Mike Bithell

Mike Bithell
Bithell at GDC Europe, 2013
Nationality	British
Occupation	Video game developer
Years active	2010–present
Known for	Thomas Was Alone, Volume
Website	www.mikebithellgames.com

Mike Bithell is a British video game designer and developer, best known for his work on Thomas Was Alone which received critical acclaim and (the more recent) Volume video game.

Bithell independently developed an early version of the Thomas Was Alone video game in 2010 while working for Blitz Games, where he was a junior designer, and later a designer, from 2007 to 2011. He developed the prototype game in 24 hours and released it for free online through the Kongregate website, receiving 100,000 'plays' in the first week. He joined Bossa Studios in February 2011, working to expand the flash-based Thomas to a full title and learning how to use the Unity engine in his time there. The full game was released on 30 June 2012 and went on to sell over a million copies, winning a BAFTA at the 9th British Academy Games Awards in the "Best Performer" category (for narrator Danny Wallace) and receiving a further two nominations ("Best Original Music" and "Best Story"). He left Bossa in January 2013 to "concentrate on indie development". He since worked on a Robin Hood-based stealth game named Volume, which was released on 18 August 2015 for Windows, OS X, and PlayStation 4 and Vita platforms.

Bithell has gained significant notability in the video game industry due both to the unexpected success of Thomas and also for his views on the current industry as a whole. He has outlined the problems for fellow indie developers producing mobile games, commenting on the suitability of free-to-play mechanics for indie gaming and other issues.