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They can make the most successful entertainment product of all time. They can be responsible for the biggest console launch ever. They can even change the UK National Curriculum.
Just don’t call them influential.
The Sunday Times, in association with Debretts, revealed the 500 most influential Britons last weekend, yet only two of them work in video games.
Mind Candy founder Michael Acton Smith and one half of the Yogscast founders, Lewis Brindley, deservedly made the list. Yet there was no room for Rockstar’s Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Leslie Benzies or Adam Fowler, the four men that led the creation of last year’s record breaking GTA V.
Nor was there room for Wales-born PlayStation CEO Andrew House, who led the launch of the multi-million selling PS4 around the world last year.
And Ian Livingstone, the former Eidos life president who has inspired the Government to change how it teaches computing to Children, is also conspicuous by his absence.
The games sector in the UK is an economic and creative powerhouse, making the most popular and biggest selling entertainment products in the world,” said UKIE boss Dr Jo Twist.
Our entrepreneurial sector and many of its key influential and innovative minds within it deserve recognition in these kinds of lists and we would be happy to work with those putting together similar stories to help identify who these key leaders and creatives are.”
Both music and film received their own sections, whereas video games did not.
We have reached out to Debretts to comment.
These lists certainly matter to those working so hard in this industry, as the delighted response from Yogscast proves.
The firm’s Brindley said: I’m very pleased and quite surprised to have been included with so many well-known and respected people. It’s great that old media outlets like the Sunday Times recognise the emerging influence of video as a powerful new media.
It’s also testament to the support and help of our fans, the Yognaughts, who follow the various channels within the Yogscast family that we’ve become well known enough to get onto a list like this.”
