Develop 100: UK studios triumphant in 2007

The full list is unveiled next month, but a peak at this year's Develop 100 shows UK studios succeed despite global pressures.

The Develop 100 offers a definitive list of the most commercially-successful studios around the world, ranked in terms of the sale of their games during 2007 at UK retail, the third-biggest market for games on the planet.

The book is produced in association with legal firm Sheridans by Develop publisher Intent Media and written by the magazine's expert editorial team. Data is based on ChartTrack/ELSPA sales figures.

26 studios based in the UK make the grade for the 2008 edition of the book, an impressive achievement given the slightly lower output from UK studios in 2007 and the widely reported pressure put on Britsoft from lower-cost places to make games, such as Canada and Asia.

Between them, they generated some £223m at UK retail last year thanks to sales of bestselling games including Lego Star Wars, SingStar, various The Simpsons SKUs, Project Gotham Racing 4, Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories, Football Manager 2008, Colin McRae Dirt and various others.

The studios listed are (in alphabetical order): Bizarre Creations, Blade Interactive, Blitz Games, Climax, Codemasters, Creative Assembly, Criterion Games, EA UK, Eurocom, Evolution Studios, Exient, Frontier, Juice Games, Kuju Entertainment, Magenta, Ninja Theory, Rare, Realtime Worlds, Rebellion, Relentless Software, Rockstar Leeds, Sports Interactive, SCEE Studio Liverpool, Sumo Digital, Team 17 and Traveller’s Tales.