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In recent years, videogames have been criticised for their violent content. Upton claims that it is actually fantasy games, not bloodthirsty combat, that is proving most popular in eSports. "Fifa isn't a violent game, nor is Heartstone," he says. These are strategy games, fantasy games. There's a lot more violence on TV. "If I had the choice between my child playing Fifa or watching something like Eastenders, I'd choose Fifa." Gfinity's last tournament attracted 4,000 spectators Gfinity currently runs eSports for eight titles but the company employs a team of gamers to look for new additions to the roster. "They should pay me to work here," says Upton. "It's the best job in the world for them; they play games all day long." The life of a professional gamer is not easy. Mark “MarkyB” Bryceland, who plays for Call of Duty team Millennium, says: “I usually train for around five hours on a regular gaming day, on weekends around eight hours a day. Before events we tend to go hardcore and put in the most amount of time and that can even be up to 12 hours a day.” MarkyB and hundreds of other gamers will descend on London's Covent Garden later this month to take part in the European qualifying leg of the Call of Duty Championships. The winners will be flown out to Los Angeles to compete in the global battle. "At first my friends and family were apprehensive [about my career choice]," says MarkyB. "It’s still very unique in Britain to be a professional gamer. But now, after seeing how much I get paid to travel and the successes I have had bringing home prize money, they seem to be a little more supportive." According to Upton, top eSports gamers are the new rock stars. Players with names like Parasite, NadeShot and Crimsix may still unknown to the man on the street, but they are legends to eSports fans. “These players get mobbed when they go out,” he says. They get stopped for autographs and we have to smuggle them in through the back door at events.” Within 10 years, an eSports gamer will win a sports personality of the year award, Upton claims. “It will be mainstream,” he says. “There’ll be an eSports section in the Telegraph and an eSports Match of The Day.”

On whether it’s healthy for all these people to spend hours in front of their screens, he says: “Our research shows it eats into TV time, not sport time.” The industry relies heavily on sponsorship to survive and Gfinity’s model is no different, although it does charge $20 a year for premium access. “We’re talking to big brands who want to reach 16 to 30-year-olds, which is our main demographic,” he says. “We’re also looking to do deals with broadcasters.” According to Alexander Davis, from the advertising agency FCB Inferno, eSports could become as big as the Premier League for sponsors. "eSports has become an attractive prospect for brands wanting a piece of the action and already huge brands like Coca-Cola have taken notice and are getting involved," he says. A raft of start-ups have sprung up to cater to the eSports audience. US firm TheScore launched an Android app last week, which allows users to access breaking news, video highlights and streams from eSports providers. At the same time, Billy Woodford, founder of No Copyright Sounds (NCS) has seen exponential growth in the number of gamers accessing his music library to add beats to their gaming tutorial videos on YouTube. "I would say gamers make up 85pc of the NCS following, most commonly from the Minecraft community," Woodford says. NCS generates revenue from ads placed on its YouTube videos and Spotify. "Our tracks have surpassed millions of views due to famous gamers using the music in their content," he adds. San Francisco start-up Vulcun launched its fantasy League of Legends (LoL) platform four weeks ago. Co-founder Ali Moiz says that the business is growing its user base by 20pc to 30pc each week, with users paying up to $250 to take part. According to Moiz, 2015 is "the year for eSports". "Numbers across the industry are surging, especially in terms of revenues and sponsor involvement," he says. "Pro players are now routinely getting six-figure salaries, with the highest earning more than $1m." Jiao “Banana” Wang, reportedly the highest paid star in eSports, has made $1.2m over 38 matches playing Dota, through sponsorship and prize money. eSports platforms are offering larger and larger prize pots to attract top gamers. Vulcun's Moiz is offering a prize pot of $1m to the winning LoL team. With the inflated prize pots come scandals: over the past year, several teams and players have been disqualified from eSports for match-fixing or using third-party software to cheat. Earlier this month, one eSports personality even made the news for threatening to have a player's mother evicted from her house. She had signed a sponsorship contract on behalf of her son, who was threatening to leave an eSports team.

