Mythical Games Has the NFL, FIFA, and McLaren Playing in Its Blockchain Sandbox

The first time you download NFL Rivals, you are not asked to connect a crypto wallet. You are not asked to buy tokens. You are asked to build a fantasy football team. The onboarding flow is indistinguishable from any other licensed mobile sports game, a familiar sequence of taps and swipes. It is only later, when you earn a rare player card or a unique uniform, that the option appears: you can sell it, for real money, to another player. The blockchain that enables the transaction is a quiet hum in the server room, a feature you can use but are never forced to see [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, Unknown].

This is the central tension at Mythical Games, a seven-year-old Los Angeles studio that has raised over $300 million to build a new kind of game publisher [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, Unknown]. Its bet is not on convincing crypto natives to play games, but on convincing game natives,the millions who download titles from the NFL, FIFA, and McLaren,to casually participate in a player-owned economy. The company’s trajectory, from a $16 million Series A in 2018 to a reported $1.25 billion valuation in late 2021, is a map of this ambition, tracing a path through the volatile landscape of web3 by anchoring itself to the sturdiest brands in entertainment [TechCrunch, November 2018] [Ledger Insights, November 2021].

The Activision Playbook, Rewritten

The founding team reads like a who’s who of traditional gaming’s top tier. CEO John Linden and Chief Creative Officer Jamie Jackson were both studio heads at Activision, working on franchises like Call of Duty and Skylanders [LA Games Conference, retrieved 2026] [Humantic AI Profile for Jamie Jackson, retrieved 2026]. Co-founder Rudy Koch was a senior producer at Blizzard Entertainment [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, Unknown]. Their collective resume is a deep bench of experience in building and shipping polished, mass-market games, a credibility that has proven essential for landing the licenses that form Mythical’s protective moat.

This pedigree has attracted a tier of investor typically reserved for software infrastructure, not game studios. Andreessen Horowitz led both a $75 million Series B in June 2021 and a $150 million Series C that November [TechCrunch, October 2023] [Ledger Insights, November 2021]. The latter round reportedly valued the company at $1.25 billion, a figure that underscores the scale of the opportunity investors see in blending blockbuster IP with digital ownership [Ledger Insights, November 2021].

Round	Date	Amount	Lead Investor	Notable Valuation
Series A	November 2018	$16M	Galaxy Digital’s EOS VC Fund	Not disclosed [TechCrunch, November 2018]
Series B	June 2021	$75M	Andreessen Horowitz	Not disclosed [TechCrunch, October 2023]
Series C (Part 1)	November 2021	$150M	Andreessen Horowitz	$1.25B [Ledger Insights, November 2021]
Series C Extension	May 2023	$37M	Scytale Digital	Not disclosed [Business Wire, May 2023]
Series D+	October 2025	$63.07M	Unknown	Not disclosed [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, October 2025]

A Platform Disguised as a Game Studio

On the surface, Mythical is a portfolio of licensed games. But the deeper product is the Mythical Platform, the underlying infrastructure that enables the secure trading and provenance of in-game items. The 2023 acquisition of DMarket, a marketplace for digital skins, was a key move to bolster this back-end capability, bringing both technology and executive talent like co-founder Tamara Slanova into the fold [white-summers.com, Unknown] [Tamara Slanova - Co-Founder at DMarket, retrieved 2026].

The games themselves are the distribution channel. Each title serves a dual purpose: to entertain, and to quietly onboard users into an economy where they are both consumer and merchant.

• NFL Rivals. The flagship. Launched in 2022, it is the first officially licensed NFL blockchain game, a mobile title that has become the company’s most prominent proof point for the model [The Verge, May 2022].
• FIFA Rivals. The next swing. Developed in collaboration with Bacon Games, this mobile title is slated for a late 2025 launch and represents the first web3 game from the global football federation [Mythical Games on X, retrieved 2026] [Bitcoinist.com, Unknown].
• Nitro Nation World Tour. A partnership with McLaren Automotive and CM Games, extending a popular racing franchise into Mythical’s ecosystem [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, Unknown].
• Blankos Block Party. The original thesis in action, an open-world multiplayer game that emphasized user-generated content and digital collectibles from the start [nftevening.com, Unknown].

