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

Eric Baesa of creative specialist TAKEOFF discusses the importance of collector’s editions and the power of Batman merchandise. We’ve seen some major changes in the physical world of video games. There have been fewer games released, with an increased focus on digital. But there remains a massive audience of gamers …

The shift from a two-year to a three-year development cycle for the Call of Duty development cycle gives developers more scope to be creative and possibly make mistakes. "That extra year of development time, particularly with the new consoles and the more powerful hardware, has really paid off thus far …

At this point, it would be impossible to deny the significance of mobile gaming to the games industry as a whole. Far removed from the sniffy dismissals of ten years ago, mobile gaming has progressed from being the extra novelty on a handset (think Snake) to one of the biggest …

Hope could yet remain for Microsoft’s ill-fated Xbox Entertainment Studios. As part of its restructuring announcement last month the platform holder revealed that the Santa Monica studio, which was tasked with creating original TV programming for Xbox, was to be closed. But The Hollywood Reporter reveals that talks have taken …

The organisers of a now-cancelled unofficial Minecraft convention are suspected of having made off with over $500k worth of ticket sales. Kotaku reports that the team behind the New York fan convention Mineorama cancelled the event just four days before it was supposed to happen, saying on Twitter that: "It …

Sony had to drop some announcements from its Gamescom 2014 presentation as there wasn’t enough time to fit them all in. That’s according to Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida who told Famitsu, via Gematsu, that PS4 game announcements will as a result provide the focus of its Tokyo Game …

84.7 per cent of smartphones shipped worldwide in the quarter ending June 2014 used Google’s Android operating system. That’s up from 79.6 per cent in the same quarter a year before, IDC data claims. iOS claimed a market share of 11.7 per cent, down from 13 per cent the year …

As well as making classy MMOs, Blizzard can certainly churn out decent cinematics too. The short below, released alongside confirmation of a November 13th release date for World of Warcraft’s fifth expansion, Warlords of Draenor, is undisputedly fantastic. Players will encounter an epic cast of legendary characters and a huge …

Xbox boss Phil Spencer doesn't want the Twycross studio to become solely associated with motion-controlled series

Bit by bit, more details concerning the technical requirements of Sony’s SharePlay plan for PS4 are beginning to emerge. And here’s an important one – sessions will be limited to 60 minutes, GameSpot reports. There’s no limit on the number of times someone can use SharePlay, however, so it may …