Kwalee Ltd. is a British

video game developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...

and

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

. The company was founded in May 2011 by David Darling, co-founder and former CEO of

Codemasters The Codemasters Software Company Limited (trade name: Codemasters) is a British video game developer and former publisher based in Southam, England, which is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts and managed under the EA Sports ...

who is hailed as one of the 'founding fathers' of the UK games industry. The company publishes games on mobile, PC and console platforms. It is known for its hypercasual games for

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

and Android devices, with a large internal development studio helping the company to more than 700 million game downloads in total. Based in

Leamington Spa Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or simply LeamingtonEven more colloquially, also referred to as Lem or Leam (). (), is a spa town and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Originally a small village called Leamington Pri ...

in the county of Warwickshire, Kwalee is one of the several companies that make up the Leamington Spa video gaming cluster. As of 2022, the company also has offices in

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

. Kwalee employs over 180 technical, marketing, publishing and administrative staff in its offices, including Andrew Graham (designer and programmer of ''Micro Machines'') and COO Jason Falcus (programmer of ''

NBA Jam ''NBA Jam'' is a List of basketball video games, basketball video game series based on the National Basketball Association (NBA). Initially developed as arcade games by Midway Games, Midway, the game found popularity with its photorealistic digi ...

''). In 2020, the company began to publish PC and console games with Max Everingham joining from

Team17 Team 17 Digital Limited (Team17) is a British video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher based in Wakefield, England. The venture was created in December 1990 through the merger of British publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish dev ...

to head up a new division.

The Kwalee Name

Kwalee is the

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n Aboriginal for “wait for me,” used as the name for a sailboat belonging to David Darling's grandfather, who taught him electronics. During his youth, Darling sailed on it frequently, thus the name Kwalee is a homage to the grandfather who inspired his career path.

Expansion

In 2019, Kwalee launched the publishing side of its business. This team works with third-party developers to help their games reach a wider audience by signing and publishing them under the Kwalee brand. Successes of the Kwalee publishing department include ''Rocket Sky!'' from developer DP Space AG, which has been a number one app in 11 countries including the United Kingdom, France and Australia, and OverTake, a 2020 driving title that has been the number one iOS game in countries including the United Kingdom, Australia and more. On 24 January 2022, Kwalee acquired Tictales. On 5 July 2024, Kwalee acquired a 3.58% minority share in

Devolver Digital Devolver Digital, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Austin, Texas, specializing in the publishing of indie games. The company was founded in June 2009 by Nigel Lowrie, Harry Miller, Graeme Struthers, Rick Stults, and Mike Wil ...

. On 10 October 2024, Microids announced a new third-party publishing division, with it being a collaboration with Kwalee; the first title it would publish will be Kwalee-acquired title ''The Precinct''.

Work culture

Kwalee offers an opportunity to all of its employees in the form of its 'Creative Wednesdays', where any member of staff is encouraged to pitch ideas for games on a weekly basis. Some of these ideas are then made by Kwalee's internal development and launched to the world. Kwalee state that they "rely on them he ideasto power our internal development." Alongside 'Creative Wednesdays', Kwalee rewards all of their employees for the success of the games they create via a profit sharing scheme. In just over one year, the scheme paid out over £1 million to its employees, with "a base amount that goes to everyone no matter the role, which is added to based on how closely the work of the individual has related to the success and profit of particular games". Since the success of ''Teacher Simulator'', Kwalee donated 100% of the game's UK profits obtained during the first week of the school term to FareShare, in their efforts to tackle child food poverty in the United Kingdom.

Published titles

Mobile games

PC & Console games

Awards

In 2012, Kwalee was named in the Startups 100 awards as one of the UK's most innovative, inspiring and ground-breaking new companies. In 2019, its game Shootout 3D was awarded a TIGA award for 'Best Puzzle Game'. In App Annie's Top Publisher Awards 2021, awarded based on overall mobile downloads throughout 2020, Kwalee was named the UK's biggest mobile game publisher by downloads and the UK's third highest-ranked app publisher overall behind the BBC and the NHS. In 2021, Kwalee was nominated in the Best Publisher and Best Developer categories at the PocketGamer.biz Mobile Game Awards. In 2022, the company won the title as Publisher of the Year at both the TIGA Games Industry Awards 2022 and the PocketGamer Mobile Game Awards 2022. It was also named in the Top 50 Mobile Game Makers of 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://kwalee.com Video game development companies Video game companies of the United Kingdom British companies established in 2011 Video game companies established in 2011 Companies based in Leamington Spa 2011 establishments in England