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

Maxis has come good on hints it dropped in October by confirming the introduction of an offline mode to the controversial city building title. SimCity offline is coming. I’ve wanted to say those words for quite some time,” Maxis Emeryville’s GM Patrick Buechner said. Offline is coming as a free …

Video game consoles and software made 605.5m for the UK High Street last month, MCV can reveal. The figure is based on GfK Chart-Track reports. Software made265.4m alone but it was the console hardware market that saw the biggest spike, with over 1.25m games machines sold in the UK during …

There could be a time in the future when PlayStation Vita drops physical games altogether. That’s the admission of Sony’s UK MD Fergal Gara who told VG247 that the momentum towards digital gaming is certainly apparent. Compared to PS3, Vita has had a higher percentage of games bought digitally since …

But indies defend console, saying criticisms only reflect early iterations of SDK and praise Nintendo support

The United States Court of Appeal has ruled against Silicon Knights’ appeal of a lower court decision which awarded a total of $9.2m in damages and legal fees to Epic Games. TheJanuary 6th decisionis almost certainly the final battle in the fight between the Unreal Engine maker and the studio …

The amount of work needed to produce a PS4 or Xbox One game is vastly more than was seen with the previous-gen machines. That’s according to Capcom’s senior manager of technology management at its consumer games department Masaru Ijuin, who said on the Capcom blog: It’s clear that heightened game …

Guerrilla Games’s Misja Baas discusses the key skills needed for his role in art direction

Upcoming Xbox and PC shooter Titanfall is to star in a range of K’Nex construction toy sets. The range, licensed from Respawn Entertainment, is due out in the UK this autumn. Pilots, Titans and Spectres will all feature. The sets will carry an 8+ age rating. We’re delighted that the …

First act of adventure title to be released nearly two years after hitting Kickstarter

Details of Microsoft’s next major Windows release are rumoured to be unveiled at the firm’s annual Build conference in April this year. According to Microsoft blogger, Paul Thurrot, Windows 9 (codenamed ‘Threshold’) will see a full return of the Start menu and is planned for release in April 2015. The …