Britain is a global gaming superpower

Hindustan Times

17 hours ago

The arrival of 'Grand Theft Auto VI' in 2026 will be less a video-game release than a cultural moment. The game, which rewards players for stealing cars, selling drugs and killing cops, will have cost upwards of $2bn to build. Yet it will almost certainly turn a profit within its first week. With its glitzy cityscapes, radio soundtrack and trademark swagger, the series looks, sounds and feels like a warped parody of America. Yet this blockbuster began its life in the small Scottish city of Dundee and is still made by a team of tartan nerds in Edinburgh—a feat celebrated in the British government's strategy for the creative industries, released this June. Strip out the Cayman Islands (a British overseas territory) and Britain ranks as the third-largest exporter of video games—behind only America and Japan.(Illustration: Lea Dohle)
Such recognition is overdue: gaming has long been a British superpower. The sector generates annual revenues of some $200bn globally. Strip out the Cayman Islands (a British overseas territory) and Britain ranks as the third-largest exporter of video games—behind only America and Japan. More understated and quirky than these rivals, it often plays the role of incubator. 'Tomb Raider', a billion-dollar franchise with its own Netflix series, began as a sketch in Derby. 'Fall Guys', a battle-royale obstacle course; 'LittleBigPlanet', a pioneer of the user-generated content craze; and 'Total War: Warhammer', based on the tabletop series, are recent successes. Video games generate more revenue (£4.3bn) than the film (ex streaming) and music industries combined (£3.4bn).
Not everyone is convinced that Britain should be as supportive of its gaming industry as of, say, its life sciences. Outdated stereotypes that gaming turns youth into obese oddballs or school shooters still prevail in parts of Westminster. Others fret about the future: with investment slowing and artificial intelligence (AI) looming, the global gaming industry is in turmoil. Such pessimism is misguided. As in other creative industries—from film to fashion—British ingenuity makes it well-placed to thrive in an age of (sameish) AI.
To understand Britain's unique role in the global gaming industry, go back to its origins. In the early 1980s cheap, programmable home computers gave rise to a generation of bedroom coders. This grassroots mix of creativity and code stood in contrast with America and Japan, where console-driven markets, not PC games, took off first. Britain's quirky scene spawned hits with cultish fanbases, such as 'Broken Sword', a mystery adventure starring an American puzzle-solver. This soon attracted the attention of industry giants. In 1997 Dundee's Abertay University launched the world's first computer-game degree.
Britain is also good at making mobile games, which are more accessible and cheaper to make than console blockbusters. Golf Clash, the top-grossing sports-mobile game in America in 2021, was made in less than a year by around 20 people in a leafy town in Cheshire. Tripledot Studios, popular for its Solitaire game, is based in London. In June it bought the mobile-games arm of AppLovin, a Nasdaq-listed American tech firm, for $800m.
As the industry has grown, with exports increasing from $3.4bn in 2016 to $8.8bn in 2021, its benefits have become more evident. It employs 30,000 or so developers, artists and composers and is unusually productive. The gross value-added per video-games worker is almost double the British average, according to government data.
It is also a sector where Britain really is levelling up. Almost four-fifths of video-game developers work outside London (clusters tended to form around successful early studios and to reflect the sector's bedroom origins). Katie Goode, a burgundy-haired rocket scientist turned games designer, runs her virtual-reality (VR) studio from North Cornwall—one of the country's remotest corners. Hubs have emerged in places like Dundee, Leamington Spa, Slough and Teesside.
Britain has also begun to recognise gaming's wider benefits. In the right hands, consoles encourage learning, not laziness. Take Demis Hassabis, known for starting DeepMind, an AI company bought by Google for $600m in 2014. He attributes much of his success to making a theme-park game as a teen in North London, and later founding a games studio. VR is changing how doctors rehearse surgery and how pilots train for take-off. The National Health Service now prescribes games to treat anxiety and depression.
Yet the belated recognition comes at a tough time. Some issues are specific to Britain. Gaming suffers from the same woes as British tech more broadly: mainly a shortage of venture-capital funding. Smaller studios that struggle to attract investment are unable to scale up. Instead they are often snapped up by foreign buyers, such as Tencent, a Chinese tech conglomerate, which bought Sumo Group, a developer based in Sheffield, in 2022. 'We're incredibly good at creating games,' says Sir Ian Livingstone, the first Briton knighted for services to the industry. 'We're not so good at hanging onto them.'
The second challenge is a global slowdown. The pandemic helped gaming boom. Investors piled in, hoping to profit from millions of house-bound players. British exports grew by 259% between 2016 and 2021. But the surge led to overproduction. In July Microsoft, maker of the Xbox, announced mass layoffs in its gaming division, leading to the cancellation of projects in Britain. Sony, a Japanese publisher, closed its London studio in 2024.
At the industry's biggest annual conference in Britain, held in July in Brighton, the mood is subdued. Jobseekers wander the halls with lanyards reading 'seeking new opportunities' or 'looking for work'.
Technological disruption adds to the unease. Gaming has long been at the bleeding edge of tech—Nvidia made its GPUs for gamers long before they were used on AI models. Alan Turing, a British computer pioneer, created the world's first algorithm capable of playing chess. But many developers are wary of being displaced by machines. 'A lot of us feel like Luddites…we just want to start burning the textile mills,' says one attendee in Brighton. One game on show lets players explore the abandoned server of a failed studio, its fictional founders' ideas drowned in a tide of generic content, or 'AI slop'.
Creative destruction
Yet as artists and disruptors have shown through the ages, in turmoil lies opportunity. And Britain is uniquely well-placed to reap the benefits. Some of the laid-off are starting their own studios, such as Yasmina Fadel, who co-founded a games company after being made redundant last year.
There are also signs that Britain is beginning to better value its ideas. Licensing its distinctive IP to gaming developers helped turn Games Workshop, the creator of 'Warhammer', into a FTSE100 company in 2024 (it has focused on mid-size games). The government's new strategy includes a promise of funding through the British Business Bank to help plug the venture-capital gap, and a promise of a copyright scheme to protect firms' IP from AI.
AI may end up increasing the value of British developers rather than deplete it. It can boost productivity. At one studio in Brighton, a level that once took 90 days to build now takes just ten, notes Nick Poole of UK Interactive Entertainment, an industry body. 'In a world of synthetic material and AI-generated content,' the government's creative-industry strategy correctly identifies that 'human endeavour and creativity will be more important than ever.' The only way to mitigate the threat of AI is to 'tell great stories that haven't been told before,' notes Charles Cecil, the creator of 'Broken Sword'. What is exciting, he says, is that it is 'playing to [British] strengths'.
In Brighton that is clearly on display. One arcade-style game, made in Cornwall, stars a cat wielding a revolver and a samurai sword. In 'Atomfall', players explore a post-apocalyptic Lake District, complete with distinctive red British telephone boxes. 'Thank Goodness You're Here', a surreal indie hit, follows a travelling salesman through a Yorkshire village as he helps residents free themselves from drains, and bake oversize meat pies. 'It captures a bit of the British soul,' purred Le Monde. Only a human, arguably only a British human, could dream up ideas like this. Eccentricity may well be Britain's greatest asset.
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