70% of UK studios ‘have turned to digital’

Two thirds of British games studios are working on digital and social games projects, new data suggests.

Trade association Tiga said just 33 per cent of UK developers now work solely on retail, and estimates that the digital and social games sector will grow by 21 per cent every year until 2015.

Over the same period, boxed retail will decline by 3 per cent each year, Tiga added.

The findings come from comprehensive new documentation revealing trends in British games development, which Tiga claims it created from data provided by about three quarters of all UK studios.

The study also found that just ten per cent of start-up game studios work exclusively on packaged retail software. Some 80 per cent of these start-ups are labelled independent.

“Tiga’s new research shows that in the UK digital distribution is in the ascent and retail is in sharp decline,” said Tiga CEO Richard Wilson.

“Tiga wants to see a flourishing developer and digital publisher sector, with rising numbers of start-ups and growing sustainable studios and declining business mortality rates. The rise in network gaming offers the opportunity to achieve these objectives,” he added.

[Pictured: UK indie dev DeeJay]