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

Microsoft has announced that famous UK Fable developer Lionhead Studios is likely to close. The platform holder announced this in a post on Xbox Wire, which also stated that development of Fable Legends has been terminated. Furthermore, Xbox has revealed that Denmark-based Press Play Studios is also set to close, …

In 2014 Bear Simulator raised $100k on Kickstarter. The game itself was released on Steam last month. But backers and buyers have been told that future development of the title has been canned. Well the game didn’t have a great reception, has a stigma against its name and there’s plenty …

Disgraced Sunderland footballer Adam Johnson is being expunged from the world of games. 28-year old Johnson faces a prison sentence after being found guilty of sexual activity with an underage girl. Due to the nature of his crime football game publishers are currently working to remove him from their titles. …

Having distanced himself from comments made about the further merging of Xbox and PC, Phil Spencer has now watered down his stance about possible console hardware upgrading. Spencer last week said that he wanted console hardware to be both backwards and forwards compatible, with Microsoft releasing new hardware capabilities during …

John Farjay dismisses game as ‘a lost cause’ despite successfully raising $100,000 on Kickstarter and achieving positive review average on Steam

Yahoo! has launched their long-rumoured eSports news division this week after bringing in Gamespot’s Travis Gafford to head the section. Gafford previously lead much of the League of Legends reportage for Gamespot, along with weekly talkshows on the game’s eSports community. The site has also employed CS:GO and Heroes of …

Long-running emulation project MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) has transitioned to open-source availability after nearly two decades of existence. Popular among video game archivists and retro enthusiasts for its ability to emulate titles from the 1970s up until the modern day, the software was previously released under a modified BSD …

The first wave of VR headsets isn’t even on shelves and yet developers are already spoilt for choice. Develop gets a grip on virtual reality’s many contenders with the help of Oculus VR’s Jason Rubin, Valve’s Chet Faliszek, PlayStation’s Simon Benson and Razer’s Jeevan Aurol

The planned Nintendo expansion to the Universal Studios theme park in Japan will boast a budget to rival other big-named projects, it has been claimed. The Telegraph reports that the Japanese press are reporting that some 250m is being invested into the project after details were finalised last week. This …

With hundreds of sessions crammed into the week, it’s easy to miss the best of GDC. Develop is on hand to help with our pick of the best talks from this year’s show