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

The beta for Activision’s Call of Duty: Elite service is now live on PS3. Access to the scheme will be rolled out in stages on a by-invitation basis. The COD Elite beta went live on Xbox 360 in July. A date has not yet been announced for the PC beta. …

Skrill Holdings co-CEO Martin Ott offers some sage advice on protecting online businesses in the new hacking age

Well, it doesn’t. But that’s a great headline, isn’t it? As was astutely pointed out by Premier PR’s Gareth Williams on Twitter this morning, Oh dear, the Metro. Rockstar surely must be as bored of this as we are?”. This morning’s copy of freesheet Metro tells the tragic tale of …

Following on from Part 1 of MCV Pacific’s interview with Tim Willits, creative director of RAGE at id Software, Tim discusses player agency, animations and the future of games. How does id reconcile the promise of an open(ish) world and the freedom that brings to a player with the desire …

SEGA has announced that Sonic the Hedgehog himself will be running for charity in the 2011 Rebel Sport Run4Fun challenge on 6th November. All money raised from the annual charity event will be donated to the Sydney Children’s Foundation, which is the main fundraising body for the Sydney Children’s Hospital …

Yet more sad news for the Australian game development community, as EA’s Visceral Melbourne studio closes its doors. A couple of tweets came through over the weekend from the Independent Game Developer’s Association Melbourne which suggested its fate would be decided on Monday. EA has officially confirmed the closure of …

MCV speaks to project manager Dominik Prophete about trends such as mobile games which are changing the localisation sector. What are your thoughts on the relationship between publishers and QA firms? What works well and what needs improving?Publishers like to have their own internal QA processes and are often not …

The president of SCEA Worldwide Studios has admitted that he found Nintendo’s controversial decision to release a second circle pad add-on for 3DS shocking”. The peripheral was first revealed earlier this month, with Nintendo announcing an official release date and price last week. Well it’s not like they looked at …

But Cityville firm strikes back in new Facebook 'brand wars'

Decision 'absolutely not' due to declining subscriptions