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

London’s Westfield Stratford centre will be transformed into Mario Land in February. Nintendo is kicking off a sampling event called ‘Mario is coming to town: Half-Term Heroes’ in a bid to get children, families and gamers playing the latest titles. Shoppers will be able to go hands-on with a range …

UKIE’s new boss Jo Twist has pledged to ‘change the tone’ of the trade body. The former Channel 4 and BBC exec has laid out her immediate strategy for UKIE, which includes making it relevant to small digital creative businesses and developers, promoting the industry to future talent and launching …

Successful freemium games will always be plagiarism targets in an industry gripped by player data, writes Rob Crossley

The critically acclaimed freemium game Triple Town has been flagrantly plagiarised by a rival games studio, according to allegations in a copyright infringement suit. Mobile games group Spry Fox last week launched a lawsuit against casual game studio 6Waves Lolapps, alleging that its latest release – called Yeti Town – …

Buffalo Studios claims its game Bingo Blitz was more than an inspiration for Zynga Bingo

Tomorrow will see the launch of Start, a new YouTube games channel by IGN Entertainment and TV producers Shine Group. Start will be produced and curated by IGN, and will kick off with five new weekly shows that have been put together with the help of Shine’s Reveille Productions, the …

UK supermarket chain Morrisons has cut the price on a number of console SKUs, according to reports. The 160GB version of the PlayStation 3 is now available for 150 with the 250GB cut to 200 – the latter price has been verified by MCV from a North London store rep. …

Daily advice on recruitment and HR from the industry's top companies. Today: Essential reading for studio heads

Develop talks to NaturalMotion about the opportunities of high-end free-to-play

The boss of PlayStation France has stated that Sony is likely to be the last of the platform holders to announce a new console. That’s according to a translation via OPM which quotes CEO Phillippe Cardone as claiming: Sony is under less pressure than it’s rivals and will probablybe the …