Anthony Charlton is a UK-based marketing and gaming executive best known as co-founder and CEO of Utopian Game Labs, an independent game developer and publisher that has pursued Web3-oriented game concepts alongside more traditional production and marketing services. He is also associated with Utopian Game Labs Academy, an education initiative focused on building career pathways into the video game industry.
Overview
Charlton’s profile sits at the intersection of games production, go-to-market strategy, and blockchain-adjacent entertainment. Public company and team materials describe him as a long-tenured marketing professional and business strategist with experience across sport, leisure, hospitality, information technology, and video games. In the crypto context, his work is most often discussed through Utopian Game Labs’ development of Time Raiders, a game positioned around NFT-enabled rewards and “treasure hunt” style mechanics.
History and Background
Before Utopian Game Labs, Charlton built a career in marketing and operations, including senior responsibility for commercial execution and business growth. He has been listed as Director of Marketing and Operations at Net Essence Ltd. from 2009 to 2019, and has been linked to advisory and mentoring activity through organizations such as Mentor Your Career. He has also been associated with industry education and programming through The Business of Indie Games, reflecting an emphasis on practical business development in a sector where funding, production scheduling, and distribution are recurring constraints.
In a Web3 setting, this background is relevant because many blockchain-enabled game projects succeed or fail on user acquisition, retention, and the ability to communicate value without over-relying on speculative incentives. Charlton’s public positioning has tended to emphasize game design and usability, rather than treating tokens as the primary product.
Utopian Game Labs
Utopian Game Labs Ltd was incorporated in England in December 2018. The studio positions itself as an independent developer, marketeer, and publisher, and has described work that includes adapting family and children’s intellectual property into games across platforms, alongside development of original concepts. Charlton is listed as a director of the company and serves as CEO.
Utopian Game Labs has also framed itself as pursuing research and development in areas such as artificial intelligence and blockchain-enabled gaming. The company’s most prominent Web3-facing project is Time Raiders, a time-travel action game that has been described as “shoot-and-loot” in style and designed to incorporate NFT-based rewards. In May 2022, Time Raiders announced a partnership with Polygon Studios, linking the project’s Web3 components to the Polygon ecosystem, which is widely used for NFT and gaming applications that require lower transaction costs than Ethereum mainnet.
Time Raiders and Web3 Gaming Positioning
Time Raiders has been marketed around a gameplay-first approach with blockchain elements designed to support digital collectibles and reward systems. In the broader market, this model competes with two alternative approaches, fully on-chain game economies that lean heavily on token incentives, and conventional free-to-play models that rely on centralized item stores and ad-driven monetization. Charlton’s stated challenge has been to integrate on-chain ownership concepts without undermining the fundamentals that typically drive player retention.
Because blockchain game economies often interact with highly liquid crypto assets such as Ethereum and user entry points that frequently start with Bitcoin exposure, Web3 game studios are commonly judged on how they communicate risk, manage expectations, and avoid positioning gameplay as a proxy for financial return. This context has influenced how Utopian Game Labs describes Time Raiders, focusing on entertainment value and optional participation in NFT-based systems.
Utopian Game Labs Academy
Charlton is also a co-founder and executive director of Utopian Game Labs Academy, which promotes short courses aimed at helping people enter or progress within the video games sector. Program areas highlighted in public materials include quality assurance testing, studio management, programming, art, and music or sound. The academy’s positioning emphasizes inclusion and job creation, aiming to broaden the pool of talent that can contribute to games production, including roles beyond engineering and design.
Risks and Considerations
Web3 gaming remains a high-uncertainty segment. Projects that incorporate NFTs and token-linked reward systems face market volatility, shifting platform policies, and reputational risk when players interpret on-chain assets as investments rather than entertainment products. Operationally, security risks span both traditional game infrastructure and smart contract or wallet integrations, including phishing, compromised accounts, and exploits in third-party tooling. Regulatory expectations around promotions and consumer disclosures can also affect how games market NFT-linked features across jurisdictions. For executives such as Charlton, managing these risks typically requires conservative product design, clear user communication, and a strong separation between gameplay value and speculative market narratives.
