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

Valve’s PC download service Steam is often championed, sometimes controversial – but it’s eternally popular. Rob Crossley visited the service’s chief Jason Holtman and marketing head Doug Lombardi in Seattle to find out more about the leading force in digital distribution… There are now 1,700 games on Steam. Has its …

Games industry trade bodies UKIE and TIGA have teamed up to deliver this year’s Edinburgh Interactive Festival. The event will run from August 11th to 12th, and will feature a range of free public screenings of new games and tech, plus public sessions on how to get involved in the …

Publisher EA has announced the first DLC for console and PC shooter Crysis 2. Called The Retaliation Pack, it includes four new multiplayer maps – Shipyard, Park Avenue, Transit and Compound. It will be released online on May 17th. No price has yet been announced. Of course, the PSN release …

Consumer site Joystiq claims to have accessed leaked documents saying that Microsoft will begin rolling out a spring firmware update for Xbox 360 next week. Beginning May 19th, the company is apparently planning to send the update out in waves running until May 30th. The update will provide compatibility for …

Valve explains its supple royalty system, and examines the platform's astounding growth

Microsoft is close to completing a deal to acquire Skype, beating out other suitors thought to include Google and Facebook. The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft was set to pay between $7 and $8 billion for the cross-platform voice and video chat service. Skype has been a loss making …

Operating income at Namco Bandai rocketed by 767 per cent to YEN 16,338m for the year ending March 31st 2011, the publisher has reported. This compares very favourably with the 92 per cent decline suffered in the last finical year. Recurring income climbed 760 per cent to YEN 16,399. Net …

Final tickets available for Wednesday night event

"As an executive responsible for running a business, the resulting outage obviously costing us hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in revenue that were planned for within our budget. These are funds we rely on to bring new games to market for our fans." That’s the stark admission …

The evergreen Call of Duty IP has lead Activision to a stronger than expected quarter, with both sales and revenue up year-on-year. Sales climbed from $1.3bn to $1.4bn for the period and profits shot from $381m to $503m. Digital was the star performer, with sales climbing 30 per cent year-on-year. …