Britain Is A Global Gaming Superpower

The country helped shape the global video-games industry: Can it stay in the game?

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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 US$2 billion (S$2.56 billion) 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.

Such recognition is overdue: Gaming has long been a British superpower. The sector generates annual revenues of some US$200 billion 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 (£4.3 billion, or S$7.47 billion) than the film (excluding streaming) and music industries combined (£3.4 billion).

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 Outdated stereotypes that gaming turns youth into obese oddballs or school shooters still prevail in parts of Westminster.