This strategy of embedding the platform inside beloved IP is a calculated hedge. If the crypto winter chills interest in NFTs, the games are still viable, fun products backed by major leagues. If the ownership economy takes off, Mythical is positioned as the default rails.

The Invisible Ledger and Its Limits

The company’s most touted innovation is making blockchain optional. It is a user experience choice with profound philosophical implications: prioritize the game, not the technology. This focus on mainstream accessibility is the answer to the single biggest risk the company faces,that the stigma or complexity of web3 will limit its total addressable market to a niche.

Yet, optionality is not invisibility. Regulators and platform holders are still writing the rules for digital asset ownership within games. Apple and Google’s app store policies on NFTs and secondary sales remain a evolving landscape that could constrain economic models. Furthermore, the company has navigated executive turnover, including the departure of COO Matt Nutt and co-founder Rudy Koch in 2023, a common but notable challenge for a venture-scaled startup [CoinDesk, June 2023].

The financial model also carries inherent questions. While the reported $1.25 billion valuation signals investor confidence, it predicates significant future revenue from the trading economies within its games [Ledger Insights, November 2021]. The company must not only attract players but also foster active, liquid marketplaces for digital goods,a network effect challenge that goes beyond simple download counts.

The Next Twelve Months

The imminent launch of FIFA Rivals in late 2025 is the next major test [Bitcoinist.com, Unknown]. Success with a global sports property on the scale of FIFA would validate the licensed-game wedge beyond American football. Concurrently, the company has announced plans to launch the first Layer 3 blockchain built on World Chain, a technical evolution aimed at improving scalability and reducing transaction costs for users [World.org, Unknown].

These moves point to a year focused on scaling both the front-end experiences and the back-end infrastructure that makes them possible. The goal is to move from proving the model with one hit to establishing a repeatable factory for licensed web3 games.

When you tap to sell that rare virtual jersey in NFL Rivals, you are participating in a quiet experiment. The question Mythical Games is built to answer is not whether blockchain has a place in gaming,a debate that has raged for years. Its more subtle, more ambitious question is whether the act of ownership can feel so native to play that the technology facilitating it simply disappears. The company’s future hinges on making the ledger feel less like a innovation and more like a utility, as mundane and essential as the server that saves your game. The bet is that when trading a digital good becomes as frictionless as using one, the cultural resistance melts away, leaving only the game.

Sources

1. [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, Unknown] Company overview and product description
2. [TechCrunch, November 2018] Blockchain gaming gets a boost with Mythical Games’ $16M Series A | https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/16/blockchain-gaming-gets-a-boost-with-mythical-games-16m-series-a/
3. [Ledger Insights, November 2021] Blockchain Play-to-earn Mythical Games raises $150m at $1.25 billion valuation | https://www.ledgerinsights.com/blockchain-play-to-earn-mythical-games-raises-150m-at-1-25-billion-valuation/
4. [TechCrunch, October 2023] Creators raising venture capital: Unsettling or genius? | https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/12/creators-raising-venture-capital-unsettling-or-genius/
5. [Business Wire, May 2023] CA-MYTHICAL-GAMES | https://via.ritzau.dk/pressemeddelelse/13700870/ca-mythical-games?publisherId=90456
6. [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, October 2025] Reported Series D+ funding round
7. [LA Games Conference, retrieved 2026] John Linden background
8. [Humantic AI Profile for Jamie Jackson, retrieved 2026] Jamie Jackson background
9. [The Verge, May 2022] NFL Rivals is the first officially licensed NFL blockchain game
10. [Mythical Games on X, retrieved 2026] Announcement of FIFA Rivals launch
11. [Bitcoinist.com, Unknown] FIFA Rivals launch window
12. [nftevening.com, Unknown] Blankos Block Party description
13. [white-summers.com, Unknown] Acquisition of DMarket
14. [Tamara Slanova - Co-Founder at DMarket, retrieved 2026] Tamara Slanova joining Mythical
15. [CoinDesk, June 2023] Coverage of executive departures
16. [World.org, Unknown] Announcement of Layer 3 blockchain on World Chain