No, Mythic Games hasn’t gone into liquidation – but its fate should be decided by the end of the month

Financially stricken French board game publisher Mythic Games has not been liquidated, despite a string of poorly researched reports flying across the internet – but the company expects to know by the end of October if its situation is indeed hopeless, BoardGameWire understands.

Several online outlets have reported in recent days that Mythic has gone bankrupt or been liquidated, having misunderstood a legal notice published in French newspaper La Parisien on October 10.

That notice describes the liquidation of Mythic’s French subsidiary – created to pay French employees of the company – which has become an unused shell business ever since Mythic fired all of its permanent staff almost two years ago.

Mythic has been relying on freelancers ever since to work on its multiple outstanding Kickstarter projects, and remains operational for now through its Luxembourg-based parent company.

But company co-founder Leonidas Vesperini told BoardGameWire this week that the business had been waiting on payments from creditors for several months, and was currently working on unspecified “last resort measures”. He said he expected to be able to say by the end of October whether Mythic can continue operating.

Mythic raised more than $12m across its six most recent crowdfunding campaigns, including $5.6m for the Darkest Dungeon board game, $2.2m for Viking survival horror game Hel and $1.5m for tactical shooter 6 Siege: The Board Game.

But the business remains floundering after failing to manage its finances during the coronavirus pandemic, which led to spiralling manufacturing and shipping costs for the entire board game industry.

While other publishers postponed or cancelled titles, trimmed their workforces and attempted to bring down other operating costs, Mythic steamed ahead with new, more ambitious Kickstarter projects, hiring even more staff to work on those campaigns.

That created a financial black hole at the company, and Mythic’s fall from one of the most successful crowdfunding-focused board game publishers of all time to one beset by financial woes has been swift.

In addition to outsourcing the entirety of its remaining workforce and giving up on delivering its Hel and Anastyr Kickstarters worth a combined $3.2m – instead selling the IP for those games to CMON – the company also began controversially asking backers of its crowdfunding campaigns to commit more money in order to deliver the projects.

That began with backers of the Darkest Dungeon board game, who were told they must commit another $18 and $69 each to receive ‘Wave 1’, comprising the English version of the core set, an expansion and several add-ons – on top of the $100 to $330 plus shipping they had already spent on the original crowdfunding campaign.

More than 80% of backers duly paid up, and were told that if they were also expecting projects in Wave 2 – several more expansions, add-ons, and the full-range localised into six other languages – they would not have to make any further payments.

But Mythic went back on that commitment a year ago, with Wave 1 backers being asked for another $13 to receive each of the Wave 2 expansions they are 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.

The chaos which engulfed the Darkest Dungeon campaign also extended to Mythic’s Kickstarter for 6: Siege, a tabletop adaptation of the Ubisoft video game Rainbow Six: Siege.

Mythic presented backers of that game with a similar ultimatum – contribute up to an extra $249 depending on pledge level, or do not receive the game.

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 in almost eight months, when it claimed production of Wave 2 was about to begin.

Vesperini did not respond to 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.

Although there has been months of silence from Mythic regarding official Kickstarter updates, Vesperini did respond to a BoardGameGeek thread on the Hel: The Last Sage page titled Leo, king of thieves! on October 1.

During that post he apologised to backers who were deceived and lost money, denied embezzling money, and called for an end to harrassment he was receiving, which he has since told BoardGameWire had included doxxing, posting of personal information about him and his family members on social network, and death threats.