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

AMD’s upcoming high-end Radeon R9 290X graphics card looks like it will cost more than initially expected. Upon its reveal last month it was being reported that the card would retail for $599 – or around the same price as Nvidia’s GTX 780. However, TechSpot reports that the first prices …

Yoshida teases second-screen potential between next-gen hardware and smartphones

EA’s controversial PC and Mac title SimCity could yet have an offline future. Maxis Emeryville studio MD Patrick Buechner confirmed in a blog post that the developer is actively exploring the possibility, which has been called for by fans ever since the game made its troubled arrival earlier this year. …

Julien Merceron working on Fox Engine at Windsor office

Last month, The Mirror ran a report blaming Call of Duty for a massacre at a Washington Navy base. Professor Mark Griffiths, the director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University explains why the media needs to stop blaming games… The issue of video game violence has …

Tiga is uninterested in talk of a merger with fellow UK game industry trade body UKIE, a spokesman has toldDevelop. During last week’s UKIE AGM, chairman Andy Payne said he was "extending a hand" to Tiga CEO Richard Wilson and the board to discuss how the two trade bodies could …

Julien Merceron has been named as Konami’s new worldwide technical director. Merceron had served as Square Enix’s worldwide technology director since early 2010, before which he was worldwide CTO at Eidos for nearly four years. Prior to this he worked in a similar role at Ubisoft. In his new role …

Flash creator fears the details of almost 3m Adobe customers has been stolen

PS4’s smartphone companion app will offer a host of extra functionality for owners of the console. As well as being the gateway for ‘second screen’ gameplay options available with certain PS4 titles, it will also allow users to communicate with folk on their PSN Friends list and remotely activate downloads. …

A title update for the so far very buggy GTA Online is being prepped by Rockstar. A new post on the developer’s newswire announces that the patch could hit XBLA and PSN as soon as tomorrow – but there’s no guarantee that’ll actually be the case, or (based on past …