The emergence of a number of strong European videogame publishers over the past few years represents a significant change in international competition in an industry that previously had been dominated by companies based in the United States and Japan. Indeed, in many accounts of the evolution of the videogame industry, one gets the impression that European capability in supplying the videogame market is nonexistent. For example, Steven L. Kent's The First Quarter: A 25-Year History of Videogames [Kent00] contains virtually no references to European individuals or companies—a somewhat ironic omission in view of the fact that the preface to the U.S. edition of the book is written by Peter Molyneux, a well-known videogame developer based in Britain.
As shown in Table 1.6.1, in 2001, of the top 15 independent (i.e., non-console producing) videogame publishers ranked by revenues, six were American, four were Japanese, four were French (Infogrames, Ubi Soft, Titus Interactive, Vivendi Universal Publishing), and one was British (Eidos) [Saigol00].
# | Publisher | Game Sales ($m) | Game Sales in Group | Main Games | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Electronic Arts | USA | 1,760 | 100% | FIFA, Sims, Madden, NBA, NHL, Medal of Honor |
2 | Konami | Japan | 1,181 | 65% | Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, ISS |
3 | Infogrames | France | 889 | 100% | Driver, Looney Tunes, Alone in the Dark, V Rally |
4 | Square | Japan | 760 | 99% | Final Fantasy, The Bouncer, Parasite Eve |
5 | Activision | USA | 594 | 100% | Toy Story, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Spiderman, Quake |
6 | Capcom | Japan | 483 | 70% | Devil May Cry, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Onimusha |
7 | VUP | France | 470 | N.A. | Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft, Crash Bandicoot, Spiro |
8 | Take 2 | USA | 385 | 100% | Oni, Austin Power, GTA, Midnight Club, Spec Ops |
9 | THQ | USA | 374 | 100% | Simpsons, Evil Dead, WWF, Ring Rats, Red Faction, |
10 | Ubi Soft | France | 351 | 100% | Rayman, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, The Settlers |
11 | Eidos | UK | 285 | 100% | Tomb Raider, Commandos, Soul Reaver |
12 | Namco | Japan | 256 | 30% | Tekken, Ridge Racer, Soul Calibur, Pac Man |
13 | Acclaim | USA | 242 | 100% | South Park, Dave Mirra Bmx, NFL Quarterback Club |
14 | Midway | USA | 207 | N.A. | Ready to Rumble, SpyHunter, NFL Blitz, Gauntlet |
15 | Titus Interactive | France | 164 | 100% | Baldur's Gate, Giants, Icewind Dale, Top Gun |
Source: [UbiSoft01] |
This competitive configuration is new: although most of the leading French publishers have been in business since the 1980s, British companies such as Ocean and Centre Gold dominated the European videogame industry at the beginning of the 1990s. In 1993, the French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, cited videogames as an example of an industry in which French companies were in danger of being gobbled up by foreigners [DeGasquet93a]. As late as 1997, there were still no French companies among the top 15 independent publishers, with Infogrames ranking 16th, Ubi Soft 20th, and Titus Interactive 27th[Barnu98]. Neither Cryo nor Vivendi Universal Publishing (at that time Havas Interactive, which was only involved in edutainment) could be found among the top 30 publishers. In 1997, Eidos held 11th position as a result of its acquisition of a number of British companies, including its 1996 purchase of the largest listed British company, Centre Gold, which was in the process of developing Tomb Raider.
If French companies have now surpassed their European rivals as publishers, the British still remain leaders in videogame development. In 1999, at the peak of the last industry cycle, there were about 250 development studios in Britain compared to about 60 in France. British studios developed one in four games sold in Europe and one in eight sold in the United States [ELSPA99]. Within Europe, British developers accounted for 30% of the games sales on the French market [ELSPA99], while French developers could claim only 5% of the sales of the top 100 games in the UK [Screendigest00]. Of the "top 100 games of all time" for PCs compiled by PC Gamer, 53 were of U.S. origin and 32 came from Britain [Jenkins99].
As the financiers of game development and commercialization, publishers bear most of the risks in the industry, but also stand to reap the most profits. There are no solid data currently available to calculate the distribution of revenues between publishers and developers in the videogame industry [Sanghera01]. Simon Cook, a former industry participant, asserted that the products of the British game development sector generated sales of $6.5 billion in 1999, of which only $500 million flowed back to the creative community in Britain [Barrie99].
When in 2000, even Eidos was having severe financial difficulties, the British Culture Minister, Janet Anderson, challenged the City to get involved in the British videogame industry by arguing that, with financial backing, the nation's strong capabilities could be translated into profits [M2Comm00]. This purported failure of British financial interests to invest in small but creative firms has long been bemoaned in British policy circles. And, as we shall see, in the last half of the 1990s at least, it would appear that bullish financial markets provided much more support for the growth of French videogame companies than they did for their British counterparts.