferguson says it is on track to reach. The wider context is unforgiving; the AI boom has stranded pre-ChatGPT startups as venture capital concentrates at the top, and Immutable’s pitch fits that pattern by selling infrastructure rather than tokens. The company is now a B2B SaaS vendor competing in a crowded market against players with deeper AI engineering benches and longer customer rosters.

The end of July will deliver the 29 game development departures and the handover of Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians to an unnamed third party. The IMX token’s 2026 price action meanwhile has shown traders moving tokens off exchanges into cold storage, a behavioral shift that typically precedes accumulation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Immutable and what does it do now?

Immutable is a Sydney-based crypto startup founded in 2018 by brothers Robbie and James Ferguson. After years as a Web3 gaming studio, the company is now refocusing on its AI growth platform, Immutable Audience, which helps game publishers drive downloads, engagement and in-game transactions. The pivot followed a US$3.5 billion 2022 valuation and a US$280 million Series C raise from Airtree, Tencent and Temasek.

Why is Immutable cutting game development roles?

Chief Studio Officer Justin Hulog announced in a Slack message to staff in early June that Immutable would “outsource our Elderym operations” to a third party provider, with 29 roles set to depart by the end of July. Co-founder James Ferguson told Forbes Australia the move amounts to a wholesale reorientation of the company on the Audience platform.

What is Immutable Audience and how does it work?

Immutable Audience is an AI growth platform that captures data on existing and prospective players so publishers can boost downloads and engagement. It launched in December 2025 and counts Ubisoft among its customers; the company says the platform drove a threefold boost to pre-registration conversion for Ubisoft’s Might & Magic: Fates, up to 10.2 per cent.

What happened to the IMX token?

IMX, Immutable’s central token, trades at 14 cents, down from a peak above US$9 in 2021. Caladan, a crypto market-maker, reports the average Web3 game cryptocurrency is down 95% since 2022, with annual sector VC funding collapsing from US$4 billion in 2022 to about US$360 million in 2025.

Is the pivot working for Immutable?

Investor reaction is split. King River Capital doubled down on Immutable and said the bet is on infrastructure rather than any single product. The books still show strain; Immutable’s 2024 ASIC filing shows a US$48 million loss, and Ferguson says the company will not break even by year-end and expects to burn “hundreds of thousands” per month on the Audience platform.