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

Asda Direct’s trading director Frazer Locke has joined Amazon as its new head of games. According to sources close to the retailer, Locke is taking the role previously held by Amazon veteran Graham Chambers, who left the firm in September last year. Chambers had spent five years at Amazon before …

With its potential reveal now just three weeks away, the veil of secrecy surrounding Xbox 360’s successor is slowly – very, very slowly – beginning to lift. Although he understandably would not be drawn on specifics, Ubisoft Montreal’s Yanis Mallet has told Eurogamer that Microsoft’s new machine "aligned with what …

Business has been good for the Angry Birds developer as the company’s revenues doubled year-on-year in 2012. The studio’s revenue was €152.2m, up 101 per cent from 2011’s €75.6m.Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) grew by 64 per cent to €76.8m. 2012 was another record-breaking year for Rovio. We doubled …

Sony’s PS4 will be released in October and cost 300. Or at least that’s what a reporter for The Sun believes. Both statements are dropped into the paper’s interview with Sony’s Andrew House, although neither are attributed to the exec. Indeed, The Sun simply says PS4 is believed to be …

The console versions of Max Payne 3 have received an official price drop in India from Rs 2,499 straight to Rs 999, bringing them in line with the PC version. The game has been out less than a year, and has now been priced in line with distributor E-xpress Interactive’s …

A new developer poll shows that while the number of employed women has trended upward in the past year, a significant wage gap remains a standard between men and women in what’s still a male-dominated industry. Border House Blog reports on findings from Game Developer Magazine’s 2012 survey that reveal …

Developer id Software has scrapped its earlier work on Doom 4 to work on a new version” of the game, publisher Bethesda has revealed. Several reports in late 2011 had suggested that work on Doom 4 had been halted indefinitely, but it now appears that id had scrapped that project …

Activision has recovered the rights to the King’s Quest franchise from Telltale Games, as The Walking Dead developer has confirmed it is no longer working on anything related to rebooting the classic adventure series. Steve Allison, Telltale’s Senior VP of publishing, toldDigital Trendsthat the studio returned the IP to Activision …

Disney has announced that it is shutting down LucasArts, the game development arm of Lucasfilm, choosing to outsource future Star Wars games to minimise risk. After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimising the company’s risk …

Angry Birds creator Rovio raked in $195m in revenue last year, thanks in large part to merchandise sales for the popular casual IP. The developer reports it brought in a net profit of $71.3m in 2012, up $25m from the previous year. Consumer products – such as clothing lines, plushies, …