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Develop 100: The topline trends

Charts, stats and trends for you to feast on
by Develop
April 10, 2008

So you've digested the full list, and our profiles, but want to know some of the key facts, trends, and regional details on those who made it in this year's Develop 100? Then look no further…

[Note: Revenue amounts refer to the total revenues generated by that studio's games at UK retail in 2007. Further details of our methodology can be found at the end of this feature.

The Develop 100 in full, from 1 to 100, can be found at www.develop100.com. Topline trends and facts can be found here, while you can read profiles of the first ten studios here. Profiles of numbers 11 to 30 can be found here, while profiles of numbers 31 to 50 here. Alternatively, click here to read a digital version of the print book.]


REGIONAL ROUND-UP


Studios based in the USA accounted for 33 places in the list, making £389.19m revenues between them.

There were 19 Japanese studios in the list, generating a total of £367.76m.

Studios in the United Kingdom, meanwhile, accounted for 27 slots on the list, accounting for a cumulative £223.16m.

There were eight developers from mainland Europe on the list, making £61.04m revenues between them.

Although it has fast become a key location for games development in North America, Canadian studios only accounted for 12 studios on the list – although combined they accounted for almost as many revenues as UK studios, at £221.46m.

Lastly, there was only one purely Australian team on the list (2K Australia and 2K Boston’s entries are combined) – Tantalus, which generated £2.79m revenues at retail.


REGIONAL BREAKOUT CHARTS


United States Game Studios
1. Infinity Ward (Develop 100 Position: 5, Revenues: £39.6m)
2. Maxis (Develop 100 Position: 7, Revenues: £36.84m)
3. Bungie (Develop 100 Position: 8, Revenues: £31.45m)
4. Amaze Entertainment (Develop 100 Position: 13, Revenues: £24.07m)
5. EA LA (Develop 100 Position: 14, Revenues: £22.49m)
6. EA Redwood Shores (Develop 100 Position: 17, Revenues: £19.99m)
7. Vicarious Visions (Develop 100 Position: 18, Revenues: £17.56m)
8. Treyarch (Develop 100 Position: 22, Revenues: £15.7m)
9. EA Salt Lake (Develop 100 Position: 24, Revenues: £14.83m)
10. Insomniac (Develop 100 Position: 27, Revenues: £13.5m)


United Kingdom Game Studios
1. Traveller’s Tales (Develop 100 Position: 10, Revenues: £27.06m)
2. Rebellion (Develop 100 Position: 16, Revenues: £20.13m)
3. London Studio (Develop 100 Position: 21, Revenues: £16.1m)
4. Rockstar Leeds (Develop 100 Position: 26, Revenues: £13.75m)
5. Sports Interactive (Develop 100 Position: 29, Revenues: £13.28m)
6. Codemasters (Develop 100 Position: 31, Revenues: £11.73m)
7. EA Bright Light (Develop 100 Position: 35, Revenues: £11.13m)
8. Eurocom (Develop 100 Position: 37, Revenues: £9.74m)
9. Evolution Studios (Develop 100 Position: 44, Revenues: £9.11m)
10. Realtime Worlds (Develop 100 Position: 48, Revenues: £8.1m)

Japan Game Studios
1. Nintendo (Develop 100 Position: 1, Revenues: £129.83m)
2. Konami (Develop 100 Position: 4, Revenues: £41.67m)
3. Sega Studios Japan (Develop 100 Position: 9, Revenues: £27.7m)
4. Yuke’s (Develop 100 Position: 12, Revenues: £24.5m)
5. Capcom (Develop 100 Position: 15, Revenues: £22.3m)
6. Hudson (Develop 100 Position: 20, Revenues: £16.22m)
7. Intelligent Systems (Develop 100 Position: 23, Revenues: £14.88m)
8. Sonic Team (Develop 100 Position: 25, Revenues: £14.1m)
9. Game Freak (Develop 100 Position: 30, Revenues: £12.88m
10. Namco (Develop 100 Position: 32, Revenues: £11.54m

