The Mystery Society discontinues development
US team Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow has announced it’s suspending development of its flagship game The Mystery Society.
Headed by experienced game exec Chris Heatherly (ex-Disney, NBCUniversal), the studio had been working on its social deduction title for a number of years, announcing a $3 million raise in February 2024.
As for the prospect of raising more funding, Heatherly commented on LinkedIn, “In normal times, we would have no problem raising a next round. But at the moment, the only thing there’s less investment for than games are web3 games. Absolutely brutal.”
Notably, the lead VC for its original round was Shima Capital, which was once the most active funder for blockchain games, but which since summer 2024 has heavily retrenched.
Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow is unlikely to be the only team deciding to shut down in the current circumstances. Originally planned to launch on Polygon, the team ended up switching to Immutable when Polygon stopped supporting games.
Going forward, the studio will keep the game live for as long as possible while looking for alternative ways to relaunch in the future. One such way could be to relaunch the game in a pure web2 version on Steam. It’ll also explore the option of finding a game publisher, either in web2 or web3.
In the meantime, the game’s MYSTRY token is being put on indefinite hold. Still believing that crypto is the future, Heatherly said he does not “believe that token speculation is going to be the way we do it. In fact, I think it’s the thing in our way.”
Moreover, everyone who purchased the in-game gems will be refunded, and The Mystery Society will be running its final game night on Thursday 27th February at 3pm PST.
