Britain is ‘punching above its weight’, says Frontier Developments boss

The founder of one of the UK’s biggest computer game companies has said Britain should be ‘evangelising’ about its creativity as it is ‘punching above its weight’ in the global market.

David Braben, who set up Cambridge-based Frontier Developments in 1994, said it and the wider British gaming industry were heading a rapidly expanding sector expected to rake in £177billion in sales this year, compared to the £276billion predicted for the combined global film and music industries.

The UK’s computer game industry employs around 24,000 people and last year UK revenues hit £7.2billion, making it the second largest market in Europe and the sixth biggest in the world.

Braben said the sector ‘punches way above its weight on the international stage’ and was a ‘success story’ for the British economy.

‘It’s a great thing for people looking for careers, great for the country because of the revenues we’re bringing in and great for the long-term as the entertainment industry moves towards gaming,’ he said.

‘We’re at the forefront of driving that forward and that’s a really good thing for the UK. We have a history of creativity in this country and we should be evangelising it.’

Originally set up in a farmhouse, Frontier has expanded into a firm worth £605million, with a workforce of more than 800 people. 

Its titles include space-faring epic Elite Dangerous as well as theme park management game Planet Coaster and Jurassic World Evolution, which allows players to build and manage a park populated with virtual dinosaurs in a manner akin to the film franchise on which it is based.

The company’s latest game, F1 Manager 2022, was released today and lets players control the sport’s premier racing teams and direct careers of drivers such as Lewis Hamilton.

Frontier’s titles have attracted fans from all over the world, while the surge of interest in gaming during lockdown helped it post record revenues of £114million. It is now shaking up its board to grab a larger slice of the burgeoning market.

This month, Braben, 58, relinquished the role of chief executive after nearly three decades to take on the position of president and focus on relationship- building within the industry.

On track: Frontier’s latest game Formula One Manager 2022 allows players to control the sport’s premier racing teams and direct the careers of top drivers

He is considered one of the most influential computer game developers of all time and received an OBE in 2014.

His successor is Jonny Watts, a company veteran who joined in 1998 and served as its chief creative officer for over a decade before landing the top job.

Wirral-born Watts, 53, describes his early years in game creation as a ‘bedroom coder’, saying he would come home from school and make games on an Atari ST computer, first released in 1985.

Frontier has grown rapidly since its debut on the London stock market in 2013, when it floated with a market cap of just under £40million.

But Watts wants to expand even further.

‘I want to scale [the company]. We want to do more development and grow our teams. We’ve got so many game ideas which we think could be really successful,’ he said. 

Frontier is making other changes at the board level to bolster its expansion, including the appointment of chairman David Wilton, the former finance boss of rival developer Sumo Group, which was bought by Chinese giant Tencent for £1.1billion this year.

Wilton will join next month and become chairman in December when his predecessor David Gammon retires.

David Braben, who set up Cambridge-based Frontier Developments in 1994, is considered one of the most influential computer game developers of all time and received an OBE in 2014

Braben seems to have little appetite to move Frontier out of Cambridge, saying the city offers a ‘very dynamic’ environment and a community of ‘very smart people’ who offer rich pickings for the company’s recruiters.

It is not the only major firm to set up shop in the city. Others include pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, British computer chip maker Arm and Japanese conglomerate Toshiba.

Despite a recent wave of acquisitions in the gaming sector, most notably the swoop on Call of Duty maker Activision by tech giant Microsoft for a mammoth £50billion, Frontier is firmly focused on developing new games, and its top team appears to have no interest in selling.

Braben and Watts also expect Frontier’s success to continue with the release of F1 Manager 2022, which they hope will capitalise on the booming popularity of the sport.

Other upcoming projects include a title based on Warhammer, the battle figurines developed by FTSE 250 group Games Workshop, which has expanded into a media empire encompassing books and computer games.

A reminder of the company’s success in recent years resides in the staff cafeteria, where a Jurassic Park arcade machine sits as a gift from Universal Studios after Frontier created its first game based on the dinosaur film franchise.

With partnership-building a key plank of the company’s growth agenda, more signs of its success could appear around its Cambridge office in future.