Team17 Group plc is a British
video game developer
A video game developer is a broad term for 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 ...
and
publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
based in
Wakefield
Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...
, England. The venture was created in December 1990 through the merger of British publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish developer Team 7. At the time, the two companies consisted of and were led by Michael Robinson, Martyn Brown and
Debbie Bestwick
Deborah Jayne Bestwick (born 7 March 1970) is a British entrepreneur. Following a short career in video game retail, she was part of the December 1990 merger between British video game publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish developer Team 7 tha ...
, and Andreas Tadic, Rico Holmes and Peter Tuleby, respectively. Bestwick later became and presently serves as Team17's
chief executive officer
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 ...
. After their first game, ''Full Contact'' (1991) for the
Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...
, the studio followed up with multiple number-one releases on that platform and saw major success with
Andy Davidson's ''
Worms Worms may refer to:
*Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs
Places
*Worms, Germany
Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had ...
'' in 1995, the resulting franchise of which still remains as the company's primary development output, having developed over 20 entries in it.
Through a
management buyout performed by Bestwick, both Robinson and Brown departed from Team17 in 2010, leaving Bestwick as the sole manager. In 2013, Team17 initiated a publishing venture focusing on
indie game
An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. ...
s, which since occupies its own office in
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...
. The first game to release of this venture was ''
Light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 tera ...
'' (2013). Following a large investment from
Lloyds Development Capital
Lloyds Development Capital (Holdings) Limited (LDC), is a mid-market private equity house and subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group, established in 1981 as Lloyds Development Capital Limited. From 1999 to 2011, it was known as Lloyds TSB Developme ...
in September 2016, Team17 sought corporate expansion through various actions, including the acquisition of
Mouldy Toof Studios
Team17 Group plc is a British video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher based in Wakefield, England. The venture was created in December 1990 through the merger of British publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish developer Team 7. A ...
, the developer behind Team17-published ''
The Escapists
''The Escapists'' is a strategy game played from a top-down perspective. The game was developed by Mouldy Toof Studios and following a Steam Early Access release in 2014, was released in 2015 for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, Xbox 360, Xb ...
'' (2015), and the hiring of multiple new key staff. In May 2018, the company published their
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
and became a
public company
A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (l ...
listed on the
Alternative Investment Market
AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows ...
, valued around . As of 2019, Team17 employs 200 people in its two offices.
History
Early history (1990–1995)
![Debbie Bestwick, Gamelab 2018 (41307122860) (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Debbie_Bestwick%2C_Gamelab_2018_%2841307122860%29_%28cropped%29.jpg)
In 1990,
Wakefield
Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...
-based
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
Michael Robinson was the manager of Microbyte, a United Kingdom-wide computer
retail chain
A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate the retail and dining markets and many service categories, in many pa ...
, and 17-Bit Software, a
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 ( ...
.
Robinson had created 17-Bit Software as part of Microbyte in 1987 specifically to seek young, independent
video game developer
A video game developer is a broad term for 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 ...
s whose games he could publish through this label and distribute through his Microbyte stores.
One of those developers was Andreas Tadic (a nineteen-year-old hobbyist
programmer
A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software.
A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...
from
Olofström
Olofström, previously Holje by, is a locality in Blekinge County, Sweden with 7,327 inhabitants in 2010.
in 1967, the market town of Olofström was merged with the villages Kyrkhult and Jämshög to create Olofström Municipality. Olofström ...
, Sweden), who at the time was developing ''HalfBright'', a
shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs
) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of chara ...
for
Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...
systems.
According to Tadic, the game was "technically impressive, but shite-looking".
Martyn Brown, a Microbyte employee, called up Tadic to introduce him to
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
Rico Holmes; Tadic and Holmes subsequently became friends and, alongside another Swedish programmer, Peter Tuleby, founded a development team known as Team 7.
Team 7's first game was ''Miami Chase'', a ''
Miami Vice
''Miami Vice'' is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann (director), Michael Mann for NBC. The series stars Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo ...
''-inspired
racing game
Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more realistic ra ...
that was published by
Codemasters
The Codemasters Software Company Limited (trade name: Codemasters) is a British video game developer based in Southam, England, which is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts. Founded by brothers Richard and David Darling in Octo ...
in 1990, as a budget title for Amiga systems, and received an 82% review score from British Amiga-centric magazine ''
Amiga Power''.
Brown had followed the game's development closely, because of which he suggested to Robinson that they should not only publish but also develop games at 17-Bit Software, using Team 7 as their internal development team and himself as project manager.
