Star Atlas’ Michael Wagner: Star Atlas Launch Details, Web3 Closures, Wearing Crypto With Pride

• Launched at the height of the 2021 bull market, Star Atlas captured attention with its ambitious vision of a AAA-quality universe running on blockchain rails.
• While many Web3 game developers are downplaying their blockchain roots to appeal to traditional gamers, ATMTA CEO Michael Wagner has taken the opposite stance.
• Wagner revealed an initial projected production budget of $335 million for Star Atlas.

In the wake of the Web3 gaming boom, declining interest and cooling funding have left a long list of shuttered projects in their wake, deepening gamer skepticism.

Yet Star Atlas, an ambitious space-themed MMO built on the Solana blockchain, has continued to build in public since its 2021 reveal, with a loyal fanbase clinging to every update.

Michael Wagner, founder and CEO of ATMTA, has remained firm on Star Atlas’s commitment to blockchain technology, even as many peers rebrand or fold under pressure.

In an exclusive interview with CCN, Wagner spoke openly about the harsh realities of user growth in a troubled market and the complicated journey to a “full launch” of Star Atlas.

Wearing Crypto With Pride

As terms like “blockchain” and “NFT” vanish from marketing decks, Wagner has not wavered in his commitment to a blockchain-powered future for Star Atlas.

“I do think it’s important, over time, that we’re not hiding the fact that we’re a crypto game,” says Wagner. “It’s something that we actually wear pridefully.”

While many game developers are reframing or downplaying their use of crypto to avoid backlash, Wagner insists that keeping Star Atlas’ blockchain elements is imperative to the project.

“A lot of teams will promote or emphasize the fact that they’re trying to obfuscate around the blockchain components of what they’re doing,” he says.

Wagner’s determination to keep Star Atlas crypto-native stems from a deeply personal, long-standing belief in the technology.

“I’ve been involved in crypto since 2013,” Wagner told CCN. “I deeply believe in the principles and ideology of crypto, around decentralization and permissionless systems and self sovereignty of assets that you control.”

He argues that letting traditional gamers engage with the game for too long without blockchain exposure would actually be a disservice.

“So there’s kind of a Goldilocks zone here,” he explains. “We can bring people into the game. We can let them experience it, get exposed to it.

“But… if we don’t, over time, educate the masses that we anticipate onboarding to the benefits of this technology, we’re doing them a disservice.”

This approach sharply contrasts with many of Star Atlas’ peers, particularly at a time when the association with crypto is often seen as a liability among mainstream gamers.

Still, Wagner maintains, “we haven’t really experienced any resistance to the game because it has crypto, and I don’t want to hide that either way.”

User Growth Remains Challenging

Surviving the Web3 gaming downturn without abandoning its crypto roots hasn’t been without difficulties.

With investor enthusiasm tapering off, traditional gamers are still a long way from fully embracing Web3, making user growth especially challenging.

“We obviously want to grow and we don’t want to rely on the existing community to fund the entire production budget,” Wagner says. “So I will say it’s been challenging to attract new users over the last couple of years.” Wagner says.

The team is banking on upcoming feature updates to shift that momentum.

“With a couple of the big feature updates that we have coming, I think [we] will be pretty well positioned to start to attract new users,” he adds,

Wagner acknowledges the challenging state of Web3 gaming right now, as a string of studios close their doors.

“I would say the reason we’re seeing studios close shop right now is… it’s just been an incredibly challenging couple of years,” he says.

“And at the same time, we don’t have that breakout title that is attractive to the mainstream, that’s going to bring that new audience into the space.”

Nonetheless, Wagner believes Star Atlas is positioned to eventually win over skeptics.

“I do think the fact that we are still here, and we’re showing the resilience that we’ve had as other studios are closing down, also enhances the credibility that people will have in our ability to be here in the future.”

Rising Budgets

Even outside of Web3, AAA game development is a brutal arena.

Major publishers in the traditional space are cutting back, and high-budget games are frequently delayed or canceled, often after building hype and swallowing hundreds of millions of dollars.

Star Atlas is no exception to the cost realities of ambitious game development. The initial estimated budget was already steep back in 2021.

“We’ve always anticipated a substantial production budget on the game,” Wagner says. “Our initial estimates were in the neighborhood of $335 million to build out and complete Star Atlas.”

Despite the market downturn, the project has managed to generate substantial revenue from early funding rounds and a committed player base, according to Wagner.

“We have generated over $250 million in revenue since the inception of the product,” he adds, “and that was for much of that time, not really having a product to even showcase.”

Wagner claims all revenue has been dedicated to product development, while other studios dedicate large portions to marketing.

“We’re not hosting big events. We’re not sponsoring every conference that’s out there. We’re not spending millions of dollars on content creators and KOLs,” he says.

“My emphasis on all of our budget has really been on product development,” Wagner continues. “That is what builds sustainability.”

