Mythical Games expands overseas and acquires assets of U.K. game studio Shortround Games

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Mythical Games has acquired tech and staff from Shortround Games, a game studio based in Brighton, England. And Mythical, the maker of Blankos Block Party, has also opened offices in Seoul, South Korea, and Stockholm, Sweden.

Mythical makes games and provides technology based on blockchain and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), with a focus on enabling people to play and earn rewards at the same time.

The latest moves are part of the company’s plan to put its $150 million in funding to work. Mike Kang has been named as the vice president of business development for Asia Pacific, while Jikhan Jung will be the vice president of production.

Adam Schaub will be the head of Mythical Europe and studio general manager. The company has also acquired the Shortround tech, which includes client and server tools built to develop and maintain large-scale, socially interactive and competitive games.

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Shortround studio director Andrew Hubbard, a 15-year games industry veteran who previously served as a lead programmer at Criterion Games and Disney Interactive’s BlackRock studio, will continue to helm the team of eight people who are joining Mythical.

As part of Mythical Europe, the new hires from Shortround will help the company realize its aspirations to build engaging virtual worlds that leverage the Mythical Platform, beginning with an unannounced sports game releasing in 2023.

Mythical Games is launching a private beta of its Blankos Beach Party.
Mythical Games makes vinyl characters in Blankos Block Party.

This is the second acquisition for Mythical this year; in January it announced the purchase of metaverse streaming platform Polystream, which provides Mythical with a hub in Guildford, U.K., that will become its center for cloud-native, blockchain-based technology and entertainment experiences.

“We’re thrilled to bring the talented Shortround team under the Mythical umbrella, as well as having Adam, Andrew, Mike and Jikhan on board for this next step in our global expansion as we build out our team and scale operations to bring new games to our platform,” said John Linden, CEO of Mythical Games, in a statement. “The play-and-earn community is rapidly growing, and we as a company are growing alongside it, to better meet the needs of consumers who want to interact and transact in immersive 3D game worlds. Our new studios in Seoul and Stockholm increase our publishing and platform capabilities, and alongside the team from Shortround, and Polystream, rounding out our UK presence, these moves further our position as a leader in bringing decentralized gaming to a mass market audience across the globe.”

Schaub, who most recently served as a studio general manager at Electronic Arts (EA), brings to Mythical over two decades of experience in the international mobile games and entertainment industry. In his role at Mythical he will focus on scaling EU operations and partnerships while building a Stockholm studio HQ focused on delivering the next generation of blockchain games.

Kang, a business and technology professional with 20 years of experience working in various capacities to enable innovation to client and internal organizations, comes to Mythical from Mana Partners, a gaming and esports agency, where he was a co-founder and managing partner.

Jung has dedicated 16 years to the gaming industry as a producer and CEO across PC, mobile, VR and blockchain projects, including free-to-play and play-to-earn games. He most recently served as founder and CEO of Subdream Studios, whose titles included VR Arcade game Galaga Fever, in partnership with Bandai Namco; and Ethereum-based RPG play-to-earn game Bit Kingdom.

Mythical has grown to more than 200 employees. In its most recent round, led by Andreessen Horowitz, Mythical was valued at $1.25 billion. The company is still hiring.

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