MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry

Blizzard’s online multiplayer shooter Overwatch has racked up another impressive milestone. The game has now passed 15m players worldwide. This isn’t quite the same as 15m sales, as some players will be accessing the game from the same machine as others, although nonetheless it remains an impressive achievement. The game …

Licence for tech powering Vive headset on offer royalty-free to those who complete a training programme

New outfit headed up by former EA director Bruce Heather, also focusing on AI

‘Virtual reality’s next wave will be defined by native gameplay driven by immersive story and inventive mechanics, with photo-realistic visuals’

Developer Niantic has delved deeper into the reasons behind its decision to put a block on third party Pokemon tracking sites. The shutdown came into effect earlier in the week, with Niantic previously claiming that such services were interfering with our ability to maintain quality of service for our users”. …

Blizzard will host the first ever Overwatch World Cup at Blizzcon, where the best players in the world will play for their home nation in a battle for national pride. The exhibition tournament will see players come together to form national teams and compete in online qualifiers, with the top …

Microsoft’s Xbox One S officially arrived in the UK this week, but tracking one down can currently be quite a challenge. The 2TB version is out of stock at the likes of Amazon, GAME, ShopTo and GameStop. And as a result prices on sites like eBay have rocketed. The machine …

Owlchemy Labs, the developer behind early VR hit Job Simulator, has raised $5 in Series A investment funding. Among the studio’s backers are Vive maker HTC and virtual reality organisation The VR Fund, as well as Colopl Next, Capital Factory and other tech investors. Owlchemysaidit would use the money to …

CS:GO world champions SK Gaming will be without Fernando “fer” Alvarenga until mid September at the earliest due to the player requiring two surgeries. Alvarenga requires surgery on both his nose, to enable him to breath through both nostrils, and on his ear to prevent further hearing loss. Unfortunately both …

Putting out a fighting game as an Xbox One exclusive in the current market climate – i.e the one where you need a PlayStation to play Street Fighter on console – isn’t going to end particularly well for your game, and that’s exactly how Killer Instinct suffers. Read more on …