In context: In the indie and AA gaming scene, we all hear about the smash successes: PUBG, Minecraft, Terraria, or, more recently, Fall Guys. However, we don't tend to hear about the smaller, less successful projects that preceded them. In Fall Guys' case, developer Mediatonic made a whopping 130 games before it hit the big time with the pseudo-battle royale.
Those games were released over the last 15 years. In Mediatonic's earliest days, founders Paul Croft and Dave Bailey were creating simple flash games, but they soon began creating their own full-fledged titles for various platforms.
Some of their more well-known releases include Amateur Surgeon, Hatoful Boyfriend, and Gears Pop!. None of these games were tremendous successes on their own, but they did help Mediatonic obtain a following and grow its team. As of now, according to a PC Gamer report, Mediatonic's workforce is 200 employees strong, across four sub-studios.
Mediatonic has followed several trends over the years, and that's by design – Croft says they've tried to remain nimble, to keep their business viable in the long run.
"It was easier to pivot and change direction because we weren't locked into a three or four-year development cycle and we could keep pace with things," he said during an interview with PC Gamer.
Indeed, Mediatonic's agile approach to game development has allowed it to seamlessly shift between a variety of genres: social games, mobile games, visuals novels, platformers, and more.
With so much experience creating these games, it's perhaps no surprise to see how well Fall Guys has performed – it's sold over 7 million copies on Steam alone. The game's colorful, lighthearted aesthetic and silly gameplay has allowed it to thrive in the crowded battle royale genre, where many other titles have failed to gain a foothold.
We look forward to seeing whether or not Fall Guys' immense success will continue in the future, and we're glad to see that Mediatonic's hard work has paid off.