Game industry business news

UK distributors have called upon the games industry to embrace open distribution in order to improve the sector. Several companies have claimed that an increase in competition and a greater focus on business skills would offer both distributors and retailers better protection against the effects the recession. Publishers need to …

Nordic Games has unveiled details of its comprehensive marketing activity ahead of the release of We Sing – as it forecasts that the game could sell out on the day of its November 20th release. The game will be promoted in the national press over its release weekend and is …

Upcoming DS adventure The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks will get a huge boost from Nintendo’s extensive TV advertising for the game. The firm told MCV this week that it would use a variety of trailers to engage the widest possible audience. The marketing for Spirit Tracks will focus around …

Windstorm was founded earlier this year by Dusty Monk, best known for work on Age of Empires III and Halo Wars. He said, "We worked with 226 throughout the development of our prototype, and they have consistently proven themselves to be outstanding providers of quality content, meeting and exceeding our …

At Visceral Games (formerly EA Redwood Shores) Schofield (pictured) was the executive producer and Michael Condrey was the senior development director of Dead Space, before they quit earlier in the summer. The new company, based in Foster City near San Francisco, is working on an unannounced new project. Dave Stohl, …

Tweets from inside the company late on Tuesday illustrated the miserable aftermath of the shock decision. Drew Marlowe, a game desiger at Pandemic, tweeted, "It’s official, Pandemic is shut down as of today. Thankfully it looks like we are getting decent severance." He also posted the whiteboard picture accompanying this …

Britons are sitting on a 1.8 billion-worth of unused computer games – the equivalent of one game per person in the UK. That’s according to a new national survey, which revealed one in five consumers (22 per cent) have ten or more computer games at home they haven’t played in …

California–based developer Pandemic Studios is the latest victim of EA’s mass staff reduction operation, reports suggest, and may have closed down completely. An EA spokesperson was not available for comment as a news report from Kotaku went live and suggested that EA has shuttered the studio completely, taking as many …

Despite widespread reports to the contrary, publisher Activision Blizzard has firmly denied that its recently released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has been banned in Russia thanks to its controversial terrorist level – which, incidentally, is called ‘No Russian’. Reports that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has been …

Age of Conan publisher Funcom has reported a bad set of financials for its fiscal Q3, with revenues falling 68.5 per cent year-on-year to reach $5.7m. In total Funcom’s losses hit $9.6m for the period. In Q3 last year it recorded a profit of $3.3m. The drops were blamed on …