Bossa Studios

Bossa Studios Limited, trading as Bossa Games since 2023, is a British video game developer headquartered in London, England. Founded in October 2010, the studio is best known for comedic, physics-based titles including Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread, and its first game Monstermind, a Facebook Platform title released in 2011 that won a BAFTA award in the "Online – Browser" category in February 2012.

The studio's catalogue spans social/browser games (Monstermind, Toy Run, Merlin: The Game), PC and console titles (Surgeon Simulator and its 2020 sequel, I Am Bread, I Am Fish, Lost Skies, Pigeon Simulator, What Goes Up), mobile and Apple Arcade releases (Surgeon Simulator Touch, Twelve a Dozen, Deep Dungeons of Doom, Spy_Watch, Hogwash) and virtual reality spin-offs. Bossa has also acted as a publisher for third-party developers, releasing Thomas Was Alone (Mike Bithell), Purrfect Date (Team Bae) and The Bradwell Conspiracy (A Brave Plan). Two announced projects, Decksplash and Worlds Adrift, were cancelled. Daniel Clough serves as studio general manager, and Wikipedia reports 40 employees as of 2024.

Following its 2017 Series A, the company stated a strategic focus on AI-directed procedural generation, crowdsourced/user-generated content and open development involving its player community, and from early 2022 it concentrated exclusively on the co-op PvE genre.

Founding story

Bossa was founded in October 2010 in London by Henrique Olifiers (gamer-in-chief), Roberta Lucca (marketer-in-chief), Ric Moore (technologist-in-chief) and Imre Jele (creator-in-chief). Co-founder Lucca had previously worked in innovation and marketing for around ten years, including interactive SMS-based products for Big Brother Brazil at Rede Globo and app work at Nokia's luxury subsidiary Vertu, before joining two experienced games makers to start the studio; Olifiers and Jele had earlier worked on RuneScape. The team initially operated from a room annexed to a circus school in East London while building its first game, Monstermind. The company was formally announced in June 2011, when it opened an office at the Silicon Roundabout in London.

Business model

Bossa develops video games for PC, console, mobile and VR platforms, releasing titles both self-published and through third-party publishers such as Sega, Curve Digital, Humble Games, tinyBuild and Team17. It has also published games made by external independent developers. In 2022 it monetised part of its back catalogue by selling three of its intellectual properties outright.

Revenue derives from sales of games across PC, console, mobile and VR storefronts, publishing arrangements with partner publishers, platform subscription placement (Apple Arcade), publishing third-party titles, and the sale of intellectual property rights.

Traction

Monstermind won a BAFTA in the "Online – Browser" category in February 2012. Surgeon Simulator achieved commercial success that preceded the 2015 management buyout, and the Surgeon Simulator, I Am Bread and I Am Fish franchises reportedly generated millions of dollars in revenue before being sold to tinyBuild for $3 million upfront in 2022. Headcount grew from four founders to about 20 employees in 2011 and nearly 90 people by mid-2020, before falling to about 40 in 2024 after successive layoffs.

Latest developments

Since early 2022 Bossa has focused exclusively on co-op PvE titles. It sold its comedy physics IPs to tinyBuild in August 2022, rebranded as Bossa Games in 2023, and cut a third of its staff in January 2024. In February 2025 it made further undisclosed layoffs and shifted focus to completing Lost Skies, released in 2025 for Windows, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S via Humble Games; Pigeon Simulator also shipped in 2025 with tinyBuild, and What Goes Up is listed for 2026 with Team17.