Yuga Labs, best known as the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, announced that Spencer Tucker will be joining them as their very first Chief Gaming Officer. Spencer spent over a decade of his career in the gaming industry. He was the President of Scopely, a mobile gaming studio behind hits such as Marvel Strike Force and Scrabble Go. Scopely was valued at over $3 billion during his tenure there.
Spencer brings not only a track record for building successful games but a passion for the potential of the blockchain. In an interview, he said,
“Web3 is revolutionizing gaming, entertainment, and community in much the same way the shift to mobile revolutionized communication.”
Yuga Labs Plans For the Future
Yuga Labs has quickly grown from a small team of 10 employees to over 70 full-time employees. They are proving there is much more to them than Bored Ape NFTs. Gaming is one of many new ventures that Yuga Labs plans to build out in the near future. CEO of Yuga Labs Nicole Muniz sets expectations high with a recent interview stating, “We are uniquely situated to revolutionize the way we think about web3 gaming through core principles such as ownership, utility, community, and storytelling.”
One does not have to look far back to remember the hype behind the Otherdeeds metaverse land sale on April 30, 2022. The project had so much attention that it sold out all the available 55,000 Otherdeed land NFTs within three hours of its public sale for $317 million. The highly anticipated release caused a gas war on the Ethereum blockchain resulting in users having to spend thousands to get transactions to process. Yuga Labs teased the possibility of launching their own layer one blockchain due to the gas war but has since walked back those statements.
First Trip to The Otherside
Otherdeed land owners were rewarded with a special invitation to take the first trip into the Otherside metaverse on July 6, 2022. Expectations were tempered as there had not been a metaverse tech demo as ambitious as Otherside. What ensued was 4,600 users logging into a browser-based 3D metaverse with high-quality graphics and no lag. Together they explored a dense jungle-like environment with quests, interactions, and a concert. Many on Twitter said they were highly impressed by the demo.
The secret behind the demo’s success is the English metaverse tech company Improbable. Its mission is to create a network of interoperable and interconnected metaverses and experiences for users to socialize, play games, and create. They came to quiet the skeptics around the viability of metaverse gaming and proved their point loud and clear with the success of the Otherside metaverse demo.
