Game industry business news

Time Warner has purchased ten million shares in Eidos PLC, bringing its total stake in the company up to over 19 per cent. The Warner Bros parent now owns 52.52 million shares in the UK publisher, which was previously known as SCi Entertainment. Sources have long pointed to Warner as …

Following news reports earlier today that EUK administrator Deloitte has called in Zavvi’s debt to the distributor, the UK entertainment retailer has clarified its position to MCV. Zavvi has refuted claims that it will be forced into administration by Deloitte, whilst also offering its condolensces to those who lost jobs …

UK games retail will overcome economic pressure in 2009 and enjoy another profitable 12 months, according to this year’s MCV Retail Survey. The survey features responses from a wide variety of UK retail store managers from the likes of GAME, Blockbuster, Gamestation, HMV, and a range of independent stores. 86 …

UK bookmaker Ladbrokes and partner ELSPA have unveiled the official contenders for this year’s title of Christmas Number One Game, and has named Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty: World at War as the favourite. Christmas 2008 will be yet another great year for video games and we are all dying …

Tim Schaferâ??s studio to produce rock â??nâ?? roll adventure game

Tekken 6’s director Katsuhiro Harada has revealed Europe and the US were a big influence in the decision to make the long-running beat-‘em-up series a multiformat proposition. At the moment we have two high spec consoles on the market at the same time; the Xbox has a huge installed base …

Mainstream retailers, from electricals outlets to supermarkets, have outperformed specialist game retailers in a recent survey of retail websites. The Retail Bulletin study judged sites on a range of criteria, including function, accessibility, code quality, and performance. Specialist website testing company Sitemorse gathered the survey data using an automated testing …

Just minutes after news of EUK’s demise – and the loss of around 700 jobs – it has emerged that the distributor’s administrator Deloitte has called in Ernst & Young to restructure Zavvi’s management team in a bid to claw back some 106m owed to EUK. Zavvi, which previously traded …

Deloitte, the administrator handling the closure of Woolworths and distribution arm EUK, has confirmed that it is to step down its efforts to try and find a buyer for the distributor. It also confirmed MCV’s earlier report that 700 staff were this morning made redundant, and that a skeleton staff …

MCV understands that workers at the Woolworths-owned distributor EUK have this morning been told that today is their last day in employment, following administrator Deloitte’s failure to find a buyer for the company. It is understood that around 90 per cent of the workforce has been made redundant after a …