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

Fans of Gears of War 3 have one last shot at picking up the Epic Edition in a limited online-only offer from the EB Games web site. The Epic Edition had previously already sold out, and contains a 1.7kg Markus Fenix statue, a 96 page book on the art and …

Buried in a press release from Mattel is mention of a series of products coming out based on Halfbrick Studios’ successful Fruit Ninja franchise. The press release states that Mattel will be capturing ‘the essence of Fruit Ninja’s fast-paced play with an innovative line of table-top and card games inspired …

Nordic Games’ We Sing Rock will present the popular Bandaoke after-show entertainment at next month’s Games Media Awards. "Games press and the media at large have been very kind towards the We Sing range, repeatedly heaping praise in our direction," said Nordic Games’ sales and marketing director Nik Blower. "What …

Second boss to leave studio in last week

App specialists begin recruitment drive

Online games provider Bigpoint has today acquired console sports entertainment studio 49Games. Over 40 full-time employees will now become part of the publishing giant’s international team and will be developing online games instead of console titles. Current projects at 49Games will be completed before the switch, Bigpoint has said.Rights to …

Smartphone project now in full production; Studio says overwhelming response has energised the team

There’s proof that farming isn’t just popular with casual gamers – Farming Simulator has sold 500,000 copies worldwide. The specialist PC series has sold 300,000 units in Germany alone following the release of Farming Simulator 2011 last November, which also broke into the PC Top Ten in the UK. And …

QA and localisation firms are generating more money from social and mobile titles than triple-A boxed games. Several companies have told MCV they have had to expand their testing teams to cope with the strong demand for social, casual and downloadable games. Over the last eight months or so, digital, …

Retail will hope the worst is behind it as August game sales plunged to new lows. The boxed games market did enjoy a late sales spike with Deus Ex, which reached No.2 in the Chart-Track monthly charts despite just two days on sale. But this only highlights what a weak …