Exploring survival rates of companies in the UK video-games industry: an empirical study

The study presented in this paper investigates companies operating in the UK video-game industry with regard to their levels of survivability. Using a unique dataset of companies founded between 2009 and 2014, and combining elements and theories from the fields of Organisational Ecology and Industrial Organisation, the authors develop a set of hierarchical logistic regressions to explore and examine the effects of a range of variables such as industry concentration, market size and density on companies’ survival rates. The analysis addresses locational dimension of the video-game industry is considered by introducing an extra regionally-related variable into the models, associated with the number of video-game university programmes locally available. In addition, companies are investigated with regard to their organisational type in order to identify potential effects associated with their intrinsic organisational structures. Findings from the analysis confirm that UK video-game companies operate in an increasingly globalised market, limiting the effects related to any operation conducted at a local level. For instance, a higher supply of specialised graduates within spatial proximity does not contribute significantly to increase the chances of survivability of video-game companies, although different locations seem to provide better conditions and higher life expectancy, mainly due to positive network effects occurring at a local level. Results seem also to suggest that investing in managerial resources increases businesses’ survival rates, corroborating evidence about the significant role entrepreneurs have for companies operating within innovative and technologically intensive industries.