Crashes, triumphs and near-misses

Aug 13 2008 by Alex Turner, Liverpool Daily Post

A scene from the MotorStorm game _320

This may sound like mayhem, but, as Alex Turner discovers, gaming industry is big business

MILLIONS of people, probably tens of millions, have raced through Monument Valley in the last two years.

It’s the scene of high-speed, foot-to- the-floor racing with spectacular crashes, triumphs and near-misses.

But you are probably unaware that Monument Valley is in the shadow of the Runcorn Bridge. That’s because Monument Valley is the location for the video game MotorStorm, which is the third highest-selling game for the Sony PlayStation3 (PS3).

And this global success was developed by Runcorn-based Evolution Studios.

The PS3, which launched at the end of 2006, had sold 12.85m units to March, and it expects to pass 20m by the end of this year.

MotorStorm has been its big success story, selling 3.4m copies. Only 15 games have sold more than 1m copies for the PS3 and MotorStorm is only behind the latest, fourth, releases from franchises Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty.

Evolution Studios, which was also responsible for the World Rally Championship series, was bought by Sony last September.

Sony itself has a substantial presence in the city with its Studio Liverpool, a development studio and its quality evaluation department at Wavertree Technology Park.

For more than 20 years, Studio Liverpool has been at the forefront of innovative games development.

Founded in 1984 under the name Psygnosis, it was Studio Liverpool which brought futuristic anti- gravity racing in 1995 with Wipeout, a game that marked a shift in video gameplay. The studio is also responsible for the Formula One series.

Racing is a key theme in games produced in the city. Liverpool-based Bizarre Creations has developed the Project Gotham Racing franchise for Microsoft’s XBox and the later XBox360, which so far has generated combined sales of more than 6m.

The first in the series is the sixth- best selling XBox game while the later incarnations have also been hugely successful. Bizarre Creations, which was recently acquired by the global games publisher Activision, employs more than 160 employees at its purpose- built development studio in Liverpool.

Sarah Chudley, commercial director of Bizarre Creations, said: "Games are a serious industry nowadays, with top titles costing millions to make. And the UK has been doing really well.

"We’ve been the third largest producer of video games worldwide in recent times – pretty impressive, given the competition."

The video gaming industry is estimated to be worth £500m to the UK economy, and Liverpool is a significant player in this market.