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

Ever-increasing development budgets rear ugly head in latest Square Enix financials

After the disastrous collapse of 2009, global advertising revenue is again on the rise. That’s according to Worldwatch Institute’s Vital Signs Online service, which found that the 9.6 per cent drop suffer in 2009 in the aftermath of the global banking meltdown has been partially reversed thanks to a 3.3 …

Japanese telco SoftBank has announced its attention to significantly increase its stake in mobile gaming site GungHo. The company plans to spend 25bn ($265m) on over 73,000 shares, taking its overall share ownership from 33.6 per cent to 58.5 per cent. It will acquire the shares from Asian Groove, a …

Telecomms giant increases stake in company by 20 per cent to 58.5 per cent

Impressive demo shows potential for diversity in triple-A development platform

1996 has been named as video gaming’s ‘golden year’ by a survey of 2,000 GAME customers. Big hits released that year included Resident Evil, Super Mario 64, Tekken 2, Crash Bandicoot, FIFA 96 (which was the first in the series to use real-life licenses) and the mighty Tomb Raider. 2002 …

One of the system's first F2P titles is in development at Zombie Studios

Measure offers deep performance insights, allowing users to diagnose problem areas and optimise game design

Square Enix’s big console releases are not performing as desired in the West. As part of the publisher’s latest financial report, the company described sales of Tomb Raider, Hitman: Absolution and Sleeping Dogs as weak” in both North America and Europe. Specifically, Tomb Raider has shifted 3.4m copies in three …

A Wii U release for cult indie platformer Fez is not an impossibility… although comments from creator Phil Fish certainly render it an improbability. The only way a Fez Wii U port could happen is if Nintendo paid for and handled the port themselves,” he wrote on Twitter. Which I …