Canada Game Studios
1. EA Canada (Develop 100 Position: 2, Revenues: £68.78m)
2. Ubisoft Montreal (Develop 100 Position: 3, Revenues: 52.17m)
3. EA Black Box (Develop 100 Position: 6, Revenues: £37.31m)
4. A2M (Develop 100 Position: 19, Revenues: £17.5m)
5. Radical (Develop 100 Position: 40, Revenues: £9.3m)
6. Next Level Games (Develop 100 Position: 41, Revenues: £9.24m)
7. HB Studios (Develop 100 Position: 49, Revenues: £7.91m)
8. BioWare (Develop 100 Position: 59, Revenues: £6.13m)
9. EA Montreal (Develop 100 Position: 75, Revenues: £4.56m)
10. Relic (Develop 100 Position: 89, Revenues: £3.12m)

Mainland Europe Game Studios
1. Ubisoft France (Develop 100 Position: 11, Revenues: £25.37m) FRANCE
2. IO Interactive (Develop 100 Position: 39, Revenues: £9.43m) DENMARK
3. Digital Tainment Pool (Develop 100 Position: 61, Revenues: £5.67m) GERMANY
4. Starbreeze (Develop 100 Position: 71, Revenues: £4.73m) SWEDEN
5. Asobo Studio (Develop 100 Position: 74, Revenues: £4.6m) FRANCE
6. Lexis Numerique (Develop 100 Position: 80, Revenues: £4.01m) FRANCE
7. Visual Impact (Develop 100 Position: 85, Revenues: £3.65m) BELGIUM
8. Ubisoft Romania (Develop 100 Position: 86, Revenues: £3.58m) BUCHAREST


OTHER BIG TRENDS

OH, CANADA: Despite calls from UK and European studios that say pressures from Canada are harming development business in the continent, Britsoft and Euro studios on he list still made more money than Canadian ones, as the regional round-up above shows. Sure, there’s just a £2m difference between the UK and Canada specifically – but that’s not to be sniffed at.


NEW IP SUCCESS #1: In 2007, new IP Skate comprehensively spanked Tony Hawk’s arse at UK retail. The EA skater made £3.22m across 360 and PS3, where as Hawk’s Project 8 only made £1.62m on the same formats in a similar time frame.

NEW IP SUCCESS #2: Skate’s numbers, however, pale in comparison to Assassin’s Creed. Also released on just 360 and PS3, the game drew made £27.91m at retail in 2007.

THEY SHOOT GAMES, DON’T THEY?: Two first person shooters single-handedly helped Infinity Ward and Bungie get enviable places in the top ten. The games are of course Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3, which made and £38.54m and £30.88m respectively. (Yep, CoD4 outsold Halo. Take that, Master Chief…)

MAKING LOTS OF D’OH: Work on EA’s The Simpsons Game actually ensured that two independent studios could claim key places in the ranking. Handheld outfit Amaze (which worked on the DS version – it generated £5.03m) ranked at 13th, UK studio Rebellion (responsible for PS2, Wii and PSP SKUs, making £15.59m) made it to 16th. Both ironically beat commissioning studio EA Redwood Shores, which made the 360 and PS3 versions and was at 17th, generating £4.92m. In total, The Simpsons Game made £25.54m during 2007. However it’s still got some way to go to beat The Simpsons Hit and Run, still the UK’s fourth best-selling game of all time.


ABOUT THE DEVELOP 100

The Develop 100 ranks the world’s game developers according to the revenues their products generated through UK retail. The figures come directly from ChartTrack data. Retailers contributing to ChartTrack’s data represent 90 to 95 per cent of all UK retail sales for games and the figures have been weighted up so as to accurately represent the market as a whole. Figures are based on sales of all games available on the market at all price points and on all formats (PS2, PS3, PSone, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, GBA, Nintendo DS, Wii, PC and Mac) during the year 31/12/2006 to 29/12/2007.

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