In Brief:
- On Sept. 14, Pixelmon (official site) announced it is halting all game development, letting go of its gaming team and pulling its games offline.
- The move came after outside publishers ran a three-week test that did not produce a long-term commercial agreement.
- The project brought in close to $70 million from its February 2022 NFT mint, plus another $8 million from a 2024 seed round.
Pixelmon is walking away from making games.
In a Sept. 14 Discord message to its community, the project said it was ending game development permanently. The gaming team is being laid off, its titles are coming offline, and the systems that ran them are being dismantled.
Pixelmon raised $100M chasing the dream of becoming Crypto Pokemon
Four years later, they are abandoning video games
2021
– Pixelmon appears during peak NFT season
– promises an open-world RPG
– NFTs as playable characters
– virtual land
– play to earn
February 2022
–@StarPlatinumView on X ↗
The call followed a three-week trial of the games run by outside publishers. The results fell short of what was needed to lock in a long-term commercial deal.
“We think we have been in this ‘not too bad but not good enough’ territory now for over 2 years,” the team wrote in its announcement.
The final test
The publishers put their own marketing budgets and tools behind the trial to gauge how well the games attracted players and held on to them. They did not turn the games down outright. Retention, however, was not strong enough to support a longer partnership.
The publishers proposed further polish and a second test within weeks. Management declined.
According to the team, it had already agreed internally that the publisher trial would decide the matter. When the numbers came up short, it chose to end development rather than try another round.
Layoffs and what’s left
Notice went out to every member of the gaming team. Pixelmon said they will get severance along with the other benefits required in their locations. Once the games are offline and the related systems are shut down, staff will move to garden leave.
A smaller group of senior staff is staying. Per the announcement, they will explore “other verticals” and business ideas that do not rely on game-making. No details on what those could be were given.
Pixelmon said more would be shared at a community town hall on Thursday. That session was expected to address potential pivots, the team’s work on AI tools, and how the remaining team will engage with the community from here.
The company also warned that it could eventually shut down if it cannot find a workable business model.
The announcement did not address what support, if any, the MON token or the NFT collections will receive.
Four games in the pipeline
At the time of its 2024 fundraise, Pixelmon had four games in development: PixelPals, Hunting Grounds, Arena and Kevin the Adventurer. In August 2024 it was also preparing to showcase Warriors of Nova Thera and Hunting Grounds.
The $8 million seed round, backed by Animoca Brands and Delphi Ventures, closed in February 2024. LiquidX, the developer behind Pixelmon, launched MON in May 2024.
From the 2022 mint to LiquidX
Pixelmon emerged in 2021, at the peak of the NFT boom. Its pitch was an open-world RPG where NFTs served as playable characters, alongside virtual land and play-to-earn mechanics.
The mint opened on Feb. 7, 2022. All 8,079 public NFTs sold out in under an hour, raising 23,055 ETH, worth more than $70 million at the time. The Dutch auction began at 3 ETH, roughly $8,100, with the price gradually dropping from there.
Buyers had no idea what their characters would look like until the art reveal, which drew widespread ridicule. The founder, known as Syber, described the artwork as “unacceptable” and said the minted NFTs did not accurately represent the eventual in-game assets. Some holders began labeling the project a “$70 million rug pull.”
In September 2022, Web3 venture studio LiquidX acquired a 60% stake in Pixelmon. LiquidX co-founder Giulio Xiloyannis, formerly an executive at ZALORA, took over as CEO and brought in a fresh team and roadmap. Roughly $50 million remaining from the mint was transferred to a multi-sig wallet. Syber is no longer part of the project.
In a post on X, @StarPlatinum_ put Pixelmon’s total raise at $100 million, describing the project as “chasing the dream of becoming Crypto Pokemon.”
At the time of the announcement, Pixelmon’s website still referred to MON as “the token that powers the Pixelmon universe.”