Community Gaming, a Web3 platform for esports competitions, informed on Friday that it has laid off 17 staff members. It was first covered by The Esports Advocate. It represented somewhat more than 17% of all firm employees.
Community Gaming aims
According to Community Gaming CEO Chris Gonsalves, the choice was made as a result of issues with the competitive gaming industry as a whole. In recent months, same issues have caused layoffs at other businesses and sports teams.
“With the economic downturn in the esports industry, we’ve had to restructure our goals in order to have a stronger future, which came with some roles being eliminated,” Gonsalves said. “We appreciate the contributions of all our employees and will support them as they continue to be innovators in the space.”
Community Gaming received $16 million in Series A funding from crypto juggernauts like Softbank, Binance Labs, ConsenSys Mesh, Bitkraft, Polygon Labs (formerly Polygon Studios), and Animoca Brands in April 2022.
Gonsalves said that Community Gaming presently has over 250,000 users, up from roughly 100,000 in April 2022. Additionally, he said that Community Gaming held over 600 events last month, and over 21,000 people participated in at least one of them.
Gonsalves founded Community Gaming in an effort to assist tournament winners in receiving their winnings more quickly since he believes the esports industry has an issue with payouts. The payment of winners following a gaming event might take days or weeks, and there are occasionally many additional processes or costs.
“We want to abstract away all the complexities that are associated with Web3 solutions and bring them a competition platform that does automated payouts,” stated Gonsalves.
large-scale issues
The crypto market may be recovering a little bit as Bitcoin rises above $30,000 and Ethereum rises beyond $2,100, but it’s no secret that the esports sector is still suffering because to how the market is performing.
As Gonsalves said, “The esports industry is going through a recession. Esports teams are struggling to diversify their revenue streams after being overly reliant on sponsorship [funds].”
These kinds of issues occur frequently. FaZe Clan’s stock took a significant hit in September and hasn’t yet recovered. Recently, the Nasdaq threatened to delist the firm since the price of a share dropped below $1. The epidemic also derailed numerous live esports plans, which may have had an impact on the amount of revenue anticipated.
Activision Blizzard’s BlizzCon, where the Overwatch World Cup and competitions for games like Starcraft II and World of Warcraft were hosted, has been postponed the past three years. Additionally, the company’s Overwatch League and Call of Duty League were forced to stop attempting to schedule a consistent stream of live games or reduce their significance.
The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times reported last year that it was becoming more difficult to invest in and support esports organizations. Major teams like 100 Thieves and TSM have also let individuals go. A long-running squad called CLG was recently acquired by NRG Esports. Smaller businesses like Moist Esports, on the other hand, have acknowledged that they are operating at a significant financial loss.
The official esports partner of the upcoming 3XP Gaming Expo, Community Gaming, still sees Web3 as the light at the end of the tunnel for the esports industry.
In the words of Gonsalves, “I think Web3 can play a part here for esports orgs to build tech that synergizes well with new games that are more open with their IP.”
Everyone is currently through a difficult year, he added. The games industry is taking a breather after the enormous boom we all witnessed during the pandemic, and businesses will need to exercise greater caution.
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