Headup GmbH (also known as Headup Games) is a German

video game publisher A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer. They often finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer ( ...

based in

Düren Düren (; ripuarian: Düre) is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, between Aachen and Cologne on the river Rur. History Roman era The area of Düren was part of Gallia Belgica, more specifically the territory of the Eburones, a people ...

. The company was founded in January 2009 by Dieter Schoeller, who serves as its

managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

. The company is best known for publishing the '' Bridge Constructor'' series of games developed by ClockStone.

History

Headup Games was founded in January 2009 by Dieter Schoeller, who became its

. Operations were formally launched in

in April 2009, with Headup also employing

executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights o ...

Marcel Aldrup and executive PR & marketing manager Michael Zolna. The first game published by Headup was '' Twin Sector'', an

action-adventure games The action-adventure genre is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres. Typically, pure adventure games have situational problems for the player to solve to complete a storyli ...

developed by Bremen-based studio DNS Development and released in September 2009. Subsequently, the company signed an agreement with NBG Multimedia that would allow NBG to distribute Headup's games in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In October, Headup joined G.A.M.E., a German association for the

video game industry The video game industry encompasses the development, marketing, and monetization of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide. The video game industry has grown from niches to mainstream. , ...

. By January 2013, Headup employed six people, of which Zolna left the company in early April, being succeeded by Skander Essadi. By June 2014, Headup employed Schoeller, Aldrup and Aldrup's brother Mark as full-time employees, three trainees and two interns. Headup was acquired by the

Thunderful Group Thunderful Group AB is a Swedish video game holding company based in Gothenburg. It was founded in December 2019 through a merger between Thunderful AB (Bergsala Holding's video game holding) and Bergsala Holding's distribution business, consis ...

in February 2021 for up to , with the acquisition expected to be complete by March 31, 2021.

Accolades

– "Best Publisher" (2012, 2013, 2017)

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://headupgames.com/ German companies established in 2009 Companies based in North Rhine-Westphalia Video game companies of Germany Video game publishers Video game companies established in 2009 Düren (district) Privately held companies of Germany 2021 mergers and acquisitions