timbre

Here
for the
Fun.

A fully independent Canadian game studio, with a focus on making games more accessible and fun for everyone.

Cartoon illustration of teamMeet The Team!

We bring our experience and sense of humour to everything we make.

We believe in focusing on core gameplay to create fresh, innovative ideas.

Games have gotten too expensive to make. We’re here to fix that.

Joe Nickolls - President & Founding Partner
Joe
Joe Nickolls is President and Founding Partner of Timbre Games Studio, bringing with him over 27 years of experience in AAA Video Game development.  Along with a passion for diversity of people and thought, Joe brings a sense of humour and community to the Vancouver market and is driven to set up a centre of excellence in gaming entertainment.

Most recently Joe was the Vice President and GM of Electronic Arts - Maxis, leading the Sims franchise to record breaking results, and a deep focus on both live service and mobile gaming. Feeling the pull of his home country, Joe has returned to Canada to build a new team of the industry’s best people, and together creating a great new company - Timbre Games Studio. For his entire career, Joe has been at the forefront of change, through 4 console transitions and the explosion of mobile.

Joe has worked at some of the biggest gaming companies in the world, and has overseen some of the largest gaming franchises in the industry. Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Capcom to name a few, and titles like FIFA, NHL, The Sims, SimCity, Puzzle Fighter, Dead Rising and countless others.Joe is committed to building Timbre into a new kind of studio for Vancouver, with a team of some of the best leaders in the industry. Timbre’s focus being diversity, inclusion and equity for all.Joe was born and raised in Vancouver, proud Dad to two amazing daughters, and lives with his wife on Vancouver’s West Side.Tattooed, besuited and a fan of French Bulldogs everywhere, Joe is an early adopter, coffee snob, average skier, & usually the tallest guy in the room.

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Geoff Coates - Creative Director &Founding Partner
Geoff
Geoff Coates is Creative Director and Founding Partner of Timbre Games Studio. A 30 year veteran of the games industry in Vancouver, Geoff brings his experience, sense of humour and ability to form creative, collaborative teams to Timbre. Geoff holds a deep belief that the best experiences, the best stories games can tell, have yet to be told, and that Timbre is uniquely positioned to create those experiences.

Geoff’s career has given him a deep love of games, the gaming industry, and Vancouver. Working as an art director for the better part of his career, he’s worked on everything from sports titles (the Triple Play franchise for EA Sports), the entirety of the EA SSX snowboarding franchise (SSX's 1 - 5) to 1st person shooters (Turok for Propaganda Games), Wii and Nintendo 3DS titles with Next Level Games, RTS titles at Relic Entertainment (Company of Heroes, Dawn of War, unannounced title), and the 3rd person zombie killfest Deadrising 4 with Capcom.

Geoff believes that the best game development depends on effective communication and trust. His process emphasizes communication, growing and supporting a team, and setting creative parameters for artists and designers to play and explore within.A lifelong resident of Vancouver, Geoff’s the dad to two amazing, fully grown humans. He, his wife Angie, and their neurotic rescue dog Meatball live in Port Moody. They tell themselves they didn’t move there just for the dog’s sake, but they’re not fooling anyone.

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Interested? Let’s talk!

At Timbre, we’re here to make great games.
Drawing from decades of experience, we've adapted to meet the challenges of a changing games industry.
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