Zoink AB was a Swedish video game developer based in Gothenburg. The company was founded by Klaus Lyngeled in 2001 and formed the

Thunderful 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, consi ...

group with

Image & Form Image & Form International AB was a Swedish video game developer based in Gothenburg. The company was founded by Brjánn Sigurgeirsson in 1997 and formed the Thunderful group with Zoink in 2017. In 2020, Image & Form was integrated into Thund ...

in 2017. In 2020, Zoink was integrated into

Thunderful Development 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, consi ...

History

Zoink was founded in 2001 by Klaus Lyngeled, who acted as its

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 ...

. Lyngeled had initially started developing games when he and some friends produced a

pinball Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

game 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 ...

. They later got together with a similar team based in

Norrköping Norrköping (; ) is a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden and the seat of Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County, about 160 km southwest of the national capital Stockholm, 40 km east of county seat Linköp ...

and, together, founded Unique Development Studios. When Lyngeled got tired of working for Unique Development Studios, he moved to the United States to work for

Shiny Entertainment Shiny Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Laguna Beach, California. Founded in October 1993 by David Perry (game developer), David Perry, Shiny was the creator of video games such as ''Earthworm Jim (video game), E ...

. He worked on ''

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of ''mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach'' ...

'' and ''

Sacrifice Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exi ...

'' but when he began working on ''

Enter the Matrix ''Enter the Matrix'' is a 2003 action-adventure video game developed by Shiny Entertainment and published by Infogrames under the Atari brand name. It was the first game based on ''The Matrix'' film series. Its story is concurrent with that of ...

'', he faced, among other things, issues with his

visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...

, wherefore he returned to Sweden, where he founded Zoink. By 2003, Zoink was working on animated films, later advertisement films, and finally advertisement games; clients for the latter included

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

The Coca-Cola Company The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation founded in 1892, best known as the producer of Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Company also manufactures, sells, and markets other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, ...

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...

, and

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. Zoink's first full game was ''

The Kore Gang ''The Kore Gang: Outvasion from Inner Earth'' is an action-adventure game for the Wii. The game is notable for its very prolonged development cycle over the course of ten years, during which many different companies became involved and the game m ...

'', revived after its original

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

version had been cancelled for six years. Zoink's break-out title was ''Stick It to the Man!'', later spawning a

spiritual successor A spiritual successor (sometimes called a spiritual sequel) is a product or fictional work that is similar to, or directly inspired by, another previous work, but (unlike a traditional prequel or sequel) does not explicitly continue the product lin ...

, ''Flipping Death''.

Bergsala Holding Bergsala AB is a Swedish distribution company based in Kungsbacka. It was established in 1976 and has operated as the agent and distributor of Nintendo products in the Nordic countries since 1981. Bergsala's administrative center and warehouse ...

acquired half of Zoink in 2014, after

's Brjánn Sigurgeirsson introduced Lyngeled to the company. Lyngeled, Sigurgeirsson, and Bergsala Holding decided to merge the two studios and created

as their

parent company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

in December 2017. In May 2018, Zoink had 25 employees. That year, Zoink released a new game, '' Fe''. Its next title, ''

Lost in Random ''Lost in Random'' is an action-adventure video game developed by Zoink and published by Electronic Arts. Part of the EA Originals program, the game was released for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One an ...

'', was released in 2021. In 2020, Thunderful (now called Thunderful Group) merged Zoink with Image & Form and

Guru Games Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan-Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverentia ...

to create

Games developed

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.zoinkgames.com/ 2001 establishments in Sweden Companies based in Gothenburg Privately held companies of Sweden Video game companies established in 2001 Video game companies of Sweden Video game development companies