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

Codemasters’ upcoming Dirt 3 comes bundled with a code that lets users play online and unlock five new vehicles. According to Eurogamer it is called the VIP pass and is only included in new retail copies, gamers that buy the game used will have to pay extra to go online. …

British games market fights back thanks to TIGA and UKT&I

The ‘PSN crisis’ is thankfully over. The service is slowly rolling back out again, more secure than ever, and consumers have been handed some free content for the inconvenience. Material effects of the actual ‘pain’ are still undefined. Obviously, PSN downtime suspended both ongoing revenues from first and third-party games …

L.A. Noire is not causing Xbox 360 or PS3 consoles to overheat and breakdown, says Rockstar. The games media has spotted advice on Rockstar’s website for consumers experiencing console problems. However, this is not because L.A. Noire is causing any specific problem. It is in fact common practice for publishers …

IGN is in the process of selling digital distributor Direct2Drive to US online rental firm Gamefly, MCV understands. An official announcement isn’t expected until next week, but sources have told us the deal is almost complete. Gamefly is a major US online rental games firm, similar to LoveFilm in the …

Amnesty and Mobigame discuss the genesis of their fundraising app

Future has reported a fall in profits for the first half of 2011. The publisher of Official Nintendo, Official Xbox, Official PlayStation, CVG and a host of other publications reported revenue of 68.8m for the first half of 2011, down four per cent over the 71.4m posted in H1 2010. …

US gamers are reportedly furious at Nintendo’s privacy terms and conditions for 3DS. That’s according to a report in Metro, that said Nintendo legally owns all users’ content – including messages, information and images. It also logs personal data such as names, ages and addresses. According to the paper, angry …

Production on Dragon Age 3 is underway, BioWare has announced. The developer posted a statement on Twitter looking for environment artists to work on the third main title in EA’s RPG franchise. I’m looking for exceptional environment artists to join me at BioWare Edmonton, Canada to work on Dragon Age3,” …

UK retail hopes L.A. Noire can breathe new life into struggling software sales. The UK games market is down significantly year-on-year. But with Rockstar’s hyped new IP due today (Friday, May 20th), expectations are high for a May sales surge. The current levelling off in the games market hasn’t been helped …