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

3DS owners can now access free Wi-Fi at over 5,000 hotspots across Europe thanks to a deal with free-hotspot.com. Providing the correct settings are in place, the handhelds will automatically connect when within range of a compatible hotspot. free-hotspot.com has partnerships with companies such as McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Subway, …

Facebook has added new features to its interface to get more people discovering and playing its social and browser games. The gaming activity of users’ friends are now combined into one list that appears in the news feed, listing the titles that people have been playing. This has also been …

Movie tie-in will only launch on PC at retail, Kalypso Media claims

Free-to-play giant 'attracting 250,000 new players a day'

John Browett, former CEO of Dixons Retail, has left the firm for a new role at Apple. He will leave in April to take up his new position as senior vice president of retail for the iPhone and iPad manufacturer. His role at Dixons will be filled by current group …

More than 250m users have signed up for Bigpoint’s free-to-play PC browser games in the ten years it has been producing them. The online games giant now has over 1,000 game portals across social networks and media sites. Plus, a quarter of a million new players are drawn to its …

Channel 4 has harnessed the Sims 3 engine to power its new online drama played out by virtual actors. The new show, called SuperMe, is set within a fictional English town, and tells the story of four lead characters living in a shared house and follows them through their triumphs …

Technology exec Mark DeLoura parts ways with struggling publisher

All Bungie-developed Halo games will have their online data handed over to Microsoft’s 343 studio on March 31st. 343 Industries will be responsible for game stats, player service records, hosting user-generated content and operating the in-game ‘Pro Service’ moving forwards. This also means things like Halo Reach’s daily challenges and …

Online retailer Amazon has warned that it may well post a loss for its current financial quarter. This is despite a 35 per cent leap in revenues for the quarter ending December 31st, which hit $17.43bn. Despite this net income, fell 70 per cent from $416m in 2010 to $117m. …