Robinson agreed to undergo the venture and moved
Debbie Bestwick
Deborah Jayne Bestwick (born 7 March 1970) is a British entrepreneur. Following a short career in video game retail, she was part of the December 1990 merger between British video game publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish developer Team 7 tha ...
from her position as
sales manager of Microbyte to commercial support for 17-Bit Software.
Eventually, 17-Bit Software and Team 7 agreed to formally merge into one team,
amalgamating the two teams' names as "Team17".
Team17 was officially created on 7 December 1990.
Using Microbyte's experience in game retailing, Team17 was able to easily determine game genres that would sell well, while Team 7's expertise in game development enabled Team17 to also develop games in those genres.
Their first game was 1991's ''Full Contact'', a
fighting game
A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a video game genre, genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappli ...
that, upon release, reached the top spot on British game sales charts.
Further Team17 games followed ''Full Contact'' success; by 1993, 90% of the studio's games, including ''
Alien Breed
''Alien Breed'' is a series of top-down science fiction shoot 'em up video games developed by Team17 primarily for the Amiga in the 1990s, heavily inspired by the ''Alien'' films and featuring game play reminiscent of the classic arcade game Ga ...
'' (1991), ''
Project-X
''Project-X'' is a horizontally scrolling shooter for the Amiga released in 1992. It was developed and published by Team17. The game resembles Konami's side-scrolling shooter games such as ''Gradius'', ''Salamander'' and ''Parodius''. It was p ...
'' (1992) and ''
Superfrog'' (1993), reached the top spot on sales charts, while all Team17 products combined generated half of all Amiga game sales.
At the 1993
Golden Joystick Awards
The Golden Joystick Awards, also known as the People's Gaming Awards, is a video game award ceremony; it awards the best video games of the year, as voted for originally by the British general public, but is now a global event that can be vote ...
, Team17 and
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...
jointly received the "Software House of the Year" award.
Starting in 1992,
Future Publishing
Future plc is an international multimedia company established in the United Kingdom in 1985. The company has over 220 brands that span magazines, newsletters, websites, and events in fields such as video games, technology, films, music, photogr ...
-owned ''Amiga Power'' started criticising Team17's products more harshly than other gaming magazines.
According to
Stuart Campbell, deputy editor for the magazine at the time, ''Overdrive'', ''Project-X'', ''F17 Challenge'' and ''Superfrog'' were among the games that received negative reception from ''Amiga Power'' between 1992 and 1993.
As a response to their reviews, Team17 began implementing derogatory
Easter eggs
Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tra ...
into their games, which included the
cheat code
Cheating in video games involves a video game player using various methods to create an advantage beyond normal gameplay, usually in order to make the game easier. Cheats may be activated from within the game itself (a cheat code implemented by ...
"AMIGAPOWER" unlocking a critical statement regarding the magazine's review policy in ''
Alien Breed II: The Horror Continues'' (1993) and the easiest-difficulty
bot opponents in ''
Arcade Pool'' (1994) being named after ''Amiga Power'' staff.
However, when the magazine awarded Team17's ''
ATR: All Terrain Racing'' and ''Kingpin: Arcade Sports Bowling'' scores of 38% and 47%, respectively, in 1995, Team17 issued a lawsuit against the magazine, demanding the reviews to be retracted and the issue withdrawn from sale.
The lawsuit was not successful for the studio, and it instead turned to not sending review copies of their games to ''Amiga Power'' and making other Future Publishing-owned magazines not lend their review copies to ''Amiga Power''.
''Worms'' (1994–2010)
In 1994, programmer
Andy Davidson created ''Artillery'', a game in the
artillery game genre, for Amiga systems.
He entered the game, under the title ''Wormage'' or ''Total Wormage'', into a contest held by the ''
Amiga Format
''Amiga Format'' was a British computer magazine for Amiga computers, published by Future plc. The magazine lasted 136 issues from 1989 to 2000. The magazine was formed when, in the wake of selling '' ACE'' to EMAP, Future split the dual-format ...
'' magazine.
The game failed to make an impact, wherefore Davidson instead opted to take it to the 1994
European Computer Trade Show
The European Computer Trade Show (ECTS) was an annual trade show for the European video game industry which first ran in 1988, the last event being held in 2004.
The exposition was only open to industry professionals and journalists, although it w ...
(ECTS) in London, where he presented it to people at Team17's booth, where the game was signed for development as a commercial title.
