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

The official midnight opening for next week’s Wii U launch will be held at the flagship Oxford Street store of entertainment retailer HMV. Following reports of high demand for the new console, HMV has even secured extra stock for the launch so that customers will be able to purchase Wii …

Publisher and media group Future has reported normalised operating profit of 6.9m for the year ending September 30th. That’s a 68 per cent year-on-year increase. Group revenues were down three per cent, although Future attributes that to the restructure of tis US business. Net debt comes in at a lower …

The biggest film of the season could make LEGO Lord of the Rings one of gaming’s best-sellers this Christmas. Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment is working closely with its film colleagues to cross-promote the game with the first instalment in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy. The buzz for The Hobbit: An Unexpected …

Every conflicting statement about Black Ops II on the cover of this week’s MCV is true. Strip away the spin, pride or expectations and the numbers still make it clear. This was the best performing game of the year. Some quarters wondered – or hoped, even – that this might …

Writing this year’s Call of Duty success headline was a complicated task. If we wanted to put a positive spin on things we could have gone with: ‘Call of Duty reclaims its crown as the biggest entertainment launch of the year’ or ‘Black Ops II is the fourth fastest selling …

Capcom may be looking within for its next crossover fighting series. CVG reports the company filed a trademark for ‘Fighters of Capcom’ earlier this month. The patent was registered under "computer game software", downloadable game software", "electronic game programs for mobile phones and smart phones", "downloadable game program for playing …

The developers behind Skullgirls have been laid off from their positions at Reverge Labs, only to reform as a new studio in effort to continue work on the downloadable fighting game. Dubbed Lab Zero Games, the new studio plans to keep up its work on the 2D fighter. It has …

Valve has invited in 5,000 additional participants for the Linux for Steam beta test. The company explained things have progressed to the point where it’s ready to bring in a larger number of testers. We’re making good progress finding and fixing issues that our users have reported so we’re expanding …

Wim ter Schüren to be responsible for over 60 developers and expanding company's mobile games portfolio

Yes, it’s actually happened. ESPN reports that 21 year-old Vugar Huseynzade has successfully landed himself a job as the manager of Azerbaijan football outfit FK Baku’s reserves. Huseynzade, who was born in Azerbaijan and has studied in universities in Sweden and the US, was hired back in February in an …