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

An MCV investigation examining hundreds of apps has revealed a lack of consistency in the way in-game purchases are presented on digital stores. Some developers even claim their games are ‘completely free’, despite later asking players to stump up for power ups or tokens priced as high as 69.99. Following …

Users could be able to claim money back for faulty or inaccessible online content and apps

Our Indie Retail Month in association with Gem continues to look at the UK’s top new indie retailers with Game Trade, an online indie already starting to work directly with game publisher. Co-director Nadir Husain tells MCV what’s next for Game Trade. The sole website to make it into the …

Zoë Mode's Paul Mottram considers the role of bonuses and what they could do for your studio

It has been confirmed that the new Star Wars games coming from EA studios DICE and Visceral won’t be available on Wii U. That’s because both are being built using EA’s Frostbite 3 engine – tech that has not been ported to Nintendo’s machine. "Frostbite 3 has never been running …

Free-to-play may be the current darling of many a games publisher, but don’t expect a dramatic shift in the way in which consumers pay for the next-generation of console games. With respect to new business models, I can’t comment specifically on the next-generation consoles,” Activision boss Bobby Kotick told investors …

Vita and Sony phones get one less hurdle for game developers

Activision has again beaten financial expectations, but that hasn’t stopped boss Bobby Kotick issuing a number of blunt warnings about the challenges ahead. There’s a certain irony in the fact that earlier this week EA reported weaker than expected results and then went on to hype up next-gen’s potential. Now …

Publishing giant cautious over uncertainties surrounding next generation hardware

Activision Blizzard’s MMO World of Warcraft lost 1.3m subscribers during the first three months of 2013. The firm revealed the decline in its quarterly financial report, adding that the game still boasts 8m subs and remains the number one subscription-based MMORPG in the world.” The majority of the drop-off occurred …