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

The heavily populated Middle Eastern nation of Iran has a much higher proportion of younger consumers, with around half of Iranians younger than 35. Theoretically, this makes Iran a promising market for video games publishers, but the industry’s potential is hindered by a barren retail landscape. There are very few …

Namco Bandai and Trion Worlds have partnered with GAME to run five Defiance lock-ins. Each event will allow attendees to try the action MMO, which is not due for release in the UK until April 2nd. They will also receive free beta access keys, and get some free food and …

Iconic tabletop game to go isometric in new single-player and social title

Despite the fact that SimCity is now working, the online games community continues to target it. Accusations of all sorts are being flung online, ranging from broken AI pathfinding to critical services bugs, but perhaps the most significant is the claim that EA has lied about the game’s dependency on …

Peter Molyneux, Jon Hare and others to assist finalists at live conclusion of Epic's development competition

Japanese developer/publisher Square Enix has opened its first India office in Mumbai. Atul Vibhandik heads the company’s India operations and takes on the role ofvice president at Square Enix India. The India office currently comprises of only 4-5 employees, however the company does plan to expand over the coming months. …

Nintendo’s design boss Shigeru Miyamoto insists that he remains confident about the Wii U’s long-term prospects. He does concede, however, that he had hoped for a better performance than the machine has achieved to date. I think that the Wii U still has a long future,” Miyamoto told The New …

Racing game studio Criterion is holding an open day for students eager to get a start in the game industry. The open day will take place on April 11th at Criterion’s office in Guildford, UK, where students will get to meet the development team behind Need for Speed Most Wanted …

It seems Nintendo has made good on its promise to utilise Wii U’s NFC tech by announcing a new Pokemon title that uses figures. Eurogamer reports that Pokemon Rumble U, which was first announced last month, will allow players to purchase Pokemon figures that unlock in-game characters. The use of …

Activision appears to be adopting the games-as-a-service philosophy as it introduces micro-transactions for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. In a blog post announcing that the Nuketown 2025 map was being made available free for all players, Activision community manager Dan Amrich revealed that micro-transactions ranging from $1 to $5 …