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

The brave new online, socially-connected world of video games is not quite proving as revolutionary as we had hoped. So this Christmas a group that call themselves Lizard Squad claim to have brought down PlayStation Network and Xbox Live (via the old DDoS attack), which effectively rendered both PS4 and …

With almost 1m PS4 and Xbox One consoles nestled under UK gamer’s trees yesterday, Christmas Day 2014 was expected to be a successful one for Sony and Microsoft. Yet both consoles were left unworkable yesterday and into today as both Xbox Live and PSN failed. Hacker group Lizard Squad has …

With the final hours and minutes having trudged by like an asthmatic slug slowly forcing its way through a large treacle spillage, the time has come for MCV to say farewell for 2014. The last few brave souls who haven’t already departed for a fortnight of mince pies, booze and …

King’s reign is only just beginning. In the last 11 years since the casual games firm was founded, its properties have reeled in billions of dollars in revenue.Most notable among its catalogue is the free-to-play browser, tablet and smartphone match-three ‘Bejeweled with sweets’ behemoth Candy Crush Saga, which generated more …

The Ukrainian studio behind cult PC shooter STALKER has re-opened. The developer hit hard times in 2010 and was eventually closed completely the following year. It now emerges that the company was half way through the development of STALKER 2 when business was halted, Valentine Yeltyshev has told Games Industry. …

Ubisoft’s free game offer for Assassin’s Creed: Unity Season Pass holders comes with a hefty caveat. As spotted by Joystiq, anyone downloading a free title – which was offered to Season pass holders as recompense for the game’s troubled launch – must agree to a document that says the user …

We pick our favourite titles from the past 12 months

It appears that gaming’s transition year has turned into transition years” – that’s the headline from Metacritic after a poor year for game quality. The reviews aggregator said that for the second year in a row just 11 console games (and nine unique titles) scored 90 per cent or higher …

UPDATE:It looks like this was alla big misunderstanding, according to Neogaf sleuths, and that DSfix will survive as normal. ORIGINAL STORY: The mod that popularised the otherwise technically compromised PC version of Dark Souls has been pulled after a copyright threat. DSfix, made by Durante, implements 1080p and 60fps gameplay …

343 Industries has released a new update for Halo: The Master Chief Collection, adding new bug fixes along with the Spartan Ops co-op campaign from Halo 4. 343 explained in October – ahead of the game’s troubled launch – that the Halo 4 Spartan Ops content would miss being part …