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

With the price of games becoming increasingly competitive between retailers, it’s not the easiest time to be an independent. But many indie stores and chains are still continuing to shine through innovation and by embracing new business avenues. These include the top 20 UK indies of 2011, revealed this week by …

Kongregate teams with Ubisoft with a $10,000 grand prize on offer

SHOPTO ShopTo continues to go from strength to strength. The site won best Independent Retailer at this year’s MCV Awards, and has drawn a large customer base in the five years it’s been running. It has many strings to its bow including its own iPhone app, text message ordering service, five-minute …

Microsoft’s E3 presentation next month will be packed to the brim with new Kinect software announcements, it has been claimed. Eurogamer reports that Rare will unveil Kinect Sports 2. The studio is apparently also working on a second title not associated with any of its existing IP. In all, the …

Over 1.014m has been spent on downloading songs in the UK since 2004. Almost one third of this figure – 316.5m – was spent last year alone, according to data published by music trade body BPI and the Official Charts Company. Retail spending on digital albums increased 23 per cent …

Playdom has payed a $3m settlement after it was charged with breaking the U.S. Child Online Privacy Protection Act. The social games studio – acquired by Disney last year – has published several titles such as the now closed Pony Stars. The Federal Trade Commission accused a number of these …

Kalypso Media has announced that Charlie Barrett, current MD of Kalypso Media Digital, has been promoted to the role of business development director for the overall Kalypso Media Group. In addition, Jonathan Hales has returned to the company as becomes group MD of Kalypso Digital Media. We are constantly looking …

CVs and up to 25,000 email addresses stolen in latest cyber attack

Fortified servers power up after extensive downtime

UPDATE 1: HMV has been in contact with MCV to say that it has "no such deal available". MCV is expecting to receive confirmation of other offers from a key UK retailer shortly. UPDATE 2: Since publishing the first update we have had three readers contact us to confirm that …