Game industry business news

New talks to discuss user experience, moving from triple-A to free-to-play and player psychology

The six charities in with a shot of grabbing GamesAid funding this year have been named. Voting is now open for GamesAid members and will remain so until just before midnight on the night of Saturday September 14th. Votes can be registered here. All eligible organisations must have a turnover …

UK gamers have finally got their own next-gen game trade-in program. Retailer GAME is offering a guaranteed 40 trade-in value for a range of PS3 and Xbox 360 titles when gamers hand them over in order to upgrade to either the PS4 or Xbox One version. The titles confirmed so …

Konami has released the PC system requirements for the FOX Engine-powered Pro Evolution Soccer 2014, and here they are. Minimum OS: Windows Vista SP2/ Windows 7 SP1 CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.8 GHz or AMD Athlon II X2 240 GPU: DirectX 9.0c compatible with 512 MB RAM RAM: …

Calling Minecraft the golden goose of Mojang seems a bit understated at this point. The original version of the game (PC/Mac/Linux) has surpassed 12m copies sold, according to its official sales ticker. Combined with dated console and mobile numbers, that moves Minecraft to well over 20m copies sold across all …

A Steam page has surfaced for Hitedaka Suehiro’s console cult classic adventure game Deadly Premonition, listing a release date of October 31st. Rising Star Games originally confirmed the PC port in July, and one week later the game had been fast-tracked through Steam Greenlight. The Steam release matches the PS3 …

Total War: Rome II has dethroned Payday 2 for the top spot in Steam’s latest top selling products chart. The former king didn’t fall too far however, absorbing a short drop to the runner-up position. Saints Row IV and Splinter Cell Black list followed suit in third and fourth, respectively. …

Global computing giant Microsoft has acquired Nokia in a deal worth 4.613bn (5.44 billion Euros). That includes 3.79 billion Euros (3.2bn) for Nokia’s Devices and Services business and a further 1.65 billion Euros (1.4bn) to licence Nokia’s patents. Microsoft has been working alongside Nokia since February 2011, with the 147-year-old …

A look at UE4's approach new shading model and materials workflow

Rayman Legends may have dropped its Wii U exclusivity, but Ubisoft’s title has still been a success for Nintendo’s machine. The Wii U SKU accounted for 45 per cent of the UK’s total week one sales of the game. It was also released on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, with …