KingsIsle Entertainment was founded in January 2005 by Elie Akilian. Inspired by his teenage son, who was a fan of video games, Akilian established KingsIsle in
Plano, Texas, and started hiring former employees of
id Software and
Ubisoft to work on what would become
Wizard101.
J. Todd Coleman, who had sold his company,
Wolfpack Studios, to Ubisoft in 2004, joined KingsIsle in December 2007 after being introduced to Akilian through mutual contacts. Coleman became the company's third employee and the first to be located in
Austin, Texas, where he was joined by former Wolfpack Studios co-founder Josef Hall shortly after. At this point, the company had 100 employees in Plano and Austin, and was run by Akilian as
chairman and
chief executive officer, and David Nichols, formerly of
Midway Games, as
president. For the company's first project,
Wizard101, Coleman headed the development, while
Tom Hall, the co-founder of id Software and
Ion Storm, served as
creative director. Later that year, KingsIsle released
Wizard101 as a card-battling
massively multiplayer online role-playing game aimed towards children and teenagers, in which players take on the role of student witches and wizards in a fantasy world. In February 2010, KingsIsle released
WizardBlox, a free game based on the
Sorcery Stones mini-game from
Wizard101, for
iOS. By September 2010, Austin hosted the majority of KingsIsle's 120 staff. and to 220 by August 2012. In October 2012, KingsIsle released its second online game,
Pirate101, which takes place within the same universe as
Wizard101. The following November, KingsIsle released
Grub Guardian, a tower defense game where players defend their towers with guard animals.
Grub Guardian was released on
iOS, as well as for
personal computers and
Android devices as a
browser game, and later as a native Android application. In January 2013, Coleman announced his departure from KingsIsle. In 2014,
Tyler, Texas-based company Smartflash LLC sued KingsIsle, alongside
Apple Inc., Game Circus, and
Robot Entertainment, for infringement on three patents filed by Smartflash's founder and part-owner, Patrick Racz, that related to digital distribution of game content, primarily
in-app purchases. All defendants, except for Apple, were dismissed from the case later that same year under undisclosed circumstances. In May 2017, KingsIsle released
EverClicker for Android and iOS. In September 2017, the company leased 19,871 square feet of office space at 301 Sundance Parkway in
Round Rock, Texas. In August 2018, KingsIsle released
Animal Cove: Match 3 Adventure for Android and iOS. In September 2018, Dave Rosen and Craig Beers joined KingsIsle's executive team as vice-president of marketing and vice-president of product management, respectively. In January 2021, KingsIsle was acquired by the
Malta-based
holding company Media and Games Invest for and further as
earn-out. Akilian subsequently
spun off the company's mobile games segment as Wimo Games, heading it as
executive chairman. In December, the studio signed an economic development agreement with the Round Rock City Council to move into new headquarters in Round Rock. The new offices facilitated all of the studio's employees, including the 80 from the former Round Rock location, and aimed at employing 150 further people within three years. == Games developed ==