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

Rising Star Games is putting its weight behind three flagship titlesthis summer. Akai Katana?will be Rising Star’s first pan-Atlantic release following the opening of its US arm earlier this year. It will arrive in May, alongside Rune Factory Oceans on PS3. Harvest Moon: A Tale of Two Towns, the franchise’s …

The boxed games retail market may be down year-on-year but SteelBook SKUs are booming. The game packaging is increasingly used for special editions, and manufacturer Scanavo says it has seen sales increase 500 per cent in the past year. It claims more and more triple-A titles use SteelBook today than …

Xbox hopes Kinect Star Wars will become a Wii-style evergreen seller. Creative director for Kinect Kudo Tsunoda said the power of the Star Wars brand means that, unlike most releases, the game’s sales will not deteriorate rapidly after launch. Star Wars really is one of those evergreen brands,” Tsunoda told …

Fans will not be disappointed by the new Amazing Spider-Man game, Activision says. The firm admits Spidey titles have had a chequered history, so has made sure this year’s movie tie-in got a full two-year development cycle. Traditionally, Spider-Man games based on films have been the more successful titles. And …

It costs less to buy games from Tesco than it does via Steam. Retail price wars and general cost depreciation means that, on average, games lose 25 per cent of their value in just one month on the UK High Street. And that just doesn’t happen in the same way …

Namco Bandai has announced that upcoming RPG The Witcher 2 will be available at GAME and Gamestation. Add this to confirmation that all Reward, Elite and Gift cards are now fully active and restored and it’s yet another step toward both retailers returning to full strength. GAME, Gamestation and Namco …

In MCV’s weekly rundown of the hottest vacancies and latest personnel news, popular marketing exec Rob Lowe prepares to leave Nintendo and we look at the best job vacancies. Rob Lowe leaving Nintendo for BBC Rob Lowe will leave Nintendo UK on June 1st. He is moving to BBC Worldwide, …

After a significant GDC for the studio, Develop asks its president Mike Capps what comes next

We catch up with the Bafta Ones to Watch finalists on what the awards show means for them

Parker Consulting analyst Nick Parker casts his eyes over GAME Group and looks at the reasons behind its initial fall into administration… There are some commentators who argue that the migration of gamers to digital distribution has had an impact on bricks and mortar retail. This is not true. Digital …