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

The next title in the Call of Duty franchise will be unveiled this Sunday, according to a new teaser page for the game. The page reads Get Ready for a New Era of Call of Duty,” and shows images of a soldier and what appears to be the Golden Gate …

John Carmack’s former employer ZeniMax Media has reportedly accused the industry veteran of improperly providing the firm’s technology to Oculus VR. Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal reveal ZeniMax’s claim that the virtual reality headset maker’s success is directly attributable to the technology developed at id Software. A unidentified …

Microsoft has named two global advertising agencies after a three-month review. Interpublic Group and Dentsu Aegis Network will manage its marketing and media accounts worldwide, with an account revenue worth around $100m. The idea behind the review was to reduce its advertising business to just a single entity, but splitting …

Sony has recruited ad agency Work Club help push PlayStation Plus across Europe. The agency will ‘rebrand and reposition’ the PS Plus service, according to CampaignLive. For those that don’t know, PS Plus is the subscription service available for PS3, PS4 and PS Vita that allows for online gaming on …

Techland’s fantasy battler Hellraid has officially gone next-gen. The game was announced last year for PS3 and Xbox 360 but has now been confirmed instead for release on PS4, Xbox One and PC some time later this year. It’s powered by the same engine behind Techland’s other upcoming first person …

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 …