Revolution Software's Charles Cecil, best known for his work on the Broken Sword series spoke at the Interface event in London today (via MCV. He interestingly spoke of how he has experienced what he calls the first and second golden eras of British game development.
"The time of Broken Sword 2 was a golden era for British developers. We had Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and Worms. The UK led the world in non-console games at the time."
"What brought everything to an end was the PlayStation in 1996. It inadvertently destroyed the indie scene the first time around. Because it was so successful, all of the retailers wanted to stock non-PC games. Not only did the cost of games escalate, but it was all about visceral 3D games."
Cecil went on to talk about the launch of the iPhone and AppStore as the dawn of the second golden era. He detailed how a free promotion of Broken Sword on AppStore went on to increase sales by 6 following the free promotion.