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

The organisers of GDC have revealed that it received a number of bomb threats earlier this year over its decision to hand the Ambassador Award to Anita Sarkeesian. The Tropes vs Women creator won the gong in March for helping the game industry advance to a better place” and for …

Entertainment giant Endemol will launch a video games-dedicated YouTube channel this month. The firm’s ‘global premium channel network’ Endemol Beyond will launch Legends of Gaming, a UK eSports channel that will be fronted by YouTube star Ali A. The channel will see up-and-coming and established YouTube personalities battle it out …

Sony has announced the PlayStation 4 edition of Minecraft will receive a retail release in Europe and North America. Both Europe and US PlayStation Blogs have posted details on the physical release, with the game hitting shops on October 3rd in Europe and October 7th stateside. A day-one patch is …

The Final Fantasy XIII trilogy will launch for Windows PC on Steam starting later this year, Square Enix has announced. Final Fantasy XII – the first in the trilogy of titles – is now available to pre-order on Steam for a 10 per cent discount. The version will contain a …

PS3 owners in parts of US and Canada can now stream games through an open beta of Sony’s PlayStation Now service. The US PlayStation Blog announces the PlayStation 3 beta is available in mainland US and parts of Canada. PlayStation Now hit open beta on PlayStation 4 in July, with …

The Entertainment Retailers Association has named Raoul Chatterjee as its new chairman. Chatterjee is the SVP for music at 7Digital and replaces Paul Quirk, who led the organisation for the past six years. Chatterjee has previously worked at Warner Music UK. I am honoured to have been elected by my …

Asia is another major territory selling cheap PC codes to games retailers in Europe, an MCV investigation can reveal. The news follows MCV’s study last month, which found that widespread PC code stripping is hurting retail margins and misleading publishers. PC codes are being taken out of boxed PC games …

It’s taken almost ten years but it appears that World of Warcraft’s story is drawing to a close. Over the last four years the game’s subscriber base has shrunk from 12m to 6.8m. And even the game’s developer Blizzard isn’t convinced the game will grow again. It is possible, although …

James Brown, consumer retail analyst at Kantar Worldpanel, examines the rising importance of consoles as media hubs and casts an eye toward the role they may one day play in the entertainment sector… When the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, admitted just ahead of this year’s E3 that the company …

'For a few years we've lived in a fantasy world where you could just upload stuff and hope it catches wind,' says Creative Mobile CEO