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

Though the soul of eSports growth in the past few decades has been a grassroots community, the heart has certainly been increasing sponsorship. According to this year’s Newzoo report, 30 percent of revenue in the industry comes from sponsors – almost identical to the 31 percent seen in traditional sports. …

Before launch, I would have wagered that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt would be a moderate success. There was no doubt it was a graphically impressive and highly ambitious title – reflected in the seemingly endless parade of ‘Best of Show and ‘Most Anticipated Game’ prizes it has picked up. …

EA’s Need for Speed reboot will require an online connection to play. That’s according to the game’s official Twitter account, who responded to a fan’s query about online yesterday (below). EA announced its new Need for Speed title last week, saying that it was to be a reboot of the …

More than 75 job vacancies open at US studios

In part three of Jason Kingsley’s regular column on self-publishing, the Rebellion CEO discusses the workload pressures that come with going alone, and how to structure those important deals Self-publishing involves a lot more complexity than work for hire. With work for hire you normally have one deal with one …

It’s a challenging time to work in QA and localisation. As well as the triple-A developers and publishers wrestling with the new tech found within the PS4 and Xbox One, there’s a slew of mobile and indie developers coming to market almost every week. And although these studios might know …

It’s not a populist thing to say, but I quite liked Assassin’s Creed Unity. The game’s 18th-century French setting was beautiful, and there were some truly epic set pieces that were a joy to play. Unfortunately for Ubisoft, not everyone agreed. The launch of Unity was plagued by technical issues …

Matt Connors on taking the reins at the 3D optimisation automation outfit

Music giant Spotify is launching video and podcasts on its service, but not video games. The streaming behemoth announced it would be adding podcasts, curated radio shows, plus news and entertainment video clips from the likes of BBC, Comedy Central, Maker Studios and ESPN at a press conference in New …

Major games publishers have not learnt their lesson from the slew of broken games released at the end of last year. That’s according to QA and localisation experts who say that most games firms have not changed their approach to bug testing. Titles such as Assassin’s Creed Unity, DriveClub, Halo: …