Bestwick stated they could not stop playing the game and as such realised that the game had potential, although that potential's dimensions were yet unknown.
Following the deal struck between the two parties, Team17 promptly lost Davidson's contact details and were forced to call ''Amiga Format'' to retrieve them.
Once they had retrieved his details, Team17 and Davidson started to jointly develop a commercial version of his game, though retitled ''
Worms Worms may refer to:
*Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs
Places
*Worms, Germany
Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had ...
'', a title that appeared more straightforward.
At the time, Team17 had the strong feeling that the games market for Amiga was dying, therefore they decided to develop ''Worms'' across as many platforms as possible.
However, the company had no publishing experience outside the Amiga market and needed to seek a third-party publisher; given the choice between
Ocean Software
Ocean Software Ltd was a British software development company that became one of the biggest European video game developers and video game publisher, publishers of the 1980s and 1990s.
The company was founded by David Ward and Jon Woods and wa ...
and
Virgin Interactive
Virgin Interactive Entertainment (later renamed Avalon Interactive) was the video game publishing division of British conglomerate the Virgin Group. It developed and published games for major platforms and employed developers, including Westwo ...
, they chose to go with Ocean Software.
''Worms'' was released in 1995 for Amiga and later ported to
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master System. Sega released it in 1988 in Japan as ...
,
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...
,
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
,
PlayStation
is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...
, among various other platforms.
Out of the 60,000 total sales estimated by Ocean Software before the game's release, the game shipped millions of copies within its first year.
Bestwick considered the game to have saved Team17.
However, following the game's success, Team17 became obsessed with replicating it: Between 1995 and 2010, the studio released a total of sixteen new ''Worms'' games.
With Team17 turning into a "single
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
company", many developers felt fatigue and "creative stagnation".
Restructuring and expansion (2010–2018)
In August 2010, Team17 announced that they had turned away from third-party publishers in favour of releasing their games themselves via
digital distribution
Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content (media), content such as Sound recording and reproductio ...
.
The company hired Paul Bray and Alan Perrie to act as
finance
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...
and
operations director, and head of global marketing, respectively.
Later that year, Team17 underwent a large internal restructuring, which included the
management buyout of co-founders Brown and Robinson, making Bestwick, as chief executive officer, the company's sole manager.
Bestwick stated that this move had "placed the company in a secure position for the future".
Brown announced his departure in February 2011, stating that he would join handheld game developer
Double Eleven.
In December 2011, Team17 acquired Iguana Entertainment, a company founded by Jason Falcus and Darren Falcus in 2009.
All Iguana staff, including its founders, were effectively absorbed into Team17's Wakefield offices.
In 2013, Bestwick and Bray sparked the idea of returning Team17 to its roots by adding an
indie game
An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. ...
publishing component to the company.
An
incubation programme was run that tasked two studios to co-develop what would later become ''
Beyond Eyes'' (2015) and ''
Sheltered'' (2016).
''
Light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 tera ...
'' by
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
-based Just a Pixel became the first game to be announced and released through Team17's new venture.
The activity was broadened to
mobile game
A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to ...
publishing in March 2014, with ''Hay Ewe'' by Rocket Rainbow announced to have been slated for a release on
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
in the second quarter of that year.
To accommodate the publishing label's growth, Team17 opened a separate publishing office in
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...
in May 2014.
Bestwick stated that she despised the term "publisher" and preferred "label", as "
e term 'publisher' represents a way of doing business that's completely at odds with the new world of digital distribution".
Team17 won the "Publishing Hero" award at 2015's
Develop Awards
''Develop'' was a monthly UK trade magazine for the video game industry. Its online portal, complete with a digital version of the print publication, was active since July 2007.
Develop 100 was an annual rating system for game developers produ ...
.
One of the label's most successful titles was ''
The Escapists
''The Escapists'' is a strategy game played from a top-down perspective. The game was developed by Mouldy Toof Studios and following a Steam Early Access release in 2014, was released in 2015 for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, Xbox 360, Xb ...
'': The game, designed by Chris Davis, a former
roofer
A roofer, roof mechanic, or roofing contractor is a tradesperson who specializes in roof construction. Roofers replace, repair, and install the roofs of buildings, using a variety of materials, including shingles, bitumen, and metal. Roofin ...
and founder of
Derby
Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...
-based
Mouldy Toof Studios
Team17 Group plc is a British video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher based in Wakefield, England. The venture was created in December 1990 through the merger of British publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish developer Team 7. A ...
