Game developer Solana Automata (ATMTA) will undergo “significant downsizing” in order to maintain its ability to develop Star Atlas. After the restructuring, the Automata team will have just 45 employees, compared to 235 at the end of 2022.

According to July 24 notification on Discord, Michael Wagner, CEO and co-founder of ATMTA, said the restructured team will instead focus on “delivering SAGE and the newly announced Crew Mobile App.” Meanwhile, development of the software development kit (SDK) combining Unreal Engine 5 and Solana will “resume at a significantly slower pace.” The SDK serves as the basis for the Star Atlas game.

Explaining the changes, Wagner wrote that around 33% of the project’s revenue was taken as the Atlas game token, which the team “held at all times”. The token has lost approximately 80% of its value over the past year. Addition:

“We also had to pay a material tax liability approaching $30 million. And as many of you already know, with the collapse of FTX we lost approximately $15 million from our coffers, which represented a significant portion of our liquid cash balance.”

The developers said the team managed to recover a “significant portion” of FTX’s funds in January, but the track remains “very reduced”. Wagner also said the project was “unlikely” to close the equity and debt financing deal signed in January.

“The hard truth is that our current high rate of AAA quality development is capital intensive and currently unsustainable without a significant shift in business strategy.”

At the same time, the Solana blockchain experienced consistently high usage in the first half of 2023. The network had 100% availability in Q2. The Solana Foundation introduced ecosystem support grants earlier this year.

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