England leads European games development chart

15/05/07 - England has been named Europe's top video game developing nation in a new list created by games industry website, www.next-gen.biz.

Commissioned by the respected industry news and recruitment site as part of its expanding European coverage, the rankings are based on a number of factors, analysed by industry experts. To come up with the chart, experts counted the number of development studios in a country, sales revenue of their games and the critical response to their work, through aggregated review scores.

For many years, English studios have produced hundreds of internationally successful titles, including the recent PlayStation 3 launch game, Motorstorm and popular game series like Tomb Raider and Burnout. Notable developers based in England include the Warwickshire based trio, Blitz Games, Codemasters and Rare.

Scotland came third in the chart, behind France in second place, thanks in part to the strong performance of the Grand Theft Auto series, produced by Edinburgh based, Rockstar North and the critically acclaimed Xbox 360 title, Crackdown, created by Realtime Worlds in Dundee.

Next-gen.biz European development league

1. England

2. France

3. Scotland

4. Sweden

5. Germany

6. Denmark

7. The Netherlands

8. Ukraine

9. Norway

10. Romania

The success of England and Scotland in the www.next-gen.biz chart comes as global sales of UK developed games tops $1.4billion annually, as reported by industry body, Elspa. There are now over 25,000 people working in video game development across the UK.

Colin Campbell is Editor of www.next-gen.biz:

"Over many years, England and Scotland have become two of the world's most bankable countries in the creation of quality video games, offering up some of the most exciting and marketable games produced globally each year.

"We also see that French talent remains a significant force in the development of games and that Eastern Europe and Scandinavia are also fast emerging as creative powerhouses. In a global context, European nations are now only beaten by Japan and the US in terms of game development."

View the full story now at www.next-gen.biz.

ENDS

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