Put together by the editorial brains behind Develop, the leading international monthly magazine for games developers, in association with Autodesk and based exclusively on data from Chart-Track, the Develop 100 is the only listing that ranks developer based on the sales of their games at UK retail.
 
First place goes to EA Canada thanks to sales of the FIFA and Need For Speed games – in total its games made £118.97m in software sales at UK retail in 2006. The studio was number one in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the book as well.
 
Meanwhile Nintendo’s Kyoto-based development team jumps up the listing to second thanks to the continued success of DS and Wii games including New Super Mario Bros. and Zelda: Twilight Princess, which helped it more than double software revenues for 2006 to £70.9m.
 
Overall, UK studios in the listing generated £231.5m in total, a huge amount higher than the value made by Japanese teams (including Nintendo, Konami, Capcom and Namco), which made £172.9m - but less than the US, which scored a total of £313m. Canadian development studios, meanwhile, account for £185.5m of the revenues in the Develop 100.
 
"The Develop 100 is now established as an essential read amongst developers and publishers the world over, and is a great way to get a feel for the market’s trends," commented Develop editor Michael French.

"Whilst the big players retain a massive presence, it’s good news to see that new hardware formats and new IP and ideas continue to drive the business commercially and creatively." 

The Develop 100 is distributed with every copy of the April issue of Develop and relevant copies of this week’s MCV. Extra copies of the book are available from publisher Intent Media – contact Katie Rawlings (Katie.Rawlings@intentmedia.co.uk) or call 01992 535646.