Mythical Games acquires cloud streaming dev Polystream

Mythical Games, the makers of Blankos Block Party, have purchased cloud gaming company Polystream for an undisclosed price.

If Blankos Block Party doesn't ring any bells, don't worry, you might not be the target audience. It's a free-to-play open-world multiplayer game with a play-to-earn structure based on non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Each "Blanko" is a unique character tied to an NFT that can be bought and sold for real money and are therefore speculative assets, etc. etc. etc.

The makers of Blankos Block Party have made a public pitch that play-to-earn is also part of a "metaverse" business strategy, where Blankos and other blockchain-backed assets can be moved from game to game. That makes Mythical's purchase of Polystream slightly interesting in that they seem to think the future of Metaverse development is the same kind of technology behind Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, and Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming.

In an interview with GamesBeat, CEO John Linden explained that Mythical wants users to play its games without having to download large clients. "A lot of people want to be part of these immersive 3D worlds and be able to jump in quickly and interact and socialize and then leave," he said. "We were able to run Blankos on their tech and suddenly — now what happens is you can run it in the cloud. But you only have a five-megabyte client now. So it’s a very thin client."

Linden did not discuss either the environmental impact of blockchain technology (though Mythical uses a "proof of authority" blockchain model, which uses far less electricity than "proof of work" algorithms) or the business concerns over acquiring users on the basis of making money on speculative assets. 

Update: This story has been updated to correct spelling errors, and note that Mythical uses a "proof of authority" blockchain model and not "proof of stake."