Warcraft maker tops studio study

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People queue for World of Warcraft

Blizzard, the maker of World of Warcraft, is the world's most bankable games studio, according to a study.

Online role playing game World of Warcraft boasts more than 10 million subscribers worldwide and the firm's revenues top $1.34 billion annually.

Nintendo takes second spot, with Rockstar North, makers of Grand Theft Auto, third, and EA Canada fourth.

The list was compiled by Develop magazine and is based on sales figures, review scores and industry standing.

DEVELOP Top 10 Blizzard Entertainment Nintendo Rockstar North EA Canada Capcom Ubisoft Montreal Treyarch Infinity Ward Epic Games Bethesda Softworks

Develop's editor-in-chief Michael French said: "World of Warcraft has... truly penetrated pop culture, inspiring everything from web memes to episodes of The Simpsons, showing Blizzard's ability to not only create compelling experiences but also court user expectations."

Twenty six UK studios make the Top 100 list, including Travellers Tales (12th), maker of the Lego videogames, and Media Molecule (18th), the creator of LittleBigPlanet.

Peter Molyneux's Lionhead, developer of the Fable games, is awarded the 22nd spot.

LittleBigPlanet developers' Alex Evans and Kengo Kurimoto give a tour around the game

Fourteen separate developer studios owned by Electronic Arts, the second biggest games publisher in the world, make the list.

Treyarch and Infinity Ward, the developers which alternate the creation of Call of Duty video games, are at seven and eight in the chart.

The list reflects the changing nature of the video games landscape with mobile game developers PopCap (35th) and PlayFish (98th) also in the Top 100.