End looms for Mythic Games as company gives up trying to deliver $1.3m Monsterpocalypse Kickstarter, hands files over to IP holder Privateer Press

Financially-stricken board game publisher Mythic Games has quit trying to complete its $1.3m Kickstarter for kaiju-battling game Monsterpocalypse – one of its last remaining projects after several years of failing to fulfil a string of big-money crowdfunding campaigns.

Monsterpocalypse’s 6,300 backers join thousands of other supporters of Mythic Kickstarters since 2020 who have either failed to receive their games, been asked for hundreds more dollars to get their orders shipped, or seen the IP for the game they backed sold off to other publishers without being delivered their pledge.

Mythic signed a deal with Monsterpocalypse IP owner Privateer Press in August 2021 to run a Kickstarter for a big box product range for the game, which was first released in 2008.

At the time Mythic was the fourth-highest grossing board game publisher on Kickstarter, having raised almost $10m across a trio of high-profile campaigns in the preceding 15 months.

They included Hel: The Last Saga, which raised over $2.2m from supporters, a $1.5m crowdfund for 6: Siege – based on Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege video game series – and its biggest-ever crowdfunding project, a tabletop adaptation of the Darkest Dungeon video game, which raised more than $5.6m from over 28,000 supporters.

Mythic launched the crowdfunding campaign for Monsterpocalypse in November 2021, despite global economies being gripped by spiralling inflation and soaring manufacturing and shipping prices in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The publisher was left struggling under the weight of its expensive to produce, miniatures-heavy projects, and by the summer of 2022 had already subsidised more than $1.2m of unexpected costs.

But despite that it continued to launch new projects, raising more than $1m from over 5,500 backers for its Anastyr campaign in May of 2022. At the time of that launch, Mythic already had five unfulfilled crowdfunding projects totalling more than $11m.

Short of another $1.75m for the first wave of the Darkest Dungeon campaign alone, Mythic took the unprecedented step of telling that project’s backers they would have to commit more money if they wanted to receive their game at all – up to $69 each, on top of the $100 to $330 plus shipping they had already spent on the original crowdfunding campaign.

The publisher presented backers of 6: Siege with a similar ultimatum in 2023 – contribute up to $249 more, depending on pledge level, or do not receive the game.

Mythic’s last official communication with Monsterpocalypse backers was almost two years ago, in March 2023, when it said it “remained committed” to the project and was “determined to deliver it as soon as our schedule allows” – adding that the game was “still a project that we care about and its delivery is still a priority”.

But by January last year it was clear that the project was in serious trouble, with Vesperini telling BoardGameWire that the company’s solution for Monsterpocalypse – and its other undelivered crowdfunding project, Rise of the Necromancers – would be to ask backers for extra contributions in order to receive their game, as it did with 6 Siege and Darkest Dungeon.

That comment came amid the company giving up on delivering its campaigns for Hel and Anastyr, which had raised $3.2m, instead selling the intellectual property rights to CMON.

Vesperini apologised at that time to Privateer and the other companies who had entrusted Mythic with their licences, saying, “We’ve been through a terrible crisis that has hit our model hard. We’ve suffered the consequences, but unfortunately we’re also passing some of them on to our partners, and that’s very hard to bear. The only thing we can do now is to do our best to limit the damage.”

Despite hope from some backers that the Hel and Anastyr IP sales would give Mythic enough capital to get its final projects out of the door, that dream was dashed on January 30 this year when it emerged Mythic had abandoned the project, and had handed all the STL files for the miniatures, the rules, maps and other assets over to Privateer.

Vesperini told BoardGameWire, “This is an amicable agreement – we put Privateer Press in a bad position, and we gave it all back for free. So unfortunately we’re not going to get any money to help us get back on our feet.

“But we felt it was the right thing to do because… the more time that passes, the less likely it is that we’ll be able to deliver our latest projects.”

Matt Wilson, chief creative officer at Privateer and the designer of Monsterpocalypse, said the company would provide the STL files for the Monsterpocalypse miniatures to the Kickstarter backers, giving them the possibility of printing out their own minis.

He said, “We know this is no substitute for what backers pledged for, and we know that not everyone is in a position to be able to 3D print the models. But it is the one thing within our control that we can offer, and our hope is that it will help bring together some of the people that were looking forward to their new adventures with Monsterpocalypse.”

Speaking to BoardGameWire, Wilson said, “The fate of the Monsterpocalypse Kickstarter project was very much a fluke – definitely the result of a confluence of very unfortunate events.

“We went into the license with Mythic in good faith and with every reason to believe the property was in good hands. We had known the ownership of Mythic for a long time, and Mythic had a very good track record of running highly successful Kickstarter projects and delivering excellent products.

“By all appearances at the time, this was a fantastic opportunity to bring Monsterpocalypse to a great deal of new audience in the form of a proper board game offered through a Kickstarter campaign, which we felt we could not do as capably ourselves. The last thing we could have imagined back then was that a pandemic would occur, much less that our brand would end up as part of a crowdfunding disaster.

“With that said, I think that any efforts we pursue going forward, particularly in the crowdfunding space, will be handled exclusively by Privateer. We experienced our own challenges in delivering Kickstarter projects during Covid, so we understand well what navigating those chaotic conditions was like.

“But it was difficult to have no control over a situation where our brand was compromised by virtue of being licensed for another party’s Kickstarter project that was in jeopardy of failing to deliver. I’d prefer to stay in control of our own fate as much as possible, in the future.”

Mythic’s Future

Mythic has become a shadow of its former self in the past three years, getting rid of almost the entirety of its permanent staff and selling off its IPs en masse. Monolith bought Reichbusters and Solomon Kane in December 2022, while CMON picked up Super Fantasy Brawl, Enchanters, and Steam Watchers the same month, and followed that by purchasing Hel and Anastyr in January last year.

The company’s remaining outstanding projects are Rise of the Necromancers, which raised about $317,000 on Gamefound in January 2022, and Darkest Dungeon, which is still to deliver a promised ‘Wave 2’ of expansions, add-ons, and the full-range localised into six other languages.

More than 80% of Darkest Dungeon backers paid Mythic the extra money it demanded to complete Wave 1 of the project, and were told that if they were also expecting projects in Wave 2 they would not have to make any further payments.

But Mythic went back on that commitment in October 2023, with Wave 1 backers being asked for another $13 to receive each of the Wave 2 expansions they were expecting, with even more added on top for shipping. Some backers saw their total extra bill across both waves reach more than $380 – around double their original pledge.

Despite all the extra money being put up by backers, it still remains unclear if any of them will receive Wave 2 of their Darkest Dungeon purchases. Mythic has not provided an official update to the Darkest Dungeon Kickstarter page since February last year, when it claimed production of Wave 2 was about to begin.

Vesperini has not responded to multiple questions from BoardGameWire about the status of Wave 2, or what will happen to the latest haul of money committed by backers if production has not in fact gone ahead.

He told BoardGameWire in October last year that the company expected to know by the end of that month if it could continue operating, or whether it would be liquidated.

Vesperini told BoardGameWire at the end of January, “Our official position is that we’re trying to collect from our debtors, and in the meantime we want to make things easier for our partners who have been wronged and for whom we feel sympathy. We will make an official announcement when we have a clear view of our situation.”