Playrix bosses and Candy Crush creators top first Sunday Times Gaming Rich List

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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.

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.”