A North East England indie game developer and publisher, behind VR, adventure and licensed games, and co-creator of Gang Beasts.
Coatsink is an indie games developer and publisher from the North East of England. Its site lists releases including Replaced, Skytail, Men in Black: Most Wanted, Islanders: New Shores, Augmented Empire, Worldless, Jurassic World Aftermath Collection and The Last Hero of Nostalgaia. It also co-developed the multiplayer game Gang Beasts with Boneloaf and has made virtual reality titles such as Shadow Point and Onward.
Coatsink was formed in December 2009 by Tom Beardsmore and Paul Crabb. We did not find a formal mission statement. Instead its blog shows what it cares about: sustainability and community. Staff have given a day to removing invasive species on the River Tyne with the Tyne Rivers Trust, and the company reports its carbon footprint every year and says it keeps itself carbon neutral. It also runs a Discord community and has a playful tone in its blog headlines.
Early coverage described Coatsink as a Sunderland studio. Its website now gives its address as the Northern Design Centre, Abbott's Hill, Gateshead, NE8 3DF. In October 2020 it was acquired by the Swedish group Thunderful, and reports at the time said it would keep operating as an independent studio within the group. It is a member of UKIE, the trade body for the UK games industry, whose logos appear on the site.
At the time of the acquisition Coatsink was working on five in-house projects as well as work-for-hire and publishing. The Thunderful chief executive said the group valued the founders' strong work ethic and corporate culture, which is an outside view of the company's character. Coatsink's site links to a careers page, and its Partner page suggests it supports other developers as a publisher.
A studio that develops, ports and publishes games uses programmers, artists, designers, producers, quality testers, marketing and community staff, and publishing managers. Because Coatsink works on both its own games and licensed ones, its team has to be comfortable switching between styles. Following its release list and reading its blog will show you what that mix looks like. The company's habit of publishing a blog about its volunteering and carbon reporting suggests that environmental responsibility is part of how it presents itself, which may matter to you if you care about that. The Greenhouse jobs board it links to lists current vacancies across the studio, and its membership of UKIE connects it to the wider UK games industry.
Website: coatsink.com
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