Mediatonic Limited 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 ...

based in

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. The company was founded in September 2005 by Brunel University students Dave Bailey and Paul Croft, releasing their first game, ''Snowman Salvage'' in December that year. Initially a work-for-hire studio for Flash games, Mediatonic has developed original games for other platforms, including '' Murder by Numbers'' and '' Fall Guys''. As of June 2020, Mediatonic employs 230 people in four studios and is part of Tonic Games Group, which is a subsidiary of

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since March 2021.

History

Mediatonic was founded in September 2005 by friends Dave Bailey and Paul Croft, both aged 21 at the time, during their final year at Brunel University. They decided on the opening in a drunken conversation at the university's student union bar. With an office near the campus, they set up the company as a work-for-hire studio to create Flash games and sometimes skipped lectures to accept calls from clients. ''Snowman Salvage'', a game that was part of Croft's dissertation, was Mediatonic's first release in December 2005. PopCap Games, Big Fish Games and PlayFirst were early Mediatonic clients and, among others, Mediatonic produced Flash conversions of '' Bejeweled'', '' Bookworm'', '' Diner Dash'' and ''Poppit!''. It also created ''Amateur Surgeon'', an original game, for Adult Swim Games. Mediatonic was profitable enough in its first year that, following Bailey and Croft's graduation, the studio moved to a former government building in

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in February 2006 and hired ten employees. Other early games by Mediatonic included ''Meowcenaries'', ''Gigolo Assassin'', ''Must Eat Birds'', and ''Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess''. Having reached 25 employees, Mediatonic moved to new offices near Covent Garden in February 2008. In July 2009, Mediatonic opened a studio in

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to act as a digital media agency, later spun out into a company named Graphite. Mediatonic received funding from entrepreneurs Kelly Sumner, Ian Livingstone and Geoff Heath in April 2010, and from Frog Capital in January 2012. Pete Hickman, a former

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for Eidos Interactive, joined Mediatonic as its head of production in July 2011. Planning to double its 50-strong headcount, Mediatonic moved its London headquarters to

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in May 2012. Mediatonic opened a Brighton development studio that October. According to Bailey, Mediatonic began giving original games and work-for-hire projects equal weight and the company grew as a result. It later branched out into publishing, opening The Irregular Corporation as a sister company in December 2015. Mediatonic moved into Shell Mex House, London, in April 2017. In July, a five-person team was established in a co-working space in

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, and expanded into a proper office in July 2019. A sister development studio, Fortitude Games, was established in

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, England, around south-west of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The nam ...

in 2018. Frog Capital sold its share in Mediatonic to Synova Capital, making a 7.4-times return on its investment. A fourth studio for Mediatonic in

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was announced in February 2020. Also in early 2020, Mediatonic established its headquarters in an office above London Victoria station, although it went largely unused due to the

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causing the company to make employees work from home. Bailey and Croft established Tonic Games Group as a

parent company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

for Mediatonic, The Irregular Corporation, and Fortitude Games, moving 35 employees to Tonic Games Group, while Mediatonic had a staff of 230. On 2 March 2021,

announced that it had acquired Tonic Games Group, including Mediatonic. In September 2023, Mediatonic was subjected to deep job cuts by its parent company. Though it was first speculated that the entire studio had been closed, that proved not to be the case.

Games developed

References

External links

* {{Epic Games 2005 establishments in England British companies established in 2005 Companies based in the City of Westminster Epic Games Software companies based in London Video game companies established in 2005 Video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game development companies