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

Parts of the internet went mental at the weekend after it was revealed that Apple boss Tim Cook had visited the offices of Steam owner Valve. But talk of a possible acquisition was wide of the mark. However, Cult of Mac claims to have word on the true reason behind …

British social games outfit Zattikka has floated on the London Stock Exchange this morning. The firm, founded by former Virgin games execs Tim Chaney (president) and Mark Opzoomer (CEO), has a target market cap of 22m on its first day of trading, with shares opening at 1 each. Its ticker …

In a very un-Valve-like move, the Seattle-based Half-Life 2 creator has revealed all of its plans for its mysterious new hardware project. But the rumours were wrong. Valve is not making a games console or under-the-TV PC box. It is, in fact, developing some sort of wearable computer. Writing on …

Publisher EA has denied an unsubstantiated report claiming that it is on the verge of announcing between 500-1,000 job losses after the story spread like the wildfire across the internet this morning. StartupGrind claims to have confirmation of the claims and says that lower-than-expected sales of Star Wars: The Old …

Develop looks at the platform with ambitions to challenge Adobe's ubiquitous Flash web player

Tech website claims the publisher is set to reduce its global workforce by 5-10%

EA has made good on its temporary loss of the No.1 spot last week by bouncing back to claim the top spot in the UKIE GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top 40. Last week’s No.1, Microsoft’s Kinect Star Wars, whose sales fell over 50 per cent week-on-week, has to settle for …

The games industry’s biggest names are currently plotting a path into one of the fastest growing regions in the world of modern gaming. Key distributors in India include Milestone Interactive (who handlefirst party PlayStation games, EA, Namco Bandai and Capcom), E-Xpress Interactive (Ubisoft, Sega, THQ, Bethesda, Square-Enix, Warner Bros, Take-Two …

It remains the powerhouse IP of modern console gaming, but figures suggest that Activision’s mighty Call of Duty IP is in decline. Gamasutra reports that life-to-date sales of last year’s Modern Warfare 3 are tracking behind those enjoyed by predecessor Black Ops by an estimated 4.2 per cent. In March …

A sequel to Zynga’s farming simulation social network game FarmVille is apparently in the works. The info comes about according to advertiser Alex Harvey’s rsum (via Superannuation), which claims a successful pitch for FarmVille 2 while working with Zynga as a client. The work was done sometime between January 2011 …