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

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. …

Daily advice on recruitment and HR from the industry's top companies. Today: Making your demo shine

Hirai to officially become CEO on April 1st; current incumbent Howard Stringer to assume role of chairman of the board

EA was forced to shut down its forums yesterday due to a hacker attack. The intruder defaced” the forum’s front page, though it is not believed that any personal data was accessed or lost. EA thinks it has identified and repaired the vulnerability that permitted the actions and the forums …