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

The UK’s two largest video game magazine rivals are now one. Future has agreed terms to acquire Imagine Publishing parent Miura for 14.2m. Imagine’s portfolio includes GamesTM, Retro Gamer, Nowgamer.com, X-ONE, Play, For Beginners and SciFiNow. "This is a unique opportunity to acquire a market leading knowledge, science and technology …

Escape Gaming has signed the No Diggity Dota 2 team, just days after the squad was invited to the European qualifier for The International 6. No Diggity has been playing together for some months now, placing fourth at DreamLeague and qualifying for events such as EPICENTER. The team’s strong performances …

William "Leffen" Hjelte has dropped out of the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament at Community Effort Orlando (CEO) due to personal reasons. The Smash Bros star tweeted earlier in the week that he will not be at CEO but will still take part at EVO next month. The news …

We profile the shortlisted studios and their games that break the trend of terrible tie-ins

Some of Overwatch’s best players found themselves victim of a matchmaking feature that allowed rivals to ostracise them. Blizzard has said that it has disabled the ‘Avoid this player’ menu option (the UI itself will be updated in a later patch) after players were using it to distance themselves from …

Patrice Desilets has confessed that he has not played a Ubisoft game since Assassin’s Creed 3. Having designed both the Prince of Persia reboot as the first Assassin’s Creed, the developer originally left Ubisoft in 2010 for THQ, only to rejoin Ubisoft in 2013. However, just two months later he …

Services empire will be exclusive drinks reception partner

A brand new entry in the Taiko Drum Master series was the best-selling game in Japan last week, according to data from Famitsu. The 3DS title sold 40,946 units in its first week on shelves, outselling second place, rival 3DS title Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice from …

Consumer games site Destructoid has let its three UK writers go. Laura Dale, Joe Parlock and Vikki Blake will leave the site at the end of the month. Our team being dismantled is apparently nothing to do with content quality of viewership of content, and due to seasonal financials and …

Angry Birds developer Rovio has taken another big hit, as long-time ‘brand ambassador’ and executive Peter Vesterbackahas announced his departure from the company. Vesterbackajoined the company in 2010 and served as the frontman for the Angry Birds brand, as well as having stints as CEO and, most recently, chief marketing …