Is your teen son earning millions playing videogames? Top players now earn $1m playing Call of Duty, as the eSports phenomenon explodes In the UK, Gfinity has become the hottest platform for gamers looking to compete in or watch eSports matches. It is adding 30,000 new subscribers each month and is about to build the UK’s first eSports stadium in west London, in the hopes that the capital will become a global centre for the sport. “We’re going to build an arena that can hold 600 people,” says Neville Upton, Gfinity’s founder and boss. “We’ll expand that capacity to thousands in 2016." The company has just won a deal with Activision to exclusively host the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare European Championships - one of the biggest events in the eSports calendar. Gfinity created quite a stir in the City in December when it raised £3.5m through an oversubscribed IPO. Since, then, the Aim-listed firm’s market cap has risen from £13.2m to £15m. However, Upton admits that most people in the City still have no idea what the company does. “It’s bizarre,” says Upton. “eSports is this massive movement, a cultural revolution, but it hasn’t been looked at by the City yet. “Once we’ve built a platform where gamers love playing and spectators love watching, the money will come.” There are no equity analysts publicly commenting on Gfinity at the moment, but a private note from Gfinity's nomad Arden Research, which was only sent to its own database, says: "While the Activison deal helps to cement Gfinity’s leading position in European eSports, the growth in Twitch users, viewers and venues is also encouraging news for investors." In the sports world, however, Gfinity is already making a name for itself. Its listing attracted investors such as Saracens Rugby Club owner Nigel Wray, who now owns 15pc of the start-up, and former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio, who has a 1pc stake. Upton first heard about the nascent industry while running the Listening Company, the customer service business he sold to Serco in 2011 for £55m. “I had 4,000 employees at that company and most of them were under 25,” he says. “I’d have a beer with them on Friday and they would tell me about their plans to play videogame competitions all weekend. About 50pc of them were into it. This piqued my interest.” Anyone with access to a smartphone, tablet or computer can play eSports. “It’s very accessible, you don’t have to get a train and go anywhere or ask your parents for a lift, you can play from home,” says Upton. “It’s just another form of entertainment.”

Fresnillo delivered a mixed update as it explained how movements in foreign exchange, the revaluation of assets and depreciation would affect its 2014 results.

Oil rose above $60 a barrel for the first time this year, bringing its gain this week to almost 4%, supported by signs that deeper industry spending cuts may curb excess supply.

LONDON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - British construction output fell more than first thought in the last three months of 2014, after the number of new homes being built fell for the first time in almost two years, official data showed on Friday. Total construction output sank by 2.1 percent compared with the previous quarter, a bigger decline than the 1.8 percent fall pencilled into an earlier estimate of fourth-quarter national economic output from the Office for National Statistics. The volume of new home construction -- the driving force for higher construction output earlier in the year -- dropped by 0.2 percent after growing 6.1 percent in the third quarter of 2014, its first fall since the first three months of 2013. The ONS said the decline in new home building reflected reduced orders three to six months earlier. Britain's housing market has been slowing since the middle of 2014, when regulators introduced tougher mortgage lending credit checks. Annual British house price rises exceeded 10 percent in mid-2014, but a survey of members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors on Thursday showed that house prices rose last month at their slowest annual pace since May 2013. Construction makes up about 6 percent of the British economy, and the ONS said the revision to fourth quarter output was not big enough to affect its previous gross domestic product estimate of 0.5 percent overall growth in Britain's economy. For December alone, total construction output rose by just 0.4 percent after dropping by 1.8 percent in November, much less of a rebound than the 2.8 percent month-on-month growth forecast by economists. For 2014 as a whole, output was up 7.4 percent, the fastest growth since 2010, but momentum is slowing and output in December alone was only 5.5 percent higher compared with a year earlier. Other data have pointed to a slowdown in construction at the end of 2014 too. A closely watched survey of purchasing managers fell to a 16-month low in December before picking up in January. (Reporting by David Milliken and Andy Bruce)

Shire paused after a strong jump the previous session following its fourth-quarter results. The pharma group was also in focus on speculation it is preparing to make a bid for US peer Salix Pharmaceuticals, worth $9.2bn at current market prices.

