Creative Industries: Seven of the best for Britain
Psygnosis plays the game all over the computerised world
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.IT IS a measure of how far computer games have come in a short time that in 1984 Jonathan Ellis teamed up with Ian Hetherington to set up a software publisher called Psygnosis, which they hoped would tap into an emerging industry.
The first game they wrote, Brataccus, was the first to be published for the Commodore Amiga console, and they were later to achieve renown for Lemmings - a "platform game" in which characters run and jump on a moving screen.
So impressed was Sony that it bought the company in 1993. Now Psygnosis is a big player on the world stage itself. Its three main products - the racing games Destruction Derby - have sold more than a million units each. Nick Garnell, managing director of the publishing side at Psygnosis, underlines the company's international audience by reporting that exports account for 80 per cent of its turnover. This ratio has gone up sharply in recent years as Psygnosis has opened offices in all countries where it has a lot of customers.
"The number of people who play games at home is greater than ever," says Mr Garnell, and this has encouraged a number of other British software writers to make their mark. While Psygnosis is the biggest UK player, he adds, an up-to-date top 10 of computer games would feature a number of British names.
This, though, is a story of British ingenuity and foreign technology, and this has sometimes been a dangerous game because technology changes quickly. The British software industry went through a rocky patch a few years ago as the machines their programs were written for became obsolete.
However, Mr Garnell says there is now more stability, partly because of a new generation of machines whose memory capacity and specifications make them ideal for games.
Mr Garnell says that over the past year junior ministers have made a number of visits to the industry's trade association. If anything comes of the contact, however, he does not expect it to be in the form of money but education. Build up the skills base in computer games, he says, and you have a powerful magnet for inward investment.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments