Jagex duo climb rich list with £138m fortune

Andrew and Paul Gower have amassed a fortune of £138 million after forming UK outfit Jagex, new data suggests.

The Gowers’ position (pictured – Andrew) in the latest edition of The Sunday Times’ Rich List suggests that the duo are the wealthiest game development entrepreneurs in the UK, having made another £39 million in 2009.

The brothers’ estate is nearly double the wealth of, for instance, Traveller’s Tales founder Jon Burton, who himself was named the second richest British developer.

Industry veteran Burton established the Traveller’s Tales empire back in 1990 in Knutsford, Cheshire. The business has blossomed for two decades and was sold to TimeWarner in 2007 for $100 million. The deal gave Burton a personal fortune of an estimated £75 million, up $10 million on last year.

The new rich list places the Gower family as the 483rd richest in the UK, ahead of the likes of David Bowie (£100m), Sir Tom Jones (£135m) and Phil Collins (£108m).

Jon Burton is placed 863rd on the list, sharing the same spot with Rare founding brothers Chris and Tim Stamper.

The Stamper brothers built their fortune by establishing Rare back in 1982, going on to build an enviable relationship with Nintendo. High-profile hits such as GoldenEye, Killer Instinct, Perfect Dark and Donkey Kong Country made the studio global, while highly-regarded games such as Blast Corps and Banjo-Kazooie gave the outfit a reputation for consistent quality.

The studio was bought by Microsoft in a landmark £240 million deal, giving the brothers its estate.

Elsewhere in the list, Microsoft founder Bill Gates was said to be the third richest businessman in the world, with a family estate worth 33.8 billion.