18. Codemasters

FY07 Revenue: $149M, +45% (Rank: 18)
FY07 Profit/Loss: $15M (Rank: 10)
Titles in Global Top 100: 1 (Rank: 16)
Units in Global Top 100: 0.7M (Rank: 19)
Review Average: 68% (Rank: 8)
 

Explanation of Ranking: Codemasters is the top publisher in the lower tier of publishers – those with less than $200 million in revenue. While it does not have the highest revenue in this group, it does have momentum with a 50% increase in revenues for FY07 (ended 30 June 2007) and a huge jump in profits. (Unlike most companies in this article, data for Codemasters was not available for the period starting 1 July 2007.)

Known for its Colin McRae racing series as well as Brian Lara International Cricket, Codemasters has shown considerable growth in the past couple of years. From FY05 to FY06 the company became profitable and then in FY07 its revenues and profits grew considerably.

With the release of Colin McRae: DiRT and later Race Driver: GRID the company now has a significant stake in the next generation of racing games. Its publishing business also covers action games for mature audiences such as Overlord, Clive Barker's Jericho and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.

In the coming months Codemasters will work with Majesco on European publication and distribution of games for more general audiences such as Cake Mania 2 and Toy Shop for the Nintendo DS and Our House for the Nintendo Wii. Additional action titles for older audiences like Damnation and Rise of the Argonauts will be key for Codemasters during the second half of 2008. In 2009 CodeMasters will presumably leverage the same engine used to make GRID to exploit the Formula 1 license it recently obtained after Sony declined to renew its claim.