Nationwide, Britain's biggest building society, says profits have doubled in the last nine months to £946m.

British Land has commenced development of a new 146,000 sq ft office building at Paddington Central. The company acquired the Paddington Central campus early in July 2013 and planning consent for the new property design was originally won back in 2010 .

Kensington and Chelsea leads fall in house prices after boom peters out: London house prices stalled in December, dipping 1.1% on the month, LSL Property Services said

Online property firm Zoopla scores record hits despite launch of rival: Internet property firm Zoopla is celebrating record traffic despite the launch of a rival.

Russian trio has £535 million luxury student housing in London in their sights: Russian trio has £535 million luxury student housing in London in their sights

French oil giant Total to slash U.K. jobs at Lindsey refinery: French oil giant total has said that it will cut 180 jobs at its Lindsey refinery in Lincolnshire and scale back production from the plant after it posted a loss of $5.7 billion in the fourth quarter.

Rio passes Wolfson test: The broad church of stock market capitalism is schismatic on buybacks. One heretic-roasting sect believes it is never justified for a company to buy its own shares, as Rio Tinto plans to. A more tolerant persuasion smiles on the practice when the stock is cheap. Lord Wolfson, Chief Executive of Next, is a self-appointed arbiter of whether buybacks are justified. For him, profits to market capitalisation is the key ratio. He argues a company can buy back shares if this raises earnings per share more efficiently than investing, for example, in new shops. The miner will spend $2 billion on this year’s buyback, lifting EPS about 2.5%. A $2 billion investment in iron ore pits would need to return more than 15% to have the same effect, according to Lord W’s formula. Such paybacks are scarce at this time of depressed commodity prices. Lord W’s formula does not, however, address an agency problem: Executives whose bonuses depend on EPS growth may unduly favour buybacks. The solution would be for the board to adjust their payouts for shares in issue.

IAG refuses to make further concessions on Aer Lingus bid: A commitment by International Airlines Group to allow Aer Lingus to use its take-off and landing slots at Heathrow airport for flights to Ireland cannot be extended beyond five years, IAG’s Chief Executive said on Thursday.

St James’s Place targets Gulf expats: St James’s Place, the fast-growing FTSE 100 wealth Manager, is planning to open its first offices in the Middle East by the end of this year in an attempt to win business from wealthy European expatriates, and gain an entry into the Gulf market.

Informa writes down value of Datamonitor by almost 40%: Informa has written down the value of Datamonitor by almost 40%, eight years after the business media group acquired the market intelligence company for £500 million.

BP Chief’s $7 million package set to spark fresh shareholder revolt: BP risks triggering another shareholder revolt over Executive pay after awarding Bob Dudley a package worth as much as $7 million in pay and shares for last year.

UK inflation might fall below zero in second-quarter of 2015, projected BoE The Bank of England (BoE), in its quarterly inflation report, forecast inflation to dip to zero in the second-quarter of 2015 and remain "close to zero" for the rest of the year. Additionally, the central bank projected that inflation would hit the BoE’s 2% target in about two years’ time and 2.2% at the end of the three-year forecast period.

At 0430GMT today, Brent crude oil one month futures contract is trading 4.66% or $2.66 higher at $59.71 per barrel. Yesterday, the contract climbed 4.37% or $2.39, to settle at $57.05 per barrel, amid increased hopes that reduced US drilling would help counter a global oil supply glut. The commodity rebounded after US-based Apache Corp announced that it would reduce its oil drilling rigs by around 70% and after French oil producer Total declared that it would slash its spending and limit oil exploration this year.