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

The PlayStation Store is back and as a reward for customers’ patience Sony has gone live with a host of fresh content to download. Currently all PSN members have been upgraded to PlayStation Plus membership for a month. Four PSN titles are currently free to download – Burnout Paradise, Magic …

The London Games Conference will return on November 10th at a new venue – and with a unique audience participation element. Taking place at the Royal Society of Medicine, the event already has three big-name speakers on board. GameStop’s EVP of international, Mike Mauler, will present a keynote on the …

Finland-based Kombo acquired by nearby Rovio Mobile

Former Battlefield boss joins Paradox Interactive

John Burns has been appointed as SVP and general manager of Trion Worlds Europe. The online games outfit welcomes the former EA and Atari man to its exec team – he has been consulting for the firm since the start of 2011. He reports to publishing SVP David Reid. Trion …

Some 45,000 execs from over 200 companies and 80 countries will be attending E3 this year. That’s comfortably close – but not too close – to the big show’s pre-collapse boom, according to ESA’s VP of industry affairs Rich Taylor. That seems to be the size and scope of show …

Shots have been fired in the war between the two biggest FPS brands. In interviews with MCV, Activision has shrugged off EA’s Battlefield 3 as a credible threat to Modern Warfare 3 – while EA insists this is the perfect year to gain back market share” from Call of Duty. The …

Publisher Nordic Games has revealed four new entries in its Wii karaoke series. We Sing Pop, We Sing Rock, We Sing UK Hits and We Sing America are expected to arrive later this year. The latter will be exclusive to the US while We Sing Rock will be exclusive to …

This year’s Develop Industry Excellence Awards have been bolstered by new partner Eurogamer. Over 500 leading games development professionals will be attending the awards event, which runs on Wednesday July 20th during the Develop Conference in Brighton. There are 95 companies competing across 21 categories, including New Download IP, Best …

Ooutside of the BFG that Call of Duty represents, Activision actually has a relatively slimmer slate of tentpole titles than in recent years. But that’s just a reflection of the market, says Activision publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg. There is a pattern on the market; a concentration of passionate energy around …