The company was founded in June 2009 by Nigel Lowrie, Harry Miller, Graeme Struthers, Rick Stults, and Mike Wilson, five executives who had been involved with Gathering of Developers and Gamecock Media Group, which published games on developer-friendly terms, but due to the high cost associated with releasing retail games saw themselves acquired and dissolved by larger companies.

The company is primarily owned by Miller, Struthers and Lowrie themselves, with minority stakes by NetEase, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Kwalee.

Devolver Digital was founded in Austin, Texas, by Harry Miller, Rick Stults, and Mike Wilson.

[6] The original Serious Sam games were published by Gathering of Developers, and Croteam had continued working with Wilson and his partners while at Gamecock Media Group.

[5] The company then opted to work with smaller independent studios, such as the two-man team Vlambeer, to produces indie games based on Serious Sam.

[5] The game, released in 2012, became Devolver Digital's breakout hit; it received critical praise, appeared on multiple "Best of 2012" lists, and sold over 1,700,000 copies by February 2013.

They have typically focused on smaller indie developers, and while they are often associated with weird and bizarre games, such as Genital Jousting, this is only by happenstance, according to Wilson.

[7] Wilson went on to found another publisher, DeepWell Digital Therapeutics, alongside Nextern founder Ryan Douglas in March 2022.

Devolver Digital used the proceeds from the game and the rights sale for expansion, including mergers and acquisitions.

[7] After indicating around May 2021 that it was looking to have an initial public offering, Devolver became a public company on November 4, 2021, trading its stock under the ticker symbol DEVO on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), a submarket of the London Stock Exchange, initially valued at £694.6 million ($950 million).

[29] In July 2024, Kwalee acquired a 3.58% minority stake in Devolver Digital for the purpose of expanding their operations in the PC and console market.

The branch includes members from Good Shepherd Entertainment, taking over the publishing rights of their previous games John Wick Hex and Hellboy Web of Wyrd, while several partnerships have been established with large IP holders including The Walt Disney Company, Home Box Office, Inc., and Dark Horse Comics.

[39] The conference deviated from common practice, as it was a pre-recorded satirical video, entitled the Big Fancy Press Conference, of a supposed live show, hosted by Devolver Digital's supposed chief synergy officer Nina Struthers, played by actress Mahria Zook.

[42][43] This show introduced on a new item called the "Lootboxcoin", a parody of both cryptocurrency and loot boxes, which was a plastic coin that had no actual value, but was made available for purchase from Devolver Digital's online store for a fluctuating price.

[46] The music for the three conferences was composed by John Robert Matz; a compilation album, titled Devolver Digital Cinematic Universe: Phase 1 (Original Soundtrack), was released through label Materia Collective in June 2019.

[53] For the 2022 Summer Game Fest, Devolver hosted the "Devolver Digital Marketing Countdown to Marketing", hosted by "MechaSuda" (A Max Headroom style video of Goichi Suda played on a screen inside a mechanical robot suit).

[55] The stream ends with MechaSuda making a wish on a Lootboxcoin, rewinding time back to the start of the conference, then self destructing.

[5][64][65] These included event planning team and staff focused on bringing the company's games to China, though this was later shut down.

[5][19] One key hire was vice-president of mobile publishing Mark Hickey in December 2018, who had been the business manager for Apple Inc.'s App Store.

Special Reserve Games was founded in 2016 by CEO Jeff Smith, after he had pitched Wilson the idea of creating a physical release of the PC version of Shadow Warrior 2.