A Wakefield games developer and publisher best known for the Worms series and its indie publishing label.
Team17 is a British games developer and publisher based in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. It is best known for Worms, a series of turn-based strategy games that began in 1995 and now has over 20 entries. It also publishes games from other studios, including The Escapists, Hell Let Loose, My Time at Portia and Golf With Your Friends. It is now part of Everplay, the group formerly called Team17 Group.
Team17 formed on 7 December 1990 when two companies, 17-Bit Software in the UK and Team 7 in Sweden, joined together. Its founders included Michael Robinson, Martyn Brown and Debbie Bestwick, and it began as a publisher of Amiga games. Around 2013 it launched an indie publishing label, whose partner programme offered marketing, PR, testing and support. A 2015 interview says the company liked to call itself a label and did not take the developers' intellectual property. We did not find a current mission statement.
The headquarters is in Wakefield, where the company moved into new offices in November 2019. It has other UK locations too: Yippee Entertainment in Manchester, a publishing office in Nottingham, which opened in 2014, and Mouldy Toof Studios in Derby. Steve Bell has been chief executive since 1 January 2024. Worms began in 1995 and its fans still play it locally with friends, which Debbie Bestwick credited to its strong core idea and competitive multiplayer. Wakefield Museum has run a display celebrating 30 years of Worms, a sign of how rooted the studio is locally. The company began in a small office above an amusement arcade and at one point held over half of Amiga game sales, according to the 2015 interview.
Debbie Bestwick, long-time managing director, said in 2015 that the company valued keeping its own game ideas, choosing the right projects over trendy ones, and hard work. That is a statement from the past, so ask how things work now. About 200 people worked there in 2019, which is the most recent headcount we found.
A developer and publisher employs designers, programmers, artists, producers and testers. It also employs people in publishing roles such as marketing, community, PR and partner management who help other studios reach players. That mix means people with writing, business, social media and creative skills can find a place beside the programmers. Other UK-based group businesses and partners mean the same skills are used across several sites. Everplay's group website and Team17's own site list current vacancies.
Website: www.team17.com
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