Develop 100 toasts Activision Blizzard studios

Activision Blizzard is arguably the big winner in the 2009 edition of the Develop 100 – three of its studios make it into the top ten.

World of Warcraft developer Blizzard takes the number one slot, with Call of Duty World at War developer Treyarch at seventh, and CoD creator and Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward at eight.

Only EA was previously able to get so many in the top ten – but this year the publisher only manages to get two studios in the entire top 20 (EA Canada at fourth and EA Black Box at 20th).

The Develop 100, sponsored exclusively by Emergent, is an invaluable guide that throws light on the real winners in the world’s fastest-growing creative industry.

The list is put together by the magazine’s editorial team, who have taken into account a variety of criteria including key sales charts made available by the likes of GfK-ChartTrack, NPD and Famitsu, success of online business models, Metacritic scores and industry standing.

From A2M to Zoe Mode, the book is a definitive list of the best game developers around the world.

31 studios from across Europe feature in the list – 26 of them in the UK. These include the likes of Rockstar North (third on the list and responsible for the Grand Theft Auto franchise), LEGO Star Wars developer Traveller’s Tales (11th) and Media Molecule (18th), the developer of LittleBigPlanet – and the highest placed independent UK studio on the list.

The listing, from 1 to 100, plus a free digital edition, can be found at www.develop100.com.

More analysis and data can be found here on the Develop site, with a free edition also available to view at Issuu.