Lego Digital Play buys ForthStar, Playdemic founders’ Manchester mobile studio

Lego Digital Play has bought ForthStar, a Manchester mobile games studio founded by Playdemic’s Paul Gouge and Alex Rigby.

The deal reportedly adds around 30 people to Lego Digital Play’s workforce of just over 100 mostly in London and Denmark. Terms were not disclosed.

Gouge is now head of games at Lego Digital Play, while Rigby continues to run ForthStar in Manchester.

Lego Digital Play president Aaron Loeb said: “When we look at the mobile market, it is the most democratic market where all the world’s gamers are, and it’s where we can reach kids of all ages in every country on the globe.”

Gouge called the acquisition an opportunity “to really bring Lego to the prominence that it truly deserves on mobile.”

He added: “LEGO Digital Play is the perfect home for the phenomenal talent and experience that have come together at ForthStar. We share so much culture, ambition and strategy. I couldn’t be more excited to be partnering with Aaron Loeb, head of LEGO Digital Play, and the awesome LEGO Digital Play team and studios to build a new generation of games in LEGO.”

Gouge and Rigby were co-founders of Playdemic, which was bought by Warner Bros in 2017 before EA acquired the studio, along with Golf Clash, for $1.4bn in 2021.

The pair launched ForthStar in 2023, unveiling it in January 2024 with 14 ex-Golf Clash staff and $10m of backing from Griffin Gaming Partners, moving to new Altrincham headquarters later that year.

Lego Digital Play was created in early 2025 as a separate sister business to the Lego Group. ForthStar is the second studio it has bought in just over two months, following its purchase of Offroad Games, maker of Chrome Valley Customs.

Earlier it bought Light Brick Studio from Kirkbi, the Lego Group’s controlling shareholder.

Loeb, formerly head of FoxNext Games, took issue with recent claims that mobile gaming is in decline, calling it “a very funny thing to say.”

“We’re just finding a different approach and a different way of thinking than the systems that we used to build Golf Clash, to build Marvel Strike Force,” he said. “The successes of our past are not the automatic blueprint for the successes of the future…the rumours of mobile’s death have been greatly exaggerated.”