Rudy Koch

Rudy Koch

Co-Founder & CEO, JOA Ā· Co-Founder, Mythical Games

Rudy Koch has spent more than 25 years at the frontier of interactive entertainment. From the early days of 3D animation, through AAA, free-to-play, and mobile games, to the technologies reshaping entertainment today, he has consistently worked where new technology redefines how people create, play, and engage. As Co-Founder of Mythical Games, he helped pioneer player-owned digital economies in games. Today, as Co-Founder and CEO of JOA, he is building AI-powered experiences that reimagine how sports fans engage with their favorite teams.

Career at a Glance

Selected work across 25 years →

JOA

Rudy is co-founder and CEO of JOA, an agentic engagement engine for live sports. The thesis behind JOA is simple: the sports industry does not have an audience problem, it has an operating-model problem. Live-service games solved the challenge of persistent, participatory engagement years ago. AI now makes a similar operating model practical for teams, leagues and rights-holders, turning a broadcast into something fans can play alongside in real time rather than simply watch.

ONE Championship has been one of JOA's earliest proving grounds. In March 2026, JOA acquired the assets of GreenPark Sports: a fan-engagement platform founded by YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley and Zappos founder Nick Swinmurn, to accelerate the development of interactive live sports experiences.

Mythical Games

Rudy co-founded Mythical Games, a gaming studio and technology platform that was an early developer of player-owned digital economies. He registered the company in April 2018, before the rest of the founding team came on board. Mythical's premise was that players should be able to own and exchange eligible in-game items through carefully designed digital marketplaces, with the underlying economy built to support fairness, liquidity and long-term participation.

That platform powered titles including Blankos Block Party, an open-world multiplayer game built around designer digital toys, and NFL Rivals, an officially licensed arcade football game that brought player-owned mechanics to a mainstream sports audience. Mythical grew into one of the most recognized companies in the space, and much of Rudy's invention work, described below, originated from the systems problems the studio set out to solve.

Rudy Koch and Mythical Games: the full founding story, technology, and company history.

AI & Live Sports

Rudy's current work focuses on applying agentic AI to live fan engagement. These systems can personalize and orchestrate interactive experiences around a broadcast, allowing fans to predict, compete, collect and react while an event unfolds. The approach extends principles developed in live-service gaming, including real-time participation, persistent identity and responsive digital economies, to sports audiences at scale.

Games Industry Experience

Before founding companies, Rudy spent more than fifteen years inside the studios that defined modern gaming. At Blizzard Entertainment he worked on World of Warcraft; at Activision, on franchises including Call of Duty and Skylanders; and at Disney, on Club Penguin, one of the earliest mass-scale online worlds for a young audience. These globally recognized products provided experience in live operations, virtual economies and online communities, the operating principles he has built on ever since.

Patents & Innovation

Rudy is a named inventor on more than 30 granted U.S. patents, assigned to Mythical, covering game systems, digital ownership and interactive technologies. His inventions map the full architecture of player-owned economies, from marketplaces and clearinghouses to the mechanics that tie digital items to live, real-world events. Representative patent families include:

See the complete list of granted patents.

Advisory & Mentorship

Rudy's advisory work has included the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), Pixelynx and Alumni Ventures. He previously mentored founders and startups through Binance and Outlier Ventures. From 2024 to 2025, he served as Chief Game Officer and advisor at Pudgy Penguins.

Career Timeline

2000sā€“2018
Blizzard, Activision, Disney, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Skylanders, Club Penguin
2018
Co-founded Mythical Games, player-owned digital economies; Blankos Block Party, NFL Rivals
2024ā€“2025
Pudgy Penguins, Chief Game Officer & Advisor
2026
Co-founded JOA, an agentic engagement engine for live sports; launched with ONE Championship
Mar 2026
JOA acquires GreenPark Sports

Writing

All writing →

Press & Interviews

All media, press & interviews ā†’

Elsewhere