Los Angeles, CA – November 20, 2019 – Mythical Games (http://mythical.games), a next
generation game technology studio specializing in digital ecosystems around
player-owned economies, today announced that the company has closed an
additional $19 Million USD in venture funding. Led by Javelin Venture Partners,
new investors include Avon Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and Hashed as well as
participation from current investors Galaxy Digital via its Galaxy EOS VC Fund
and Struck Capital. Mythical Games raised $16 Million last year in Seed and
Series A rounds, bringing total funding to $35 Million to date. Mythical is
embracing a future in which gaming entertainment’s foundation is built on
intimate ties between players, influencers and content creators, brands and
game developers. The team is providing a platform for game developers to create
player-owned economies and producing new tools to provide ownership of in-game
assets for content creators and brands to build and customize.
“We are very excited with the support from our new and existing
investors, team and board members. We are well capitalized to lead this
evolution in gaming economics for PC, console, and mobile games bringing
participation from players, brands, eSports teams, and influencers directly
into the game economics. We believe this new trend will come to dominate games
and can’t wait to bring Blankos Block Party to market to show this new economy
in action and share our platform with other incredible game studios around the
world,” said John Linden, CEO of Mythical Games.
“Since investing in Mythical’s Series A round last year, we
have been incredibly impressed by the team’s execution on the build out of
Blankos Block Party and the Mythical Platform. The Blankos gameplay is fun,
rich, and engaging. It demonstrates the enrichment player-owned economies can
have on a game and we cannot wait for gamers to try it. It has been wonderful
to see various large industry partners in the broader gaming and blockchain
ecosystem embrace our approach. We are thrilled to lead this round of financing
for Mythical Games to support their public launch,” added Alex Gurevich of
Javelin Venture Partners.
Alongside its latest investment, Mythical has bolstered its
leadership team with four significant hires in Jeff Poffenbarger, Pete Hawley,
Nicole Yang, and Greg Deutsch. Jeff Poffenbarger joins as Chief Operating
Officer and oversees the running of the company’s day-to-day operations. Most
recently he was a Studio Head at Oculus VR with extensive experience as a
Senior Executive Producer at Activision and Activision Blizzard leading
multiple game launches for the Skylanders, Tony Hawk, and Marvel franchises.
Pete Hawley joins as Chief Product Officer in which he will helm the studio’s
slate of game and product development and the adoption of the Mythical platform
to other game studios and publishers. His expansive games industry background
includes roles as SVP of Games at Zynga, Co-Founder/CPO of Red Robot Labs, VP
of Product Development at Electronic Arts, and Executive Producer at Lionhead
Studios and Criterion heading Burnout Paradise. Nicole Yang joins as Vice
President of Marketing to spearhead go-to-market strategy and audience
development. Most recently VP of Marketing at Telltale Games and Product Marketing
at Zynga, she was an early employee at multiple startups acquired by
Activision, Perion Network, and Machine Zone and is an advisor at Humen AI.
Greg Deutsch joins as Mythical’s General Counsel and was formerly General
Counsel and SVP, Business & Legal Affairs at Activision for many years.
Following Activision, he served as General Counsel and advisor for early to
growth stage startups in emerging categories including acquisitions by Apple,
Facebook, FanDuel, Opera Software, Sony Interactive and Unity Technologies.
Rounding off the investment and hiring, Mythical shared that it
has also strengthened its board of directors with the addition of Alex Gurevich
(Javelin Venture Partners) and independent board member Rehito Hatoyama
(formerly Global COO of Sanrio, Hello Kitty) who join existing board members
Sam Englebardt of Galaxy Digital, John Linden, and Jamie Jackson. Rehito’s
addition is significant as the studio’s expansion has focused on growing its
business to involve global brand partners and influencers in the consumer
goods, sports, music and technology space.
With over 30 full-time employees and offices in Los Angeles and
Seattle, Mythical Games was founded in 2018 by CEO John Linden, CCO Jamie
Jackson, and VP of Marketplace Services, Rudy Koch. In their previous executive
roles at Activision Blizzard, they led world-class development teams for gaming
brands including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero Live, Skylanders
and more.
About Mythical Games:
Acknowledged by Forbes as one of the Disruptive Technology
Companies To Watch in 2019, Mythical Games is enabling a gaming ecosystem that
brings players, creators, brands and game developers together through
personalized experiences and content. Led by gaming industry veterans, the team
specializes in building games around player-owned economies and has helped
develop major franchises including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Guitar
Hero, Marvel Strike Force, Skylanders and Minecraft: Story Mode. For more information,
visit: http://mythical.games or follow Mythical
on Twitter.
Mythical Games’ first flagship title ‘Blankos Block Party’ is a
MMO set in a vibrant online world built on the Mythical platform. Players can
compete in games, create their own game play, and blend digital vinyl toys
called Blankos. This first game transforms the relationship of game economies
for players, brands, content creators and game developers and showcases
Mythical’s vision of player-owned economies. For more information or
interest in participating in the upcoming beta release, visit: www.blankos.com, or follow Blankos
on Twitter or Discord.
