At the 2012 World Championship Brown lost in the first round to South Africa's preliminary qualifier Devon Petersen 3–2 in sets, having led 2–1 and had a dart at the bullseye to win the match. In the rest of 2012, Brown performed well in the five new European Tour events by qualifying for four of them. He lost in the last 64 once, the last 32 twice and saved his best run for the final event, the Dutch Darts Masters where he defeated Dick van Dijk 6–5 and Wes Newton 6–2, before losing to Mark Walsh 6–3 in the last 16.