News Britain down on games development chart

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/07/05/britain_down_on_games_development_chart/1

The world development rankings are out again and apparently we just don't make them like we used to, sliding down a place in the chart.

 

Where's the ranking chart?

 

Soo what games has the UK recently produced to get them to fourth place on the list? Just curious....

 

Not surprising when EA, Ubisoft, and TakeTwo/Rockstar develop the majority of their games in Canada. Examples: Ghost Recon franchise, Splinter Cell franchise, Need for Speed franchise. Even BioWare (Baldur's Gate franchise, Mass Effect) is from Canada.

 

We haven't made enough games, or enough good ones recently Strangelove, thats the point. We used to produce even more games than Canada though Amon - it's predictable but sad that we couldn't entice Ubi etc to put those offices in the UK

 

I'm starting to believe with all of this talk about starting up education for this industry will make Game History a valid class now for more universities in the future. I just finished my first semester of it last year here in the states.

 

The uni course I was on had a games history unit. One of the few interesting ones. I quit for that reason. If I'm honest, the word 'games' was stuck on there just to pull more money students into the course. It was basically programming with the occasional unit in 3d modelling/animation thrown in. Apart from that there was a distinct lack of creative anything until the third year. I pulled out because of it.

 

Splash Damage.


H.B.

 

Splash Damage are only a small company though, much as I love Locki Wedgwood, and they've only got a small number of games under their belts. Very heavily attached to id too, who are American obviously.

 

Well, you guys do house one of my favourite developers of all time: Codemasters.

 

hmm I currently live in Scotland and every now and then I see posters and meet and greet events claiming that "we" are very good at games programming...

I'm from Denmark and at least we have IO interactive and Hitman.. although I guess that is now a part of Eidos

 

Who have just sold themselves out to America with DIRT.

I love the game, I think its awesome, but there is no doubting that they have definitely done a lot of things that are purely aimed at appealing to the American market. You would have at least thought that they might have used an English accent for the co-driver.

 

They all move to america where the big money is or Japan.

 

I'm currently on a Computer and Video Games course at Uni.

It a bag of crap. Serious lack of funding, lack of management and a lack of decent staff (all but 1 of the good ones quit)

 

it's developping like crazy here in Montreal, especially thanks to Ubisoft

 

*laugh* Well that's only because the Quebec government offers crazy subsidies, to video game out fits to relocate to that province. Your/Mine tax dollars hard at work subsidizing video game makers profits...... I'd much rather be 4th on the list than bail out millionaires.

 

We seem to see this time and time again. Britain has always been an inventive nation, pioneering in many areas of industry. But how do we choose to reward these people? By letting other countries steal our talent. I think our government is scared of success.

 

ah the memories

sadly just about all the major UK games companies have folded, or been bought

I think lionhead studios is one of the biggest left, but their last game was a disaster (B&W2)

 

being at university, at some point I have been hounded by every kind of company to come work for them in x,y,z role (be it poster, emails, careers service advisory tryna get a bonus) but not once has anyone even mentioned computer game design.

to be honest, its something id really like to do, but I'd rather go start a career in technology inside financial services, at least i know they will look after me...