Computing Britain - UK Gaming

Computers in British schools and homes nurtured a generation of programmers who cut their teeth in the 1980s playing and writing video games.

Mathematician Hannah Fry talks to the Oliver Twins, who as teenagers won a games-writing competition on ITV's Saturday Show. Spurred on by their success, the twins went on to write a bestselling games series featuring a loveable egg called Dizzy.

She hears about an early publishing house in Liverpool where fast cars and marketing ploys went spectacularly wrong and finds out how some games originally created in the UK, like Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto, hit the big time.

Nowadays, 'AAA' video games have budgets akin to feature films, costing up to £200m to produce. So could today's bedroom coders still have a Number 1 hit?

Featuring an interview with Magnus Anderson, author of 'Grand Thieves & Tomb Raiders: How British Video Games Conquered the World'.

Presented by Hannah Fry

Produced by Michelle Martin.

Published on Monday, 16th November 2015.

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