Bossa Studios

Bossa Studios, a British video game developer, was established in London in October 2010 by a team of four industry veterans: Henrique Olifiers, Roberta Lucca, Ric Moore, and Imre Jele. The founders brought diverse expertise to the venture. Olifiers has a three-decade career in gaming, including roles at Jagex and Playfish. Lucca came from a background in management and marketing, with experience at Globo TV and Nokia. Jele had a history in game creation and production, having worked at companies like Digital Reality and Jagex. The company was formally announced in June 2011 and quickly secured an acquisition by Shine Group the same year. A management buyout in July 2015 returned the studio to its founders.

The company is recognized for its physics-based comedic games, which are sold to a global audience of gamers. Bossa's business model revolves around developing and publishing these titles, initially for social networks like Facebook and later expanding to other platforms. A significant strategic shift occurred in August 2022, when Bossa Studios sold the intellectual property for its most prominent titles, including *Surgeon Simulator*, *I Am Bread*, and *I Am Fish*, to tinyBuild for $3 million. This sale was a deliberate move to allow the studio to focus exclusively on developing cooperative player-versus-environment (co-op PvE) games. The revenue from their sold franchises was reported to be $6 million in 2021.

Bossa's portfolio before the IP sale included several successful games known for their quirky and engaging gameplay. *Surgeon Simulator* and *I Am Bread* are prime examples of their physics-based comedy genre, challenging players with deliberately awkward controls to perform surgery or navigate a slice of bread on a quest to become toast. The company also developed *Monstermind*, a BAFTA-winning online browser game, and explored user-generated content with *Worlds Adrift*, an ambitious community-crafted MMO. Following the sale of its legacy IPs, the studio, which rebranded to Bossa Games in 2023, is now concentrating on new projects like *Lost Skies*, a cooperative survival adventure for up to six players set in a world of floating islands.

Keywords: game developer, physics-based games, co-op PvE, game publishing, independent studio, BAFTA winner, Surgeon Simulator, I Am Bread, Lost Skies, community-crafted games