, sold over a million copies within one year of release.
On 1 September 2016,
Lloyds Development Capital
Lloyds Development Capital (Holdings) Limited (LDC), is a mid-market private equity house and subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group, established in 1981 as Lloyds Development Capital Limited. From 1999 to 2011, it was known as Lloyds TSB Developme ...
(LDC), the
private equity
In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...
division of
Lloyds Banking Group
Lloyds Banking Group is a British financial institution formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. It is one of the UK's largest financial services organisations, with 30 million customers and 65,000 employees. Lloyds Ban ...
, announced that they had invested into the development of Team17.
In return, LDC was awarded a 33% stake in Team17.
Using the investment, Team17 acquired Mouldy Toof Studios and ''The Escapists'' franchise for an undisclosed sum.
In response to LDC's investment, Chris van der Kuyl of
4J Studios joined Team17 as
non-executive chairman
The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...
.
As means of further corporate expansion, Team17 hired multiple new management staff by January 2017, including Justin Berenbaum as head of publishing and business development for Asia and the Americas, Matt Benson as
business development manager and Ste Stanley as marketing and sales coordinator.
IPO and management troubles (2018–present)
In March 2018, Team17 tasked
stockbroker
A stockbroker is a regulated broker, broker-dealer, or registered investment adviser (in the United States) who may provide financial advisory and investment management services and execute transactions such as the purchase or sale of stocks an ...
s from
Berenberg and
GCA Altium to prepare an
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
(IPO) valuing Team17 at .
The company confirmed their intents to become a
public company
A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (l ...
on 8 May 2018, announcing that a 50% stake in Team17 would be sold over the
Alternative Investment Market
AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows ...
(AIM), a sub-market of the
London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...
.
The flotation was expected to value Team17 between and 230 million.
Bestwick and LDC would each sell half of their shareholdings in the process, wherein Bestwick was expected to receive in
windfall profit.
Chris Bell, formerly chief executive of
Ladbrokes Coral
Ladbrokes Coral is a British gambling company founded in 1886. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. The business is split into two divisions, UK and International. UK operations are c ...
, was appointed
chairman
The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...
of Team17 to aid the IPO process.
At this time, the company employed 120 people in the Wakefield development studio and another 20 in the Nottingham publishing offices.
Team17 was expected to gain in gross profits based on 27,325,482 new shares and 37,849,200 existing shares.
The shares became available for purchase via the AIM on 23 May 2018.
Following the sale of shareholdings by Bestwick and LDC, they retained 22.2% and 16.6% stake ownerships in the company, respectively.
Through the first half of 2019, Team17's revenue rose significantly; 83% of its revenue was attributed to its publishing activities, of which 80% stemmed from games Team17 had co-developed internally.
Notably successful were ''
Hell Let Loose'' and ''
My Time at Portia
''My Time at Portia'' is a video game developed by Chinese studio Pathea Games and published by Team17 for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2019. An Android and iOS version was released in early August 20 ...
'', which were the best-performing games for the company in that time frame.
Team17 announced that, with this funding, it would be looking into acquiring more development studios.
The company's headcount also increased from 154 to 182 in that period, because of which Team17 moved its headquarters to new offices within Wakefield in November 2019.
The number of staff further increased to 200 by the end of the year.
In September 2019, Martin Hellawell was appointed
non-executive director
A non-executive director (abbreviated to non-exec, NED or NXD), independent director or external director is a member of the board of directors of a corporation, such as a company, cooperative or non-government organization, but not a member of the ...
of Team17.
In January 2020, Team17 acquired
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
-based developer Yippee Entertainment for , a combination of in cash and 114,000 consideration shares, worth .
The company bought out ''
Golf with Your Friends'', which it had published, from developers Blacklight Interactive in January 2021, planning to release further
downloadable content
Downloadable content (DLC) is additional content created for an already released video game, distributed through the Internet by the game's publisher. It can either be added for no extra cost or it can be a form of video game monetization, enablin ...
(DLC) for it.
In July 2021, Team17 acquired TouchPress, the parent company of StoryToys, a developer of
edutainment
Educational entertainment (also referred to as edutainment) is media designed to educate through entertainment. The term was used as early as 1954 by Walt Disney. Most often it includes content intended to teach but has incidental entertainment ...
apps, for .
In January 2022, Team17 acquired
Astragon
Astragon Entertainment GmbH is a German video game publisher based in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capita ...
, a German game publisher focused on simulation video games, for £83 million.
