Thumbstar Games set for Massive Global Growth

Thumbstar Games announced today that it has secured significant investment and welcomes industry veterans Martin and Gareth Edmondson to the Board of Directors.

Established in 2008, Liverpool Innovation Park-based Thumbstar is a mobile games service provider. It represents   more than 100 developers, providing in excess of 2000 titles through channels into 128 markets globally, including the UK and Europe, S.E. Asia, the Americas, the Middle East and Australasia.

Thumbstar will use this investment to grow its current publishing activities as well as the creation of a new studio in Newcastle upon Tyne which will provide high quality exclusive content and new IP for its worldwide customers.

The investment brings together a team of highly experienced professionals to create a fully integrated mobile development and publishing business.

Martin Edmondson, one of the original investors in Thumbstar, will now join the Board as Chief Creative Officer and will drive the company’s creative direction and IP creation. Martin, having founded the respected Reflections studio some 27 years ago, has a string of successful IP’s to his name, including the ‘Shadow of the Beast’, ‘Destruction Derby’ and ‘Driver’ series.

Gareth Edmondson will assume the role of Chief Executive Officer having been Managing Director of Reflections, now part of the Ubisoft group, for the past 7 years. He is also Vice Chairman of TIGA, the trade organisation that represents the video games industry in the UK.

Martin Kitney, Chief Operations Officer of Thumbstar, said ‘We are delighted to welcome Martin and Gareth to the Board. Their collective experience of making video games adds a powerful new dimension to Thumbstar.’

Gareth commented ‘Thumbstar is already an established and successful mobile content provider, and the team has done an amazing job of creating a company that is at a significant strategic advantage due to its incredible global distribution channels. I am very excited by the prospect of what we can create together, not only by adding our own internal development team, but by expanding our network of 3rd party developers and using high quality content to grow our distribution channels even further.’ 

Martin Edmondson added ‘I am very proud to have been involved with Thumbstar since its formation, and I’m now particularly looking forward to getting back to my primary passion for original IP creation in such a dynamic and rapidly growing space.’

Martin and Gareth Edmondson join Martin Kitney, Peter Sullivan (Chief Financial Officer)  and Tim Peel (Chief Legal Officer) on the Board, who collectively have more than 50 years experience in the console and mobile gaming sector.

For more information about Thumbstar Games visit www.thumbstargames.com  

"Thumbstar Games is one of a trio of games-related companies who returned to Liverpool Innovation Park lin 2010 as Space NW committed to invest in the Park's infrastructure," said Innovation Mananger Mark Tock.

"The most recent examples of this were the opening of LIP's new reception in April & our support for the AIMES-led FibreNet project."