Battle bizarre obstacles, shove through unruly competitors, and overcome the unbending laws of physics as you stumble towards greatness. Leave your dignity at the door and prepare for hilarious failure in your quest to claim the crown!
The team at Mediatonic are celebrating our 15th anniversary milestone and as it’s not possible to celebrate in person this year, we’d like to invite you to celebrate with us.
Here at Mediatonic we’ve decided to reflect on our wildest year yet in a nostalgic video, featuring key moments in our history and plenty of hilariously questionable fashion choices for your entertainment. After overcoming the unique challenge of launching Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout in 2020, our entire Mediatonic team were delighted to pause and fit in some studio-wide birthday festivities last week (of course, we opted to play BINGO on Zoom with drag queen supreme, Kate Butch) and reflect on the game’s unimaginable trajectory in the context of 15 years of learning how to make video games.
Considering our journey from two Co-Founders, Dave Bailey and Paul Croft, dodging university lectures to create viral flash games in 2005 (nerds), to a contemporary world where 271 teammates conjure up gaming experiences under the Mediatonic banner across London, Brighton, Madrid and Leamington, it’s nice to pause and contemplate...how did we get here?
This year, Fall Guys has sold more than 11 million copies on PC and become the most downloaded PlayStation Plus game of all time, racking up four Game Awards nominations in the process (our fingers are firmly crossed). But beyond the numbers, 2020 has been a year of enriching and often surreal moments. Having ESPN create an actual film about TimTheTatMan’s journey to his first Fall Guys crown celebrates a bonafide internet sensation. Mobile title Yahtzee with Buddies has grossed an unimaginable half a billion dollars to date. Murder by Numbers sashayed onto multiple platforms and many a ‘Best Games of 2020’ list. Brands’ hunger for appearing in Fall Guys was leveraged with the ‘Battle of the Brands’, leading to an eye-watering $1 million donation for the wonderful work of Special Effect. Our team even (poorly) dressed up as Geese, Godzilla and Sonic for IP collaborations we’d previously only dreamed of. It has been quite the year.
On the business side, Mediatonic now sits at the heart of the recently formed Tonic Games Group family—now over 300 people strong, with 68 new hires in 2020 for Mediatonic alone. We were incredibly humbled to receive the ‘Best Studio’ accolade at the Develop:Star Awards, an honor that meant so much to us as we try to negotiate rapid growth with a close eye on sustainability and nurturing a positive, supportive company culture. This year has also been significant for welcoming top tier talent and ambitious new faces alike to help us continue our journey creating thought-provoking, creative and above-all fun gaming experiences. It’s our hope our games make the world just a little brighter.
Fundamentally, we just want to say thank you. To our wonderful, hard-working and ever-growing team and to everyone who has taken the time to experience, write about, or share the games we create. We literally wouldn’t be here without you and we can’t wait to show you what’s next.
Mediatonic’s 15th birthday - in numbers
- Developed over 130 games
- Mediatonic started with just 2 people, grew to 25 in 2008, 50 in 2012. In 2020, there’s 271 team mates
- Mediatonic’s first ever game, Snowman Savage, got 2 million viral hits in 2005
- 2008’s Amateur Surgeon sliced its way to 100 million plays
- Mobile title Yahtzee with Buddies grossed 500 million dollars (lifetime)
- 2020’s Fall Guys sold over 11 million copies on PC and became the most downloaded PS Plus game of all time
- 545,275,737 Fall Guys were eliminated this September
- 113 million hours of Fall Guys were consumed by Twitch viewers this August
- In 2019, Mediatonic consumed 3,055,299 coffee beans
Key Features:
- Massive Online Pandemonium: Dive into a series of ridiculous challenges and wild obstacle courses with masses of other competitors online, all with the hopes of making the cut and advancing to the next round of mayhem.
- Competitive & Cooperative: Shift between brutally competitive free-for-alls and cooperative challenges where only the winning team advance to the next round!
- Comically Physical: Watch in delight as your fellow competitors bend, bounce, and bash their way to hilarious, physics-based failure!
- Delightfully Customizable: Fail in style with everything from fashionable pineapple couture to the latest in bunny hats available to customize your look in Fall Guys.
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is currently available for PS4 and PC.