The Shiba Inu ecosystem is set for another expansion after Shytoshi Kusama announced SHIB had partnered with veteran developer William Volk to build a Shiba game - but which studio will lead development?
While Volk certainly has the required experience, he won’t be alone in creating the game. According to Shytoshi, the volunteer Shiba project lead, the team found a studio that is the “perfect fit” for SHIB. However, as the contracts still need finalising, we don’t yet know who the studio is.
Luckily, Shytoshi dropped a few hints in his Medium post that let us make a few predictions. Here are some predictions for who could be developing the Shiba Inu game.
Who Is The SHIB Game Studio?
While Shytoshi said the team is under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), he did give some details about the SHIB studio.
- The developer is a “AAA Game Studio”;
- It has “worked with the likes of Disney and Warner Bros”;
- The SHIB Game will be a mobile title.
We also know that it will not be a first-person shooter - ruling out Activision. It’s worth noting here that while much has been made of William Volk’s connection to Activision - one of the top AAA studios - he no longer works at the Call of Duty publisher, and has not worked there for quite some time. This is something Shytoshi confirmed after the announcement.
This gives us some clues to look at, so we did some digging around, and found a few prospective studios.
One of the prospective studios this could be is Jam City. The California-based mobile developer has released games totalling over 1.3bn downloads, including Disney Emoji Blitz, and Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery. It certainly fills the criteria of an AAA studio that has worked alongside Disney and Warner Bros, and from a mobile angle, too.
Indeed, Jam City also is moving into cryptocurrency. At the dot.LA conference in late October, its COO Josh Yguado said: "More than anything we're investing in where gaming is going, so we're making huge investments right now in augmented reality and cryptocurrency."
Jam City CEO Chris DeWolfe also said to Forbes in September that it was "leaning more into the NFT world".
Aside from Jam City, Scopely potentially fills the SHIB criteria. This $5.4bn publisher released the Warner Bros-licensed Looney Tunes World of Mayhem on mobile in 2018. It also runs Marvel Strike Force after acquiring its developer FoxNext in 2020.
Given the criteria is quite vague, and neither Jam City nor Scopely has any concrete cryptocurrency or blockchain experience just yet, there is a strong chance neither of these is the developer. If SHIB opted for a more crypto-focused development studio, Animoca Brands could be a strong option.
The issue is that neither of these publishers appears to have much cryptocurrency or blockchain-related experience. If SHIB opted for a more crypto-focused development studio, Animoca Brands could be a strong option.
As the publisher of games such as F1 Delta Time and The Sandbox, Animoca is among the most respected crypto studios. However, while it has created projects alongside Disney, we couldn’t find any connection to Warner Bros.
Of course, we won’t know for sure who the studio is until either Shiba Inu or the developers reveal it themselves. We’ll be sure to let you know when that happens.
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[Image: Fotis Fotopoulos/Unsplash]