Green Man Gaming

In 2009, Paul Sulyok formed Green Man Gaming with Lee Packham. Sulyok had previously been the CEO of Prize Fight, an online gaming platform, and Packham had been responsible for developing the technology behind Prize Fight. Green Man Gaming officially started trading on 10 May 2010.[4]

Packham developed and managed the initial launch of the retail platform, and was the architect of a new system and method for facilitating a Video Game Exchange for Green Man Gaming. Users who downloaded games from its "Capsule" gaming client with SecuROM DRM could then trade-in some of their digital games for credit to use against anything on the Green Man Gaming website.[5] This worked by deactivating the code required to play the game, which was then re-sold as 'pre-owned'.[6] Capsule was retired in 2016.[7]

In 2011, Green Man Gaming revealed plans to expand its service to gamers in the Czech republic, Germany, Greece and Turkey,[8] and announced alternative ways to top up account credit via a reloadable Green Man Gaming game card, powered by Rixty; the service was available and redeemable only in North America.

The latter end of 2011 saw Callum Jay join Green Man Gaming as CFO from cloud-based digital video distributor Miniweb Interactive where he was finance director and previously at Morgan Stanley Capital International and at Tomb Raider publisher, Eidos.[9][10] Tim Sawyer also joined Green Man Gaming as their EVP Operations in 2011, having previously been Head of ecommerce at MeMega Retail Ltd.[11] After a year-long sabbatical at Twitter to develop Tweet Deck's iOS, Android and Windows services, Lee Packham returned to Green Man Gaming as Co-Founder and EVP Engineering.[9]

2012 began with Green Man Gaming announcing a partnership with Gaikai to stream and play selected game demos from Gaikai's portfolio on any of Green Man Gaming's sites through any web browser or operating system.[12] In May of that year, Green Man Gaming appointed former HMV Games Category Manager, Martin Baxter to become EVP Trading.[13] Baxter was joined on the senior management team by Darren Cairns, who became EVP Marketing at Green Man Gaming, having previously spent 6 years as Head of Online Marketing, running the PlayStation EMEA Digital Business at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.[14] On 9 July 2012, Green Man Gaming announced its merger with Playfire.[15] At the time of acquisition, Playfire had more than 1.2 million users, tracking over 50,000 video games on the website allowing users to automatically track their gameplay and in-game achievements or trophies from Steam, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live.[16] At the end of July 2012, Green Man Gaming expanded its multiplatform portfolio to include selling boxed games, and now sells PC-DVD, Xbox360, Xbox One, PS3, and PS4 games as well as consoles and peripherals.[17] This service is offered only in the UK.

In June 2013, Green Man Gaming launched its instant Trade-In credit and Pre-Owned game services in the UK.[18] The service offered consumers trading-in their Xbox360, Xbox One, PS3 or PS4 games instant Green Man Gaming credit, which could be used on the Green Man Gaming website before their pre-owned games are sent to the company. In August 2013 Green Man Gaming also announced partnership with CollectPlus, the UK's largest store-based parcel service.[19] For trade-ins in the UK that are £50 or over in value, customers can drop off their package of games at a nearby store. At the end of 2013, Green Man Gaming announced that its Playfire service was able to track in-game achievements/trophies and gameplay on Xbox One[20] and PlayStation.[21]

Starting January 2014, Green Man Gaming has added the Euro to its list of supported currencies, in European countries such as France and Germany. Other European countries, however, now pay using the GBP.[22]

In March 2014, CEO Paul Sulyok was named as one of the 100 most influential people working in the British video games industry by trade publication MCV.[23] Following the departure of EVP Engineering Lee Packham (who left to rejoin Multiplay, but remains a shareholder and consultant at Green Man Gaming[24]), at the end of June 2014, Chily Fachler, former IT Director of The Outdoor Group and CIO at Encore Tickets, joined Green Man Gaming as EVP Technology.[25] Green Man Gaming announced in September 2014 that it was to be the first reseller of OnLive cloud-gaming subscription services, offering monthly bundles and free trials of OnLive's Playpack and CloudLift services to launch its new partnership.[26] On 30 September 2014, Green Man Gaming launched its own publishing arm, Green Man Loaded, now known as Green Man Gaming Publishing[27] Gary Rowe, former SVP Publishing and Content at SEGA joined the label as EVP Green Man Loaded.[28][29]

In September 2015, Green Man Gaming announced that it has officially partnered with Nintendo and is now selling digital titles for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS consoles.[30] In October 2016, the company reached a similar agreement with Sony Interactive Entertainment to sell digital titles for PlayStation 4 consoles through redemption keys.[31] However, by March 2019, Sony had opted to stop retail and digital sales of redemption keys across all markets, including Green Man Gaming.[32]

In March 2017, Green Man Gaming launched its first local language eCommerce website in Germany,[33] offering its customers the ability to shop in German using their preferred payment methods. The company also launched its brand new Community platform in March 2017,[34] giving gamers a new community to connect with each other, view their gameplay stats, get the latest news and watch popular Twitch streamers – all in one place.

In April 2017, Green Man Gaming appointed former Take-Two CEO,[35] Paul Eibeler, to its Board as an Advisor and hired Sam Bennett, ex-Sony Entertainment, EA and Activision Community Manager and Customer Engagement Head, as EVP to lead its newly formed Customer Experience and Communications team.

Green Man Gaming announced an extension of its current publishing program in January 2020 as its Digital Partners Program, allowing any developer to take advantage of a menu of publishing support options through the company, as well as metrics that the company has obtained through its storefront. One of the first titles published through the program was GTFO.[36]

In 2015, there were accusations of unauthorised keys being provided by Green Man Gaming, however this was publicly refuted.[37] The company responded that in an effort to meet the demand from their customers for all types of games Green Man Gaming will occasionally need to use authorised third party vendors to offer keys for games from publishers that they are unable to work directly with due to different commercial reasons. The company insists that all revenue goes back to the publishers, with Green Man Gaming absorbing the cost of any discounts they offer.[38][39] Following this, in November 2015, the company placed information on each game's store page on their site to identify the source of the redemption keys, either through Green Man Gaming directly from the publisher, or through an authorised third-party reseller, in addition to when users can expect delivery of keys for pre-orders.[40]

• Official website