The founders of mobile game producer Playrix and the creators of Candy Crush are among the highest-placing figures on the inaugural Sunday Times Gaming Rich List 2024.
Topping the list are Russian-born brothers Igor and Dmitry Bukhman, of Playrix, which is behind titles such as Township, Fishdom and Homescapes.
The pair have a fortune of £12.54 billion, which put them in 27th place on the overall Sunday Times Rich List 2024.
It comes after the Dublin-headquartered company pulled out of its operations in Russia and Belarus in 2022, due to the invasion of Ukraine.
More than a quarter of the gamers and developers on the list are under 35, with the average age of the entries being 45.
![KSI with his tongue out](http://image.assets.pressassociation.io/v2/image/production/d28f103b7be5b1217ae61f250a97d57bY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzIzOTc5NzQ2/2.74140406.jpg?w=640)
Three names on the list owe their fortunes to tile-matching game Candy Crush, with Riccardo Zacconi, Mel Morris and Sebastian Knutsson, of its producer King, all featuring in the top 10.
Zacconi placed third with a fortune of £410 million while former Derby County owner Morris came seventh with a £312 million fortune, and Knutsson featured in ninth with a worth of £225 million.
Candy Crush has been downloaded more than three billion times since its launch 12 years ago.
The highest-placed gamers in the list were KSI and the Sidemen, who collectively came in at joint 21st, with a fortune of £50 million.
KSI rose to fame making YouTube videos of himself playing football game Fifa before branching out into music and boxing.
In 2013, he founded the Sidemen, a group of YouTubers who produce videos of challenges, sketches and video game commentaries.
The list features just three women, including Debbie Bestwick, former chief executive of Team17, with a £130 million fortune, and Tamsin O’Luanaigh of virtual reality company nDreams, with a joint fortune of £26 million shared with husband Patrick.
The only woman to feature in the top 10 was Wendy Irvin-Braben, of game developer Frontier Developments, who placed 10th with husband David with a joint worth of £175 million.
In the rest of the top 10 are Herman Narula, co-founder of simulation game creator Improbable, who placed second with a fortune of £780 million, and Sam and Dan Houser, co-founders of Rockstar Games, which produces the Grand Theft Auto series, who came fourth with a wealth of £350 million.
Lior Shiff, co-founder of mobile game creator Tripledot Studios, placed fifth.
In sixth position was Garry Newman, owner of games developer FacePunch Studios, with a worth of £335 million, and in eighth was the co-founder of UK retailer Game, Neil Taylor, with a £230 million fortune.
Robert Watts, compiler of the Sunday Times Gaming Rich List, said: “Our first gaming rich list shows who is earning well from hits such as Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto and Candy Crush.
“Making a fortune while playing or creating video games may sound like living the dream to many young people. This rich list tells the rags-to-riches stories of people who have done exactly that.”
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