Hmm... sounds like an opportunity. Why are there no gaming startups?
There are quite a few, at least in the casual and PC game sector. You stand almost no chance on consoles, as the console manufacturers won't give you the SDKs and won't let you sell your game for their console unless you go through an established publisher. The publishers generally require you to sign over all "IP" (concept, names, characters, art, code) to them, which doesn't make it attractive to your average startup founders.
The only publisher I know of that doesn't do this is GameCock, (http://www.gamecockmedia.com/) they're effectively a startup as well, although the founders are industry veterans.
That robotron game that was on news.yc is a game startup. Gaming startups usually start out as guys making a game, and then either hitting it big and being bought out (counterstrike), making a profitable game to sell or getting nowhere, or starting a contracting firm.
Okay, some places are probably better than others, but I never heard about any fantastic places to work at from people in the industry. And I suspect word would get round pretty quickly, given how there's about 3 degrees of separation in the UK game industry and everyone knows everyone.
EDIT: if I sound bitter, that's probably because I speak from experience. I was once a fresh-eyed graduate going straight into game development. (I studied computational physics, not gamedev though)