Mediatonic Limited

Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	September 2005; 20 years ago (2005-09) inUxbridge, England
Founders	Dave Bailey Paul Croft
Headquarters	London , England
Key people	Dave Bailey (CEO) Paul Croft (CGO)
Products	Murder by Numbers Fall Guys
Number of employees	230 (2020)
Parent	Tonic Games Group (2020–present)
Website	mediatonicgames.com

Mediatonic Limited^[1] is a Britishvideo game developer based inLondon. The company was founded in September 2005 byBrunel University students Dave Bailey and Paul Croft, releasing their first game,Snowman Salvage in December that year. Initially awork-for-hire studio forFlash games, Mediatonic has developed original games for other platforms, includingMurder by Numbers andFall Guys. As of June 2020, Mediatonic employs 230 people in four studios and is part of Tonic Games Group, which is a subsidiary ofEpic Games since March 2021.

Mediatonic was founded in September 2005 by friends Dave Bailey and Paul Croft, both aged 21 at the time, during their final year atBrunel University.^[2][3] They decided on the opening in a drunken conversation at the university's student union bar.^[4] With an office near the campus, they set up the company as awork-for-hire studio to createFlash games and sometimes skipped lectures to accept calls from clients.^[3][5]Snowman Salvage, a game that was part of Croft'sdissertation, was Mediatonic's first release in December 2005.^[2][5]

PopCap Games,Big Fish Games andPlayFirst were early Mediatonic clients and, among others, Mediatonic produced Flash conversions ofBejeweled,Bookworm,Diner Dash andPoppit!. It also createdAmateur Surgeon, an original game, forAdult Swim Games.^[3][4][5] Mediatonic was profitable enough in its first year that, following Bailey and Croft's graduation, the studio moved to a former government building inWestminster in February 2006 and hired ten employees.^[2][3] Other early games by Mediatonic includedMeowcenaries,Gigolo Assassin,Must Eat Birds, andMonsters (Probably) Stole My Princess.^[6] Having reached 25 employees, Mediatonic moved to new offices nearCovent Garden in February 2008.^[2]

In July 2009, Mediatonic opened a studio inBrighton to act as a digital media agency, later spun out into a company named Graphite.^[2] Mediatonic received funding from entrepreneursKelly Sumner,Ian Livingstone and Geoff Heath in April 2010, and from Frog Capital in January 2012.^[2] Pete Hickman, a formerexecutive producer forEidos Interactive, joined Mediatonic as its head of production in July 2011.^[7][8] Planning to double its 50-strong headcount, Mediatonic moved its London headquarters toSoho in May 2012.^[2][9] Mediatonic opened a Brighton development studio that October.^[10] According to Bailey, Mediatonic began giving original games and work-for-hire projects equal weight and the company grew as a result.^[11] It later branched out into publishing, opening The Irregular Corporation as a sister company in December 2015.^[2][11]

Mediatonic moved intoShell Mex House, London, in April 2017.^[2] In July, a five-person team was established in a co-working space inMadrid, and expanded into a proper office in July 2019.^[2][12] A sister development studio, Fortitude Games, was established inGuildford in 2018.^[5] Frog Capital sold its share in Mediatonic toSynova Capital, making a 7.4-times return on its investment.^[13] A fourth studio for Mediatonic inLeamington Spa was announced in February 2020.^[14] Also in early 2020, Mediatonic established its headquarters in an office aboveLondon Victoria station, although it went largely unused due to theCOVID-19 pandemic causing the company to make employees work from home.^[11]

Bailey and Croft established Tonic Games Group as aparent company for Mediatonic, The Irregular Corporation, and Fortitude Games, moving 35 employees to Tonic Games Group, while Mediatonic had a staff of 230.^[5][11] On 2 March 2021,Epic Games announced that it had acquired Tonic Games Group, including Mediatonic.^[15] 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.^[16]

• Official website

• 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

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• Articles with short description
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