Following the 14th BAFTA Games Awards that took place this April, British marketplace and video game retailer OnBuy took to the United Kingdom gaming industry with a magnifying glass and came out with some interesting findings.
Using a map provided by UK Interactive Entertainment, otherwise known as UKIE, OnBuy looked at which regions in the UK were most active in terms of game development and publishing.
The report cites the British Games Institute, explaining that the UK is among the top five video game producing countries in the world. Games such as Halo Wars 2, Hellblade, and Grand Theft Auto V were all made in Great Britain, and unsurprisingly, the company’s findings point to London as the hotspot for the majority of games companies.
The capital of England houses 630 companies that deal with games developing and publishing, making up a total of 28% of the UK’s game companies – which sits at 2,255. Central London is the place in which 48% of those 630 companies operate from, with the likes of Rocksteady Studios and Slightly Mad Studios setting up shop there.
Other regions such as the South East and the North West, that are home to 18% and 9% of the UK’s games companies respectively, are other places that the industry is working in. Scotland houses just 9% of the total number of gaming companies, Wales is at 3% with 49 companies, and Northern Ireland at 2% with 39.
Contrary to the above results, London has not released the highest percentage of the 19,617 games that have been released from the UK. The South East region makes up 38% of all UK games, which is impressive compared to London’s 29%.
What’s noticeable here is that there’s a distinct lack of developers and publishers in the UK working on, or having delivered, esports titles. As of late there’s been no short of tournaments announced for the UK, such as the Rocket League World Championship, the FACEIT CS:GO Major in September and ESL One Birmingham, but games themselves are seldom. There is a Hi-Rez Studios office down in Brighton, but the company (behind the likes of SMITE and Paladins) has its HQ over in Atlanta.
Indeed, the USA is home to developers such as Riot Games (though they are now owned by Chinese company Tencent), Valve, Activision Blizzard, Psyonix, Daybreak Games and Super Evil Megacorp, making the States home to a good portion of the top tier esports titles.
Head over to Finland and one will find the likes of Supercell and Critical Force. Asia sees the likes of Capcom, Bandai Namco and more of course. Our hope is that as esports grows, and garners more attention in the UK specifically with Majors being located here, and companies such as RFRSH, Riot Games, LVP, ESL UK, FACEIT and Gfinity pushing forward too, that more game developers with esports aspirations will find themselves in the UK.
Esports Insider says: While it’s not a shock that the English capital London is at the forefront of the UK’s gaming industry, it’s pleasant to see that other regions have a decent piece of the pie. This means those who want to enter the industry don’t necessarily have to look down south to forge a career in gaming, making it more likely for some people to actually pursue such a thing.