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

A number of big releases will this week enjoy significant discounts on Nintendo’s Wii U eShop digital game store. Ubisoft has cut the price of all of its Wii U games, with big-hitters Zombi U and Assassin’s Creed III cut from (the admittedly extraordinarily high) 54.99 to 29.99. Several have …

Maxis GM Lucy Bradshaw has tried to diffuse some of the anger being thrown at SimCity, but fresh claims from the modding community have cast doubt on the studio’s defence. I’d like to offer some straight answers on the topic: Always-Connected and why SimCity is not an offline experience, Bradshaw …

Square Enix has retained the top spot in the UKIE GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top 40 listings despite a 72 per cent week-on-week dip in sales for adventure outing Tomb Raider. In doing so it successfully fended off the advances of three new releases – God of War: Ascension, Starcraft …

Games employment up four per cent in 2012 after three years of decline

Developers to cross-promote Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead

Computer science department offers new program to boost recruitment

League of Legends developer Riot Games has announced its MOBA sensation is now peaking in excess of 5m concurrent players. PCGamersN reports Riot’s latest figure dwarfs Steam’s biggest offering, Dota 2, at just 300k concurrent players. In fact, Steam itself just recently hit 6.6m concurrent users; so the eSports hit …

Apogee Software’s 1993 release Duke Nukem II will land on iOS next month. Nukem’s 2D platformer sequel, originally launched on MS-DOS, will be priced at $1.99 and will work on iPhone 4S and newer iOS devices. "Before Duke Nukem 3D, before the sunglasses, before the one-liners, and before the strippers …

The Alpha version of Arma 3 has nabbed the top spot in consecutive weeks on Steam’s latest top sellers chart. Bohemia’s upcoming realistic FPS retains its crown a week after its number one debut, while pre-orders for Bioshock Infinte have the game climbing two spots to the runner-up position. Tomb …

In MCV’s weeklyrundown of the hottest vacancies and latest personnel news, industry veteran Roy Stackhouse heads up Activision UK and we look at the best job opportunities. Stackhouse takes charge at Activision Roy Stackhouse is the new general manager of Activision’s UK and Ireland division, replacing interim boss Andrew Brown.Brown …