Game industry business news

The unfortunate job-cutting spree in the games industry seems to be continuing today with news that EA studio Black Box has, after weeks of speculation , lost 200 members of its staff. MCV’s development-orientated sister-site Developmag.com has the full story – click here to head over there.

The world’s leading game companies are reeling on the stock exchange in the wake of the recent spat of financial reports, with French publisher Ubisoft suffering particularly badly. Following yesterday’s Q3 report, Ubisoft’s stock price has since dropped by 23.5 per cent on the Paris exchange, most likely as a …

Criterion and Bright Light unaffected by publisher's cut-backs, say insiders

Along with its financial results and confirmation of a new outing for Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft has also confirmed that its next-gen sandbox shooter Far Cry has now sold 2.9m copies worldwide. In addition, Shaun White Snowboarding has sold 2.3m copies and can claim the crown of being the second best-selling …

As part of yesterday’s positive financial filing from Ubisoft , it was confirmed that the much-rumoured Assassin’s Creed 2 is in development and will be out before the end of the publisher’s financial year – or more likely – in time for Christmas. Along with the new Altair title, it …

Cologne’s Gamescom trade event will host a meeting between ‘around a dozen’ member associations from the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE) next month. The members will get together in Cologne’s trade fair centre on February 9th and 10th for their first meeting in 2009. Olaf Wolters, Managing Director of …

Martin Good, the senior vice president of Australian distributor THQ Asia Pacific, has told MCV that has firm is ready to make the most of any opportunities that arise in the region as a result of the turmoil caused by the recent troubles at Red Ant. Red Ant was placed …

Britsoft publisher Eidos has dated its two Xbox 360 exclusive DLC packs for recent adventure outing Tomb Raider: Underworld. The first, Beneath the Ashes, will be released on Microsoft’s network on February 10th, whilst the second, Lara’s Shadow, will be released on March 10th. Beneath the Ashes sends our iconic …

Ubisoft has reported sales of €508 million for the third quarter of 2008-09, up 12.9 per cent – or 17 per cent at constant exchange rates – on the €450 million recorded a year previously. For the first nine months of fiscal 2008-09 sales totaled €852 million, versus €711 million …

Leading software developer and Xbox 360 platform holder Microsoft has confirmed the speculation that it is to slash 5,000 members of its global workforce following an 11 per cent year-on-year decline in net profit. For the three months ending December 31st the firm reported a net profit of $4.17bn. Shares …