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

Lavers Mallet joined the games industry after graduating business school at MIT Sloan. With previous work in enterprise software for the financial industry and strategy consulting, she had always had a side interest in theater production and working with creative teams generally. Driven by this interest, Lavers Mallet then joined …

Cross’ games career started in 2004, when she joined Blitz Games in Leamington to establish and lead their ‘People Strategy’. More than 10 years later she is still passionate about the industry and developing people. From the outset of her career, Cross was hooked by what attracts and retains most …

Charu Desodt is a senior producer at Microsoft’s Lift London Studio and was recognised as a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit in 2014. Her career to date has been characterised by games that innovate and challenge industry norms. She independently created the prototype that evolved into the hit PS2 and PS3 series …

After an education in politics, multimedia and communication, supplemented by a late-blooming interest in games that began with the first PlayStation, Marchal joined Quantic Dream as junior game designer on Fahrenheit in 2003. Marchal is very proud of all the games she has worked on since at Quantic Dream, including …

Growing up, games were the only constant in Ramzan’s constantly shifting life. This made a career in games an obvious choice – a choice that was cemented when Ramzan’s final university project focused on the relationship between players and games. Presenting her results at an international conference, Ramzan got her …

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has said that the pains experienced in building a new game engine for last year’s Assassin’s Creed: Unity will benefit this year’s instalment. Each time there’s a new transition of consoles, we try to create engines that take full advantage of the capacity of those consoles,” …

Developer NetherRealm has said that the female characters in Mortal Kombat X will be more realistically proportioned than in previous games. "The mantra for this game has always been realism, heading towards a more realistic look," production manager Spiro Anagnostakos said, as reported by GameSpot. "So the same thing applies …

Zynga’s troubles to adapt to a mobile-led market continue, with its 2014 fiscal results showing a net loss of $226m. Of this, $129m was attributed to stock-based expenses, $7m to income tax benefit and $24m to the expense of its ongoing restructuring. Revenues came in at $690m for the year …

Spending on Candy Crush Saga is in decline. The Guardian reports that quarterly spending on the smartphone hit was in decline throughout 2014, although the game’s in-app purchases still generated $1.33bn and has almost certainly passed lifetime revenues of $3bn. However, having peaked in Q3 2013 at $551m, the game’s …

The founder of 3D printing specialist MakieLab, Taylor says her career in games began at the age of 11, when she would map directions for the Acornsoft title Sphinx Adventure on the back of a roll of wallpaper. Driven primarily by fun, Taylor picks her proudest moments as also including …