Video games sector boosts UK stockmarket

Britain’s video games sector is going from strength to strength, helped by the rise in online gaming – which is in turn boosting the UK stock market.

The number of games firms listed on the stock market has grown significantly in recent years.

“Companies range from Keywords Studios, which performs outsourcing services to games developers, to publishers of their own games, such as Frontier Developments and Codemasters,” John Hudson, co-manager of the Premier UK Growth Fund for Premier Asset Management, told Investment Week.

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“Sumo Digital and Team17 also recently listed on the market and have performed strongly since.”

Smaller games firms are also thriving, largely due to the rise of online gaming. Web-based sales platforms such as Steam, which have grown in popularity with the rise of fast broadband and smartphones, allow games publishers to operate with less risk.

This is particularly important for small publishers, which would not have had the clout to secure shelf space in high-street games stores. With space at a premium, games had to sell well within a month of release or shops would de-stock them.

Now games can have a much longer “shelf life”. Fortnite, possibly the biggest game in the world at the moment, was a sleeper hit – and, says Hudson, might have disappeared without trace if it had been released a decade ago.

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