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

Free-to-play mobile game developer and publisher Glu Mobile has acquired Diner Dash studio PlayFirst. As part of the deal Glu will take on Playfirst’s debts of $3.55m. The acquisition is expected to be officially completed by the end of May. The casual game studio’s Dash series of titles, which includes …

Developer American McGee has described Microsoft’s decision to release Xbox in China as a ‘blunder’. China-based McGee, the creator of titles such as Alice: Madness Returns and Bad Day LA, is the second vocal critic of the strategy after analyst Piers Harding-Rolls said yesterday that success was not guaranteed” in …

Publisher reports record Q1 revenues of $44.6m

The UK PC download chart has collapsed, MCV understands. It officially launched in May last year, but hasn’t been seen since MCV published the statistics for Q2 2013 last October. The chart was put together by UKIE and stat giant IPSOS. To build it they would receive data from publishers …

Square Enix’s bald killer made it to the top of the UK iPhone paid chart last week. This is Hitman Go’s first week at No.1 – it debuted last week at No.2 The Amazing Spider-Man 2 leads the way in the iPad paid charts, no doubt helped by the film …

John Broomhall talks with Turn 10’s Nick Wiswell about making the racing game's fast cars roar

MD Simon Iwaniszak explains how developing Call of Duty and Pitfall for mobile has prepared the start-up for its original purpose

How Azure helped a five-person indie to rewrite the rules of MMOs

Epic Games' Ray Davis, general manager for UE, talks us through the improvements to the high-end engine

The cutting edge of virtual reality tech and game design discussed at Develop's An Audience With