Daniel Alegre, formerly the president and chief operating officer of Activation Blizzard, was named as Yuga Labs’ new CEO on Monday, December 19th. Just a few hours earlier on Friday 16th December, Daniel Alegre announced on Twitter that he would leave Activision Blizzard at the end of Q1 2023 to “pursue a new opportunity”.
A Mutant Ape was present to accompany the announcement. A face smeared in snot, a rotting eye, and a sewn cowboy hat to top off the look.
According to the Yuga Labs statement, Wylie Aronow and Greg Solano, the company’s founders, will collaborate closely with Alegre. Alegre expressed his excitement for the new position in a adding that the company’s pipeline of products, alliances, and intellectual property offers a “huge opportunity to define the metaverse” in a way that allows creators and consumers ownership of their identities and digital assets.
Yuga has previously stated his desire to become the Disney of web3. The hiring solidifies Yuga Labs’ gaming ambitions as it gets ready for more beta tests of Otherside, the multiplayer Web3 game it is creating for fans of Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Alegre has heavyweight experience
Alegre has 25-plus years of experience. Having held the No. 2 position behind long time CEO Bobby Kotick. Alegre is waving goodbye to the largest independent video game studio to join a start-up that is just two years old.
Having taken on the Activision Blizzard role in 2020, as Preseident and COO he saw the oversaw international delivery and commercialization of successful titles titles like Candy Crush Saga, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Call of Duty. Alegre departs just as Activision Blizzard is about to be acquired by Microsoft for $68.7 billion, subject to regulatory approval. Prior to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission formally opposing it, the merger encountered a roadblock and may now take until 2023 to complete.
Prior to that, he worked for Google for more than 16 years, serving as the company’s president of global and strategic partnerships, of shopping and payments, as well as President of Asia Pacific and Latin America.
The case of Daniel Alegre’s being the best fit for Yuga Labs
For Otherside, the founders of Yuga Labs were heavily inspired by World of Warcraft. With Alegre having worked on expanding this and many other franchises, the fit seems to be perfect. With a remit to continue to grow the business. Alegre’s role within Yuga will be to speed up the company’s ambitious plans for blockchain gaming, metaverse development, and community building with a mandate to expand the business.
In a statement, Alegre noted that Yuga Labs had swiftly established a reputation for itself through narrative and community development. Furthermore, he is fully ready to relish the challenge.
Speaking to CoinDesk, he mentioned “Throughout my career, I have sought to build disruptive and innovative platforms that provide long-term value to consumers. Web3 presents an opportunity to reinvent how content is used, transacted and owned across the globe.”
In addition to this, Alegre comes with a wealth of corporate knowhow. Just last year Activision faced a lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing which accused the company of “fratboy workplace culture”. His previous employers Google were no strangers to controversies either. Although both cases predated Alegre’s he still had to content with the sentiment that surrounded the companies that he worked for. This will stand him well as Yuga is currently involved in a class action law suit.
Furthermore, Alegre would have to deal with public mistrust of NFTs and the arrival of crypto winter. However, Alegre already has the backing of the founders. Wylie Aronow explained “Nicole, Greg, and I have been on the hunt for someone with Daniel’s skill set for some time. The business, our ambitions, and the complexity of the work have grown beyond our wildest expectations”.
The expectation on Yuga
The team is using the $450 million seed round, lead by A16z, it raised in March to build up Otherside with the help of Animoca Brands and Improbable, a maker of metaverse technology. When Yuga introduced Otherside earlier this year, a gamified metaverse inspired by massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), it made clear its lofty metaverse intentions.
With the recent appointment of Chief Gaming Officer Spencer Tucker, a former executive at Scopely, Yuga intends to further bolstering its gaming initiatives. Add to this the recent acquisition of 10KTF {link: https://cointelegraph.com/news/yuga-labs-acquires-beeple-s-10ktf-game-hints-at-metaverse-integration] an NFT game founded by digital artist Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann – Yuga means business and are looking to be the best of the very best of blockchain gaming and Web3 brand.
The founders acknowledge “When it comes to the metaverse we’re competing with giants. In order to catapult Otherside and our other ambitious projects to new heights”, they need to be building out a team that has experience “across entertainment, ecommerce and global strategic partnerships – all of which are critical aspects of an immersive Web3 world built by creators and for creators.”
Bullish on Yuga
Industry peers have noticed and chimed in on the good news. Illuvium co-founder Kieran Warwick claimed in a tweet on December 19 that Yuga Labs’ new hire is “huge for all of GameFi,” implying that Web3-powered gaming will be the catalyst for the subsequent bull run in the cryptocurrency markets. Kieran went onto say “Every day more news comes out about new players from traditional gaming entering the space. DeFi 2.0 is cool. But gaming will be the narrative that kicks off the next run”
Similar comments were expressed in reaction to Warwick by Andrew Soro, vice president of global business development at blockchain technology company Immutable, who said that the appointment represents a “big signal and validation for the space.”
Speculators, collectors, investors all seem to agree. BAYC has seen average price increase this week, as has MAYC, MAKC, Otherside and even Meebits. Aside from the staffing, the price action could have been in line with Yuga’s latest lore update “The Trial of Jimmy”. Nonetheless, related or not. Yuga Labs has certainly got its game going on.
