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

'Play' sits between Maps and YouTube

The big three must adapt or will face huge challenges, says Ben Cousins

The Ngmoco Sweden GM believes in freemium's future, and fears for the doubters...

Popular games download service GOG.com has enjoyed a relaunch of sorts with its focus no longer on simply good old games”. Instead, the portal will now offer a mixture of old and new titles, though it stays true to its established principle of only selling titles without DRM. Newer means …

UK national newspaper The Daily Express has said that former CEO Ian Shepherd should not be blamed for GAME’s current predicament. Shepherd resigned from his role of CEO and left the company yesterday after The GAME Group entered administration and PwC were put in charge. When Ian Shepherd took charge …

Australia and New Zealand have fared well in the global recession, due in part to our proximity to Asia and relative economic isolation from the US. This has driven consumers to import their games directly from the US to take advantage of the exchange rate, and several websites to set …

Video games retail in the Pacific region is not unlike that of Europe. The market faces many of the same hurdles, such as the digital transition and decline of boxed sales. Challenges unique to the area include the rise of grey importing, a harsh disparity on both price and release …

In a piece published on the Playtime.co.uk blog, long-term indie games retailer Gareth Rowbotham shows that he knows how it feels to be downed by the quarterly rent bill. Here he highlights the similarities between what happened to his chain and yesterday’s events at GAME, and also discusses the problems …

Retail naysayers would have you believe the good ship ‘boxed product’ is sinking, and salvation lies in the new world of digital games. But this strange land has perils of its own. It is a realm of different rules and unfamiliar seasons, where developers become publishers and publishers become retailers. …

Have you noticed that the number of annualised franchises in games is actually shrinking? As the mid-tier of boxed games essentially vanishes off of High Street shelves and top publishers knuckle down solely on triple-A, retailers have been banking on fewer hits to see them through. A total decrease in …