Game industry business news

Of all the pressures that come from beavering away in the industry in the lead up to the Q4 gifting frenzy, distribution companies bear the brunt. Not only are they responsible for ensuring that publishers’ frenzied delivery demands are met, but they’re also in the firing line from retail when …

Indie publisher 505 Games can boast a substantial feather in its increasingly valuable hat today following the confirmation that the ever-popular DS and Wii cook-em-up Cooking Mama has now surpassed the one million sales barrier in Europe. Proving that the right product can see even smaller publishers match the performance …

It’s phenomenal to think that there are still people out there who are yet to buy The Sims, but the series’ dominance of the ChartTrack Budget PC Top Ten suggests that the franchise is a long way from burning out. EA’s life-management series occupies an astonishing seven of the available …

Mario may be making a triple dent on the Wii charts at the moment with the success of Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, Super Mario Galaxy and Mario Party 8, but the plumber’s high-flying antics look set to receive a further boost next year with the confirmation of a …

Burnout Paradise, the racer which has been dubbed the first ‘proper’ next-gen instalment in the series, will arrive in Europe on both Xbox 360 and PS3 on January 25th, Eurogamer reports. The wait for Criterion’s latest instalment in its manic racing franchise has certainly been a long one, but the …

A brand new trailer for Rockstar’s massively anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV, entitled ‘Move up, ladies’, is due to hit the virtual airwaves tonight at 8:00pm. The last time the publisher unleashed a GTAIV trailer on the internet the huge web traffic forced the company’s official site to a crushing …

If there’s one thing we should know about Nintendo it’s that its games tend to carry on selling – so a number two debut in the Japanese software charts for Nintendo’s Wii Fit can be considered an extremely strong debut. Its 261,000 week one sales were not quite enough to …

ELSPA has responded to the new DCMS Select Committee review into the potential effects of harmful content, adding that it takes adult content ‘very seriously’ We welcome the announcement of the DCMS Select Committee to hold an enquiry into ‘potential risks from harmful material on the Internet and in video …

Even excluding the hefty coin from console hardware (which has no equivalent in the film world), games sales alone are up 27 per cent from the same period in 2006, to $5 billion, according to the NPD Group. When it comes to sequel-itis, the film business is clearly in the …

A Government investigation has been launched this morning that will focus on the potential risks from harmful material on the internet and in video games. It will focus on several key areas including cyber bulllying, user generated content that glorifies gang violence, social networking sites, pornography and content that incites …