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

Insight Venture Partners now owns 55%; R&D investment pulls FY11 profits to £6.7m

A New York venture capital firm has purchased further shares in Jagex to increase its stake to 55 per cent, effectively transferring control of the Runescape developer from the UK to the US. Financial documents seen by Develop show that Insight Venture Partners has acquired another twenty per cent of …

Xbox and PlayStation in a race to take advantage of mobile platforms, sources suggest

Warner Bros Interactive has announced a new version of its 2011 fighting game Mortal Kombat. Called Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition, the SKU includes all of the DLC that has been released for the title since it arrived on consoles. That means that on the disc gamers will find four new …

Last year I became theproud recipient of a Games Media Legend Award. It was also my 25th year since I began working ingames journalism. So I felt the weird urge to write 25 tips for the young games journalist, based almost entirely on the mistakes I’ve made over the last …

PlayStation 3 exclusive Twisted Metal will arrive in the UK on February 17th, Sony has told MCV. The destructive driving game is the latest in Sony’s long-running franchise, which first arrived on the original PlayStation in 1995. The new Twisted Metal was previously scheduled to arrive in October last year …

GameStop has defied the odds by posting an impressive increase in sales of new games for the Christmas period – showing up retailers in the UK who failed to do the same. New game sales were up 9.9 per cent year-on-year for the nine weeks ending December 31st, with the …

A new version of the popular arcade controller adapter for iPad, the iCade, has been revealed by maker ION. The original iCade housed the iPad and was designed to make it appear like a miniature arcade cabinet, complete with arcade joystick and eight-button arrangement. This new version, Engadget reports, features …

Just hours after streaming film service Netflix launched on both PS3 and Xbox 360 in the UK, rival Lovefilm has reduced the price of its service to undercut it. As of today a Lovefilm account costs just 4.99 a month in the UK. Before the cut it cost 5.99 – …

Games retailers say the rescue plan laid out by TV retail expert Mary Portas to revive UK High Streets doesn’t go far enough”. Last month, the Queen of Shops published her Government-commissioned review into the decline of the High Street. The Portas Review explored the reasons behind falling sales and …