Video games lose ground in Sunday Times Rich List

Games industry representation has fallen in the latest edition of the Sunday Times Rich List.

The annual ranking collates a list of the top 1,000 wealthiest people in the UK based on identifiable wealth such as land, property, company shares and other assets.

Given that computer games are a relatively new industry to the upper classes traditional fields of investment such as property, retail, construction and oil, our industry has never had a major representation in the list. Although it has featured numerous entertainers and musicians.

2013’s edition – published this past Sunday – actually boots out a video games millionaire from the list and showed the others either losing value or showing no growth.

That’s especially jarring when The Times has keenly announced that this year’s total valuation of its 1,000 ranked individuals or families is at an all time high of 450bn.

This year the featured games millionaires are Jagex founders Andrew and Paul Gower, Traveller’s Tales boss Jon Burton and Miniclip founder Tihan Presbie.

But missing after a number of years in the list is Rare co-founder Chris Stamper, who netted part of the 240 million Microsoft paid for the studio over ten years ago and who was last year estimated to have a wealth of around 76m.

Miniclip’s Presbie is ranked joint 751st, down from joint 482nd last year. His wealth is totted up to 102m this year, down from the 2012’s estimated 155m. His entry remarks that Miniclip’s profits fell to 3.5m in 2011. Presbie owns 85 per cent of the browser games site.

The Gower Brothers and Burton have no recorded change in their wealth, estimated at 102m and 80m respectively.

However in ranking terms they are both down year on year as other monied individuals climb the list.

The Gowers are at joint 768th after climbing to joint 740th last year – that itself was a drop also, after the pair were said to have 145m in assets in 2011.

Burton is ranked at joint 932nd, down from join 908th. His assets predominantly come from the sale of Traveller’s Tales to Warner Bros in 2007.