Playdemic founders Paul Gouge and Alex Rigby are opening a new studio, ForthStar Games

Paul Gouge and Alex Rigby have announced that they’re opening a new mobile free-to-play game studio.

The pair have previously been responsible for founding studios like BattleMail and Rockpool Games, as well as Playdemic, which saw critical and commercial success with the free-to-play mobile title Golf Clash. They sold their former studio to Electronic Arts for £1.1 billion ($1.4 billion) back in 2021. 

ForthStar Games is Gouge and Rigby’s next studio, and will be based in Manchester. It has already secured £7.8M ($10M) in funding from the venture capital firm Griffin Gaming Partners to work on its next big mobile title. Gouge and Rigby have also already recruited several key figures from Playdemic that contributed to the success of Golf Clash, as well as other developers. 

“Our mission is clear; to make great games that millions of people love to play, every day for years,” said Gouge. “It’s an objective we have achieved before, and one that we know we can meet again by building exceptional games that captivate millions of players and become essential daily entertainment.”

“We have been fortunate enough to lead and build studios populated by some of the most accomplished and creative talent in our industry,” added Rigby. “With the opening of ForthStar we are able to leverage all we’ve learnt in more than two decades of mobile gaming, establishing the strongest foundation for future innovation and success.” 

According to a press release put out by the company, ForthStar Games will have an ‘incredibly strong focus on people’, and will be trialling a four-day working week for the foreseeable future, as well as maintaining an ‘anti-crunch ethos’ that ‘focuses on output rather than input’. Sounds good to us.

ForthStar is currently still recruiting, and you can find open job positions over on its website.