A Full Launch

For fans, one of the most persistent questions is when Star Atlas will officially launch.

Though technically in pre-alpha, the game is publicly accessible, features an active player base, and includes a functioning in-game economy.

Still, defining a “full launch” in the context of a Web3 project is tricky.

“We do get that question a lot, ‘Well, when is Star Atlas launching?’” Wagner told CCN. “And in so many ways, we’ve already launched, we’re already public, we’re already accessible.”

“So I think the question is, how do you define what is a true public open access launch?” Wagner says.

When it comes to defining what counts as a true launch, Wagner outlined the current state of Star Atlas.

“We are already a live product with a live, functioning economy that’s been going for, you know, for 18 months,” he says.

For the future, Star Atlas fans have been awaiting Season Zero on the roadmap, which is what the team says is the name for when all core fundamental mechanics of the game are available.

“So I guess if I were to answer your question,” he says, “I would suggest that we would define success as getting to that public open access launch, and seeing anywhere from 30 to 100,000 regular users in that experience.”

Building In Public

Although the current build is labeled as closed access, it’s only lightly gated.

“It’s closed access early alpha on Epic Games Store, and there’s a minimal gating mechanism where you have to get a game access key,” Wagner explains.

That light restriction is meant less to foster exclusivity and more to protect the development team from premature criticism.

“We are trying to protect the team and the community from unwarranted criticism, given it is still an early access game,” he says.

“And because this is an unconventional approach to game development. The teams will want a lot more polish on it before it gets introduced to the public.”

Wagner believes that transparency is a necessity in the Web3 space.

“We have to show our work,” he says. “Partially because of skepticism of crypto in general, but even within the crypto audience asking questions, ‘Are these teams actually building? Is this a rug pull?’ Scams and fraud are so prominent.”

Wagner assured CCN that he does not believe most shuttered projects were scams, but emphasizes the importance of visible progress.

“I think it’s really important to be able to show your progress and show your work, because that not only provides credibility, but also stokes enthusiasm. People like seeing the progress as you go.”

Star Atlas and AI Gameplay

The rise of artificial intelligence has sparked widespread discussion about its role in gaming, but Star Atlas is embracing the technology and weaving it directly into its gameplay systems.

From AI-powered companions to autonomous, economically active agents, Wagner views AI as a foundational pillar of the Star Atlas experience.

Wagner outlines “three key implementations” of AI that will play a central role in how players interact with the game world.

“One of those is through what is effectively a virtual assistant, but your virtual companion within the game… this agent, if you will, or assistant, if you will, has a full knowledge graph of all of the lore and economics and gameplay and story of Star Atlas,” Wagner explains.

This AI companion is designed to support new players from the moment they enter the game, offering guidance, tips, and intelligent, context-aware suggestions.

The assistant can analyze live in-game data to help players make meaningful decisions.

“It has the capability of analyzing the various market data… and saying, ‘Hey, I think there’s an opportunity to go mine copper out at MRC 12 and transfer that to this local market and be able to trade that to other users.’”

The second implementation involves dynamic non-playable characters that respond to the evolving state of the game. These AI-driven merchants and other characters will offer a deeper level of immersion.

“It just creates a more immersive experience for players when they walk up to a merchant in a shop, and can also have a conversation with that merchant who has some awareness and consciousness around what’s happening in the Star Atlas universe.”

The third, and most complex, AI feature introduces autonomous agents capable of making economic decisions on their own.

These agents will operate similarly to real players by buying and selling resources in pursuit of in-game profit.

“These are agents that can control assets, that can also look at an arbitrage opportunity between two different local markets and could make the decision to go, take its ship, make a purchase of some resources on one local market, transport those to another… and then sell those,” Wagner explains.

“Now it’s driving the velocity of the economy itself.”

No AI Art Generation, Yet 

While Star Atlas is integrating AI into gameplay to enhance immersion, it’s also using AI behind the scenes to speed up development.

“Our team [is] taking advantage of virtually every development tool that’s available out there right now,” he says.

In addition to speeding up production, these tools are helping the studio tackle technical debt, an inevitable side effect of the rapid speed at which it is building.

“It’s also helping to clean up a lot of technical debt, which is just a consequence of building quickly,” Wagner explains.

However, when it comes to visual production, Wagner says the team is taking a more cautious approach.

AI-generated art, while advancing, has yet to meet the standards required for a AAA-quality game world.

“We’re not really using AI at all on any art generation at this point,” Wagner says. “I don’t think the current state of AI art generation is sufficient for us to be able to incorporate it into the game.”

That stance may not last forever, however, as Wagner anticipates that the evolution of AI tools will eventually allow them to be incorporated into Star Atlas’s creative workflows.

“I would anticipate that at some point in the near future, I would say within one to two years, we’re probably in a position where we can leverage AI for our production pipelines, which just helps us build out this universe faster.”