In early 2022, Team17 announced MetaWorms, a
non-fungible token
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the b ...
(NFT) project to sell
procedurally generated
In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually, typically through a combination of human-generated assets and algorithms coupled with computer-generated randomness and processing power. In ...
images of characters from ''Worms'' as digitally owned objects on a
blockchain
A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...
.
The reaction to this project was swift and negative; the company cancelled it after multiple game development studios it had partnered with in the past, including
Ghost Town Games
A ghost is the soul (spirit), soul or spirit of a dead Human, person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visibl ...
,
Playtonic
Playtonic Games is a British independent video game developer. It was founded in 2014 and it consists almost entirely of former members of Rare.
History
Playtonic Games was founded in late 2014 by Steve Hurst, Steve Mayles, Gavin Price, Jen ...
, and
Aggro Crab
Aggro is a slang term meaning aggravation or aggression. "Aggro" may also refer to:
In music
* The Aggrolites, a "dirty" reggae band from Los Angeles, California
* "A.G.G.R.O", a song by The Aggrolites
* "Aggro", a 2007 song by Paul Hartnoll ...
, condemned the project and vowed not to work with the publisher again.
Eurogamer
''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Robinson.
Since 2008, it is known for the formerly eponymous games trade fair EGX ...
reported that many employees were unaware of the project and were blindsided by its announcement, including the
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
team which suffered online abuse and harassment from the public. Others who had knowledge of the project voiced their opposition to NFTs but were ignored by upper management which went forward anyway.
The conflict between management and employees over MetaWorms also revealed long-term complaints over low pay, long
overtime
Overtime is the amount of time someone works beyond normal working hours. The term is also used for the pay received for this time. Normal hours may be determined in several ways:
*by custom (what is considered healthy or reasonable by society) ...
hours, and increasing workloads since the company's 2018 IPO. Under pressure to sign and clear more publishing deals, various teams including
quality assurance
Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to ensure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...
(QA) and user research felt that products were being shipped in an incomplete, rushed, or buggy state due to the time
crunch.
Staff felt underpaid relative to the salaries of equivalent roles at other studios and some complained of unpaid overtime work. They also pointed to their
year-end bonus being cut in 2021, despite the company announcing a record profit that year. Another source of conflict was the
human resources
Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include m ...
(HR) department, which was accused of covering for
sexual harassers and manipulating the company's reviews on
Glassdoor
Glassdoor is an American website where current and former employees anonymously review companies. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, it has additional offices in Chicago, Dublin, London, and São Paulo. Glassdoor also allows its users to ...
, a job search website. They likewise took issue with Bestwick's management as CEO, for being a major source of overtime pressure and for turning a blind eye to harassment in the company.
Fanbyte corroborated these testimonies in its own reporting.
Michael Pattison, who took over as CEO of the publishing company in October 2021, acknowledged the reports and committed to addressing the issues with underpay, overtime, and harassment in a company-wide meeting in February 2022. Bestwick remains as CEO of the overarching Team 17 Group.
Games developed
Games published
Cancelled games
* ''Witchwood'' (circa 1994): An action-adventure game in the style of ''
The Legend of Zelda
''The Legend of Zelda'' is an action-adventure game franchise created by the Japanese game designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. It is primarily developed and published by Nintendo, although some portable installments and re-rele ...
'' or ''
Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse'' about a young hero's quest to destroy an evil witch.
* ''Allegiance'' (circa 1995): A first-person shooter game with integrated multiplayer features, later transformed into a third-person shooter before being cancelled.
* ''Rollcage'' (circa 1995): An off-road racing game with different types of rally vehicles and aggressive AI opponents, and is unrelated to the 1999 racing game also titled ''
Rollcage
A roll cage is a specially engineered and constructed frame built in (or sometimes around, in which case it is known as an exo cage) the passenger compartment of a vehicle to protect its occupants from being injured or killed in an accident, pa ...
''.
* ''P.I.G.'' (circa 1996): A 3D platformer in the style of ''
Super Mario 64
is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan and North America in 1996 and PAL regions in 1997. It is the first ''Super Mario'' game to feature 3D gameplay, combining traditional ''Su ...
'' that featured different outfits for the main character and various minigames.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
1990 establishments in England
2018 initial public offerings
British companies established in 1990
Companies based in Wakefield
Companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market
Golden Joystick Award winners
Software companies of England
Video game companies established in 1990
Video game companies of the United Kingdom
Video game development companies
Video game publishers