When you hear the name EA Sports, what springs to mind? Odds are the first four words to enter your head are “It’s in the game.” Said in that voice. Then, depending on your age and how long you’ve been gaming for, the following classics probably spring to mind: John Madden Football, FIFA, NBA Live, UFC.
EA Sports has been a sports gaming titan since the early 90s, driven by games like EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA) and Madden NFL, which have generated billions in revenue. Its influence on video gaming’s sports sector is colossal: no other studio can match its ability to take licensed IP for the world’s most prestigious sporting leagues and events – such as PGA golf – and use them to create iconic games that delight tens of millions of fans.
In terms of size, web3 doesn’t have its own EA Sports, towering over the industry. But in terms of style, web3’s EA Sports is indisputable. Only one web3 studio is taking the playbook that transformed EA Sports into the king of sports games and applying its own twist to this formula. Its name of course is Mythical Games and it’s on a mission to put web3 sports gaming on the map.
Web3’s Sporting Giant
Unlike EA Sports, Mythical Games isn’t exclusively dedicated to sports. It’s in the name, as the catchphrase goes: Mythical Games, not Sports. While the company’s most successful output has fallen into the sports bracket, it’s also released platform game Blankos Block Party, and is about to follow suit with Pudgy Penguins-based adventure Pudgy Party. But make no mistake, sports is where Mythical truly shines, and where its greatest hits can be found.
It all began with NFL Rivals, the game that made Mythical’s name as the rising star of web3 gaming – and which first prompted analogies between it and EA Sports. You see, prior to Mythical Games being awarded the NFL IP with which to create a football game, the U.S. league had only entrusted one studio with this precious intellectual property: that’s right, EA Sports. And just as Madden NFL proved the making of EA Sports (or John Madden Football as it was initially known), NFL Rivals was the making of Mythical.
The game’s formula, combining arcade-style gameplay with strategy team-building, makes it markedly different to EA Sports’ take on the NFL. But like EA Sports, Mythical targeted mainstream football fans and gamers with NFL Rivals – despite it being a web3 game. Through eliminating the barriers traditionally associated with web3 gaming – like the need to create a crypto wallet to play – Mythical scored an instant win with NFL Rivals.
It remains one of the most successful web3 games ever released, with six million downloads to date, making NFL Rivals more popular than such web3 hits as Axie Infinity and Alien Worlds. Only a handful of TON-based tap-to-earn games have outperformed NFL Rivals – and these releases are heavily token-incentivized. Mythical, in comparison, hasn’t “juiced” its games by loading them with token rewards. But there’s more to its strategy than merely steering clear of the P2E trap – and it can be distilled into two abbreviations.
IP Meets UX
Two factors that have played a major role, not just in the success of NFL Rivals, but in that of Mythical’s subsequent output, have been IP and UX. While intellectual property alone didn’t put Mythical on the map, obtaining the rights to the NFL’s IP gave it the opportunity to create a game that would resonate with mainstream fans.
Like EA Sports, Mythical Games was swift to recognize the value of sports IP for gaming purposes – as well as shrewdly noting that this sector was currently underserved. Having validated this thesis with NFL Rivals, when it came to releasing its next big sports game, Mythical went back to the sports IP store and this time walked away with the rights from football’s governing body to use its name and that of the players in the world’s major leagues. The result is FIFA Rivals, which is about to do for football (soccer) what NFL Rivals did for football (American football).
Having secured the sports IP it sought, Mythical’s next step was to nail the UX. While all web3 developers pay lip service to user experience, the reality is that quality varies greatly between studios. It takes time, resources, and meticulous attention-to-detail to deliver a web3 user experience that feels intuitive to natives and newcomers alike. By focusing on UX and ensuring it underpins every aspect of the user flow, from onboarding to in-game navigation, Mythical has made releases such as NFL Rivals feel as smooth as gliding through your favorite smartphone app.
Web3 Dressed Like Web2
One of the reasons why the UX is so good in Mythical’s games is because they’ve eliminated friction by abstracting away the blockchain components. Not because it’s ashamed to show them, but because it believes these features should enhance a game rather than dominate it. In NFL Rivals, for example, there’s the ability to trade football players in the integrated Mythical Marketplace. Each player is represented as an NFT, and purchases are made using the native MYTH token.
But if that’s an aspect of the game that doesn’t interest you; if you’re just looking to build your dream football team rather than get bogged down in trading, you don’t need to go there. Which means you don’t need to touch a token or create a wallet. In reality, players who find themselves getting seriously into the game will invariably gravitate to Mythical Marketplace, but while they’re finding their feet, there’s not a single blockchain boondoggle placed in their way to distract them. This is web3, but it looks and feels a lot like web2.
Like EA Sports But Different
EA Sports has limited itself to the sports genre because video gaming is huge, and there’s more than enough leagues, sports, and IP to work with. Besides, there are other EA divisions that can handle other video game genres. Web3 is of course smaller than traditional gaming, even when it’s addressing same sized global sports markets.
Mythical has made its name in sports, first with NFL Rivals, soon FIFA Rivals, and is believed to have other sports titles in the works. But at the same time, it’s gone beyond the genre to tackle other gaming verticals, as seen in Blankos Block Party and Pudgy Party. Moreover, because Mythical also has its own gaming blockchain, that’s open to anyone to build on, it’s eager to attract game developers of all stripes.
A similar approach has been taken by other savvy web3 companies such as Animoca Brands and Immutable. They too wish to create a diverse gaming ecosystem, which means accommodating a broad range of titles, from fantasy RPGs to FPS.
Mythical Games, then, is like EA Sports but different. It shares the same love of sports IP, high-profile partnerships, mainstream appeal, and polished game experiences. And it’s not afraid to repurpose a proven formula and apply it to new sports and leagues. But at the same time, Mythical is trying to avoid being bracketed as simply a sports gaming studio. Though if FIFA Rivals proves to be a hit – and all signs point to that being the case – Mythical will need to acknowledge that its two most successful games to date are both sports-based. Still, there are worse problems to have.
Whichever direction Mythical moves in next, one thing it won’t be abandoning is the attributes that have carried it this far: highly playable games, familiar brands, smooth UX, and blockchain features running in the background. These are the keys to mass adoption, and they’re unlocking web3 for millions of players, one carefully constructed game at a time.
