EA Canada Tops Develop 100 List

British developer magazine Develop has once again named EA Canada as the number one development studio in the world, according to UK sales, in its annual Develop 100 list. The list ranks individual development studios according to their success in financial terms at UK retail outlets. The data used is provided by Chart-Track/ELSPA and comes from sales between January 1st 2005 and December 31st 2005, across all formats and price points. EA Canada has been responsible for titles including the Need for Speed, FIFA, NBA Live and SSX series and was followed in second place by Mercenaries developer Pandemic. Other developers named in the top ten include fellow Electronic Arts studios Maxis and Redwood Shores, as well as Ubisoft Montreal. Two Sony studios also made the top ten, in the form of Polyphony Digital and London Studio, as well as internal teams from Konami and Nintendo, plus Lego Star Wars creator Traveller’s Tales. Being authored in the UK, much is made of the total of thirty British companies in the top 100, including two in the top ten. This represents a slight improvement on last year and includes new entries such as Rockstar Leeds (Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories), Juice Games (Juiced), Relentless (Buzz!) and Bigbig Studios (Pursuit Force). The list is very similar to the previous year, which was also topped by EA Canada thanks to the studio's involvement in the FIFA and FIFA Street series. The most prominent absentee from the top ten, thanks to the lack of a new home console Grand Theft Auto game, is Rockstar North, who last year charted at number two.