Alexey Ushnisky (left) , CEO of MyTona, and his twin brother Afanasiy Ushnisky, chief operating officer, in 2017.
Alexey Ushnisky (left) , CEO of MyTona, and his twin brother Afanasiy Ushnisky, chief operating officer, in 2017.
Categories

Even in Siberia, you can make a game with 30M downloads in today’s global game market

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

Perhaps the most unusual game company I met while in Israel was MyTona, a studio founded by twin brothers who grew up in one of the coldest regions of the world in Russia’s Siberia. MyTona has more than 100 employees in Yakutsk, and it published a hit game The Secret Society: Hidden Mystery, via Swedish game publisher G5. The game has been downloaded more than 30 million times since 2012.

Author’s note:

The organizers of Casual Connect Tel Aviv paid my way to Israel. Our coverage remains objective.

Unlock premium content and VIP community perks with GB M A X!
Join now to enjoy our free and premium membership perks.
Join Now
Already a member? Sign in
Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.