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

Claims emerging from the US suggest that retailer GameStop is to start selling gift vouchers for Valve’s digital PC games portal Steam. Kotaku claims to have word of the move from a GameStop source”. It also claims that the decision to stock such cards is a direct result of its …

Virgin Media’s website was forced offline for an hour yesterday after hacker collective Anonymous attacked the portal. The move was in response to Virgin’s decision to block access to The Pirate Bay for all of its UK customers. That decision came after the High Court ordered ISPs to do so, …

Where Nintendo leads, others often follow. Sure, the finer points of Virtual Boy, N64 and 3DS pulled in directions others didn’t want to go. But they are exceptions to the rule. Broadly, when the Kyoto HQ’s bright ideas cause the market to jump, everyone jumps. Platform games, motion control, shoulder …

'Our plan was to break one million subscribers'

Specialist games retailers cannot survive without second-hand, says Blockbuster. The firm’s UK commercial director Gerry Butler has hit back at trade-in critics, and told MCV that the current new release business model is broken and in need of a radical overhaul. If you’re a specialist you need certain margins to …

More than two million players take up premium membership

Just weeks after telling MCV it will cut the store space dedicated to games, HMV has changed its mind. Instead it will actually now grow the amount of space for games as it looks to take advantage of market gaps left by the shrunken GAME. Earlier this year the High …

Japanese electronics giant Sony has reported a 456.7bn (3.5bn) loss for the year ended March 31st 2012. That’s significantly down on the 259.6bn loss reported the year before. The company’s Consumer Products and Services Division, which houses its PlayStation operations, posted a 229.8bn loss, down from last year’s 10.8bn profit. …

Nintendo has caved to the online revolution, and will soon offer simultaneous digital/physical releases. But its download plan could also change the way video games are sold, says Michael French Too little, too late? It’s very easy to consider Nintendo’s sudden declaration to ‘significantly expand its digital business’ during its …

Warner Bros will release a widely-expected LEGO Lord of the Rings game. Packaging for LEGO’s new line of LOTR toys, inspired by the three Peter Jackson movies based on the books, reveals the title is on the way. Earlier in the year we predicted that the new line of toys …