 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | October 14, 2011; 14 years ago (2011-10-14)[1] |
| Founders |
|
| Headquarters | , |
Number of employees | <50 |
| Website | atelier801 |
Atelier 801 is a Frenchindependent video game development company founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Marchand (Tigrounette) and Mélanie Christin (Melibellule). They are best known for developingTransformice,[2][3] which as of 2020 has 105 million accounts.[4]
Their goal is to rally players from all over the world around funmultiplayer games.
Transformice was the second game Le Marchand developed, afterExtinction, a platform with three games, Aaaah!, Bouboum, and Forteresse.Transformice was a side-project of Christin, designer, and Le Marchand, developer. They postedTransformice on an online forum in 2010.[5][6] The game quickly spread by word of mouth, and overwhelmed by the unexpected success of the game, they spent evenings and weekends to cope with the massive influx of players.
In 2011 they left their jobs atAnkama to start Atelier 801,[7][8][9][10][11][12] allowing them to finally fulfill players' demand by working full time on the game and now employing ten extra people.[13] Atelier 801 was hosted in one of thebusiness incubators of the northern La Ruche network inTourcoing until January 2013, when they moved toLille.[5][14] Between August 2012 and August 2013, Atelier 801 posted sales of $1.2 million.[5]
They received, in 2013, the "Entrepreneur of the Year" prize by the localNord area.[15]
Atelier 801 revived two of Le Marchand's games withBouboum in 2013 and thenFortoresse a few months later. The year 2014 proved to be busy as they releasedNekodancer, amassively multiplayer musical game, and then their firstmobile game oniOS andAndroid calledRun for Cheese, the first one set in theTransformice universe, in October 2014.
In 2015, they co-producedTransformice: The Cartoon Series, ananimated series set in theTransformice universe, with Cross River Productions and Believe Digital.[16][17] They also began working onDead Maze, asurvivalMMO set in a contemporary world, filled with zombies and crafting possibilities. It was released onSteam on 13 February 2018.[18][19]
In May 2019, Atelier 801 launched aKickstarter campaign forTransformice Adventures, another game set in theTransformice universe.[20] The campaign was cancelled two weeks later, although the game is still in development.[21] Eight employees were laid off.[22] In July 2019,Antarès was released.
In 2021, the multiplayerplatform gameTomb Rumble was released on Steam.
In 2022, Christin left Atelier 801.[23]
All games are available onWindows,macOS andLinux, exceptRun for Cheese (iOS andAndroid).
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Transformice | Released onSteam in 2015[24] |
| 2013 | Bouboum | Released on Steam in 2020 |
| 2014 | Fortoresse | Released on Steam in 2020 |
| 2014 | Nekodancer | |
| 2014 | Run for Cheese | |
| 2015 | Celousco | Cancelled |
| 2018 | Dead Maze | Released on Steam in 2018 |
| 2019 | Antarès | |
| 2021 | Tomb Rumble | Released on Steam in 2021 |
| TBA | Transformice Adventures | Discontinued |
Text was copied fromAtelier 801 at Transformice Wiki, which is released under aCreative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license.
