Industry – how it works:
The computer and video games industry is primarily made up of publishers and developers. The developers create the games, while the publishers finance, market and distribute them to retailers.

At the top of the industry pyramid are the multinational organisations that create the hardware: Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. Nintendo is a games-dedicated company and their consoles and handhelds (such as Wii, DS and Game Boy Advance) are their primary charges. But it is a different story for Sony and Microsoft, their home consoles (PlayStation 2/PlayStation 3 and Xbox/Xbox 360 respectively) are only one aspect of their vast selection of consumer products. Increasingly mobile phone operators are also looking at providing hardware ‘platforms’ that can accommodate games on their products.

Although Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony develop their own games, or have purchased development studios to make games for their specific platforms, they are not the only players in the industry. Third-party publishers, such as Electronic Arts or Codemasters, are external independent publishing companies who sell games created in their own or other independent development studios. True independents are unique cross-fertilising grounds in the industry since they can develop for any publisher.

While some focus on huge, technology-led console games, others concentrate on the quick turnaround of titles for handhelds or mobile phones. Independents might be small teams of 20 or so, or large ‘super developers’ with more than 200 staff in varying locations throughout the country or even the world. Those who have succeeded best have grown into powerful companies capable of assigning multiple teams to work on multiple projects simultaneously.

UK Development

The UK games industry currently employs more than 22,000 people. Today the UK is considered to be a world centre for excellence in games development - acclaimed for its originality, creativity, technical ingenuity and wit. It is arguable that games such as the Worms series or Grand Theft Auto – with their eccentric ideas and dark humour – could only have come from the UK, where there is less of a factory approach to development and the teams remain comparatively small.

There are 120+ independent development studios in the UK. One of the sector’s great strengths is that these studios exist throughout the UK and are not, as in many other industries, concentrated only in the South East. In 2004 the value of the UK leisure software market was £1,217m - an increase of 6% from 2003.