The best games in Europe come from the UK, GDC survey finds

The UK has overtaken Sweden as the European country with the best video games output, according to GDC Europe’s annual State of the Industry report.

Last year, the Scandinavian nation topped the list of development hot spots in Europe with 26.6 per cent of those surveyed believing that the home of studios including Mojang, King, Avalanche Studios and EA DICE produced the best quality titles on the continent.

The UK followed with 22.3 per cent, while Finland – home to developers including Supercell, Remedy Entertainment and Rovio – came in third with 15.8 per cent.

This year, the UK rose to the top of the rankings backed by 24.7 per cent of the industry, as Sweden’s support fell to 22.4 per cent and Finland maintained its podium position with 17 per cent.

The UK’s importance as a thriving environment for games creators (including The Chinese Room, whose Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is pictured above) looks set to continue too, with the majority – 26.6 per cent – of European devs expecting the country to still be producing the finest games in five years’ time. This is a slight increase from last year’s result, which saw the UK top expectations with 24.5 per cent.

In 2016 results, Sweden and Finland once again placed second and third, with 16.7 and 11 per cent, respectively.

Interestingly, the GDC survey was conducted before the UK voted to leave the EU, meaning that the optimism expressed may have since been shaken.