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

Not only are hopes of Shenmue 3 still dead in the balance, but now the newest Shenmue title to hit the market has been scrapped. Launched in December 2010 in Japan, Ysnet’s Shenmue World was a social game for mobile phones. However, Andriasang reports that Ysnet announced its surprise closure …

But Entertainment Software Association still backs the bill

The PC version of EA and Cryek’s Crysis 2 was the most pirated game of 2011, according to TorrentFreak. Between its release in March 2011 and the end of the year, the shooter was downloaded approximately 3,920,000 times. This ranked it ahead of other PC titles such as Modern Warfare …

Three of gaming’s biggest companies have withdrawn support for America’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). EA, Nintendo and Sony had all previously backed the movement but their names have since disappeared from the official list of corporate supporters. The move comes as hacker group Anonymous released a video threatening to …

Just two days left to contribute to our sweeping games industry Salary Survey

A drop in sales of 78 per cent week-on-week for the PlayStation Vita in its second week of sale in Japan has seen sales fall below that of its predecessor the PlayStation Portable. Andriasang reports that Vita sales fell from 325k to 72k – that’s fewer than all of the …

Independent games retailers are in uproar having missed out on stocking the GAME-exclusive 130 edition of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The monthly subscription-based PC MMO developed by BioWare and published by EA hit stores as early as December 15th. The collector’s edition – featuring a statue, map, journal, metal …

A branded mouse, headset and mats have hit shelves well ahead of the release of Blizzard’s PC RPG Diablo III. The officially licensed periperals from SteelSeries are being distributed in the UK by EntaTech, Gem and Interactive Ideas. They arrive ahead of the anticipated PC game which is due Q1 …

A fleet of vans with exterior screens have promoted games to tens of thousands of consumers across UK cities. The vehicles were most recently used to advertise Disney Universe where they were active every Friday and weekend from in the run up to Christmas. Since November they achieved an opportunity-to-see …

MCV is delighted to be the first to congratulate Andy Payne on tonight being awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List. Payne is known to almost everybody in the UK industry and is one of the most widely liked and respected executives in gaming. As well as his …