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

Another month, another bleak story about the state of the UK games retail market. This time, 78.4m was spent on boxedgames last month. That’s a six per cent drop on the 83.5m generated during June 2010.In terms of the amount of video games sold, the number isn’t quite so bad. …

Online retailer Gameseek has warned other boxed game retailers that it’s too late to join the digital download market. The website – which has been online since 2000 – scrapped its download service earlier this year due to low demand. MD Stephen Staley told MCV that the success of established …

Our three leading stories in this week’s edition of MCV magazine paint a pretty clear picture of the flux gaming currently finds itself.The traditional retail market continues to shrink. It’s been long predicted, but that makes it no less pleasant to live through. Nothing is filling the 50m year-on-year shortfall. …

Rockstar Games’ L.A. Noire has taken the top spot in the Japanese charts after its first week on sales, leading a wave of Western-developed successes in the region. The Team Bondi-developed detective thriller shifted more than 70,000 copies in Japan, with the PS3 copy taking No.1. The game was one …

It was one of the top-selling titles of 2010 and now Codemasters is ensuring this year’s F1 game follows suit. The developer-publisher has invested its biggest ever marketing spend forF1 2011.Last year’s F1 2010 was backed by Codies’ largest ad campaign at the time and went on to sell over …

Activision has confirmed that the first wave of invites for the Call of Duty Elite beta have been sent out to selected fans today. The chosen few will be able to download the new social network and explores most of its free community features using Call of Duty: Black Ops. …

Apple has upped the cost of games and other downloads on the App Store platform. Prices for apps increased in several countries – including the UK – and dropped in others. Games like Angry Birds which were previously 59p now cost 69p, while 1.19 apps have become 1.49. Apple reportedly …

LA Noire debuts at No.1, followed by fellow Western-developed games Infamous 2 and Goldeneye

The man in charge of Sony’s network entertainment division has outlined the lessons learned from PSN’s hack attack. Speaking at the Gamesbeat 2011 conference in San Francisco, Tim Schaaff told VentureBeat recovering from a major hack is about more than just improving security. Sony switched off its online gaming PlayStation …

Sony questioning continues says Information Commissioner's Office