Mediatonic was founded in September 2005 by friends Dave Bailey and Paul Croft, both aged 21 at the time, during their final year at
Brunel University. They decided on the opening in a drunken conversation at the university's student union bar. With an office near the campus, they set up the company as a
work-for-hire studio to create
Flash games and sometimes skipped lectures to accept calls from clients.
Snowman Salvage, a game that was part of Croft's
dissertation, was Mediatonic's first release in December 2005. Having reached 25 employees, Mediatonic moved to new offices near
Covent Garden in February 2008. Planning to double its 50-strong headcount, Mediatonic moved its London headquarters to
Soho in May 2012. Mediatonic opened a Brighton development studio that October. According to Bailey, Mediatonic began giving original games and work-for-hire projects equal weight and the company grew as a result. It later branched out into publishing, opening The Irregular Corporation as a sister company in December 2015. A sister development studio, Fortitude Games, was established in
Guildford in 2018. A fourth studio for Mediatonic in
Leamington Spa was announced in February 2020. Also in early 2020, Mediatonic established its headquarters in an office above
London Victoria station, although it went largely unused due to the
COVID-19 pandemic causing the company to make employees work from home. In September 2023, Mediatonic was subjected to deep job cuts by its parent company. Though it was first speculated that the entire studio had been closed, that proved not to be the case. == Games developed ==