BattleMail

After receiving a degree in economics, Gouge spent two years in investment banking before leaving in 1999 to found his first games company, BattleMail, with Alex Rigby.^[1] Their game, BattleMail Kung Fu, was a virally distributed casual massively multiplayer online game that was nominated, unsuccessfully, for a BAFTA award^[2] and was later sold to (M)Forma.

Rockpool Games/Ironstone Partners

In late 2002, Gouge and Rigby founded Rockpool Games, a mobile phone games studio, as well as Ironstone Partners, a video game licensing business. Over the following five years, Rockpool developed mobile games based on major video game licenses and won several major awards.^[3] Both businesses were acquired by Eidos Interactive in early 2007^[4] for $15m,^{[citation needed]} with Gouge as head of Eidos Play, the firm's casual division, until February 2009.

Playdemic

In late 2010, Gouge and Rigby founded Playdemic,^{[citation needed]} a European independent social games company that develops and operates game services for social networks and mobile devices. The company’s first release, Gourmet Ranch,^[5] was launched in August 2010 and, by early 2012, had registered over 10 million users and generated over $10m in virtual goods revenue.^{[citation needed]}

Playdemic's second release was Crossword Buddies,^[6] which was launched on Facebook in February 2012 and became available on iPhone and iPad in May 2012. On 8 March 2012, Playdemic signed a distribution deal with Zynga^[7] to help increase its audience.

Appatyze

Gouge was a seed investor in and board advisor to Appatyze, an in-app advertising company.^{[citation needed]}