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

Budget software company Cosmi has acquired THQ’s value-centric publishing and distribution division ValuSoft. The move ties in with THQ’s widely-publicised new strategy of dropping all but its strongest and most important IP and operations, though the sale of assets is unlikely to quieten observers keen to predict the demise of …

Blizzard has confirmed that HMV’s London Oxford Street store will host the official UK launch event for upcoming PC title Diablo III. The fun will kick off at 10:00pm on May 14th with the game going on sale at 11:00pm. There will be a number of giveaways and competitions and …

Gree and Dena to spearhead new self-regulation policy

The controversial and now long-delayed Digital Economy Act will not come into effect until 2014, the Department for Culture, media and Sport has announced. It is not yet known whether or not the delay will have any implication for the introduction of new PEGI age ratings, which MCV this morning …

Long-delayed certification measures set to launch in July, UKIE claims

Ubisoft is to release a new free-to-play online instalment in its Silent Hunter series. Called Silent Hunter Online, the game can be played in a browser. It is being developed by Settlers and Anno developer Blue Byte. It will run using Adobe Flash player 11 and will be fully 3D. …

Having announced plans to resurrect the Leisure Suit Larry IP in late 2011, developer Replay Games has turned to crowd-funding site Kickstarter to bring life to the project. And clearly the plea has been well received – at the time of writing the project has raised $517,842 from 11,587 backers. …

Konami has released a live-action teaser video for Metal Gear Rising. Series’ favourites such as Solid Snake or Raiden are now-where to be seen. Instead, we see a soldier being tortured in some kind of military lab. The video closes by promising more details on April 30th. Here’s the video:

Valve 'porting games, tech and platforms to the open-source OS'

The much-delayed implementation of the PEGI age rating system should finally happen in July, says UKIE. It’s been over four years since The Byron Review, and almost three years since PEGI was chosen as the organisation that will rate video games going forward. It was even passed into law as …