Martyn Brown, co-founder of Team17 and 35-year game industry veteran, has died aged 57.
Brown started Team 17 with Debbie Bestwick and Michael Robinson in 1990.
Brown helped create over 50 video games including Worms and Alien Breed. He also founded consultancy Insight For Hire and helped support studios Double Eleven, Exient, The Blast Furnace and New Star Games, according to Games business.biz.
Other recent deaths include Martyn Brown (2024), Dan Van Elderen (2024), Masayuki Kato (2024), Matthew White (2023), Alex Cabal (2024), Joe Banks (2024), Thomas Kurtz ( 2024), and Christopher Vivet (2024), Manny Granillo (2024), Erin Fusco (2024), Dylan Mecham (2024), Greg Hildebrandt (2024), Mike Brennan (2024), Rupert Easterbrook (2024), Uwe Mathon (2024).
Don Daglow, longtime industry game developer, keeps a list of the dead in the game industry on this link.
“Martyn passed away peacefully in his sleep at 8:17 a.m., December 28, 2024 surrounded by family, after a long battle with a series of strokes,” wrote Jack Brown. “Know that he went out on his own terms listening to his favorite music and surrounded by loved ones. “
Other game developers are leaving memorials to Brown on social media, including Facebook page.
Kevin Dent wrote, “Such an amazing man, he lived life in high gear and took the rest of us with him. Few people in the video games industry are as contagious as Martyn, everyone probably has a Martyn story and I was all positive and they usually involved meeting to him at an obscure bar at a video game industry event somewhere in the world.”
Kish Hirani wrote on Facebook, “I've been dealing with the terrible news and wondering what I can say about this lovely man Martyn Brown? He had a lot of fun, he was very mischievous, full of fun, loving but also kind, thoughtful and he always cared for his friends and kept in touch with everyone!
When he visited… he brought me the BEST pork pies / scotch eggs and had the only words we've ever had over the years, about #HandbagGate when he hid a plate full of fish goujons in my handbag at the London Games Festival launch party… I opened my bag in a meeting the next day to the worst stench and my handbag was ruined!”
Hirani said, “It's very funny now but I didn't find it very funny at the time! Needless to say the lovely Martyn sent me a new leather handbag as an apology…I will dig that handbag he bought me 20 years ago, and I will appreciate it even more now! Goodbye my lovely, lovely man… you will no doubt be raising hell, partying, ordering a huge batch of drinks, weighing dogs and playing Perudo wherever you are!”
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