Sega: The era of big UK studios is over

The British games industry will continue to thrive but no longer from grand-scale development studios, a production boss at Sega has said.

Gary Dunn told Develop “it would take a brave soul to start up a 100-man studio at the moment, because the risk is so high.”

His comments as Sega opens a new micro-studio based in Solihull. The new outfit will work on smaller handheld and mobile projects with a 15-person development team, Sega said.

The investment comes at what has been a transformative 36 months for the UK sector, with several of its biggest studios (Bizarre, Realtime Worlds, Free Radical) being torn from their roots.

“The thing is, in most of these cases the studios closing down are quite large,” Dunn said in a newly published interview with Develop.

“Bizarre Creations was a behemoth of a studio. We’re looking to be an agile, modern studio focusing on new platforms,” he added.

“I think the days of the great big teams are going to be limited. The UK industry’s going to have smaller startups from now on, I would say.”

Dunn’s comments come days after a former senior Rockstar North designer claimed that it’s never a better time for UK devs to quit triple-A development and start their own business.