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

The London Games Festival was officially launched last night – here’s our guide to all the key events taking place as part of this month’s long celebration of games culture. Today BAFTA Annual Lecture with Hideo Kojima7:00pm, BAFTA, 195 PiccadillyAcclaimed video game director Hideo Kojima will deliver this year’s BAFTA …

Nintendo has revealed that it has three DLC releases planned for 3DS title New Super Mario Bros 2. Polygon reports that the downloads were revealed by Nintendo boss Saturo Iwata in a video presentation. The first DLC is called the ‘Gold Mario Go! Go! Pack’ and offers three new Coin …

GamesAid last night revealed the final winners of its 2012 charity vote. Action For Kids, Jigsaw4U, Small Steps, Special Effect and The Willow Foundation were the five charities that got the nod from GamesAid members.To be in the running each charity had to have a turnover of 5m or less …

Sales of video games leapt up 125 per cent last week on the back of three blockbuster releases. In total 16.6m was taken at games stores for the week ending September 22nd, which is up almost 10m over the seven days previously. 586,077 games were sold in total, an increase …

Ubisoft is splashing out over 4m in the UK to make Assassin’s Creed III one of the biggest Christmas games. It is the most expensive marketing spend in Ubisoft’s history and funds a campaign that spans more than three months, rivalling support for titles such as FIFA and Call of …

EA Playfish VP of global studios heads up Helsinki branch

Sega has finally announced a concrete release date for anticipated PC and Mac release Football Manager 2013. The Sports Interactive game will be released in the UK on November 2nd. Furthermore, those who pre-order the title (either the digital or physical version) will be rewarded with early access to a …

As it goes on sale in the UK this morning, EA has announced a record-breaking debut for FIFA 13 in North America. The publisher estimates that the Xbox 360 and PS3 SKUs between them sold 353,000 – a 42 per cent year-on-year increase. The game was also released for Wii, …

Nearly 300 GAME stores opened their doors last night for what is likely to be the biggest game launch of 2012 to date. The release of FIFA 13 this week is likely to propel the market to its highest level of the year so far, so retail was naturally keen …

Day Z creator Dean Hall has a real sense of urgency when it comes to getting a standalone version of his popular ArmA II mod into players’ hands. Speaking duing a panel at Eurogamer Expo, Hall revealed that it isn’t a question of wanting to get the game into players …