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

NCsoft’s Aion: The Tower of Eternity is the latest MMORPG to switch to the free-to-play model. The game will drop its monthly subscriptions in February. NCsoft has joined forces with German publisher Gameforge to create a team that will maintain the title and its servers in Europe. Aion debuted in …

Former EA marketing director and Lionside founder Brandon Barber joins as VP of marketing

Admittedly, we can’t afford to drive our cars or heat our homes, but at least gaming remains affordable in the UK. That’s the finding of price comparison site Idealo, which claims that on average PS3 games are 25.4 per cent cheaper in the UK than in major European market Germany. …

But shares fall two per cent after first day end of trading

Gamers will be able to use the PlayStation Vita to control PS3 games such as Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. Capcom says owners of the upcoming Sony handheld – which is due out in the UK on February 22nd – will be able to use it as the ultimate controller” …

Mass market retailer Argos has told MCV why it has withdrawn from the second-hand games market. In a statement sent to us this morning, the company said: "Since Argos’ video games trade-in service launched on a trial basis last year, it has not met business expectations and consequently, Argos has …

Modern Warfare 3 developer Infinity Ward is handing out 5,000 day bans to a number of those found guilty of non-specific bad” things – presumably cheating. The ban effectively means that users will not be able to access the game with the associated account until the latter half of 2025. …

UK Xbox 360 owners will be able to access a host of new dashboard apps today including YouTube, Blinkbox, MSN and Muzu.TV. As well as being able to view content from internet video giant YouTube, gamers can now watch over 10,000 films using digital movie service Blinkbox via the Xbox …

At last, UK games retail has reason to cheer following a strong month of sales. But November wasn’t all about Call of Duty:?Modern Warfare 3 and Assassin’s Creed:?Revelations. Back in?2009, terrified publishers ran away from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, delaying their games into 2010. This year, Activision’s competition …

Forget the doom and gloom on the High Street. UK games retailers generated 268m in software sales last month. That’s a 1.7 per cent rise over November 2010. GfK Chart-Track figures show that 8,261,205 games were sold last month. The No.1 game will surprise nobody, with Call of Duty: Modern …