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

High-profile appointment for the Half-Life studio

New first person shooter contender Homefront sold 375k units in its first day on sale in the US, publisher THQ has confirmed. "We are delighted with first day sales for Homefront and are already fulfilling re-orders for the game from multiple retailers," THQ boss Brian Farrell stated. By comparison, record …

Firm ponders which province to open its new hundred-person outfit

Sony’s Heavy Rain and EA’s Mass Effect 2 were the big winners at last night’s video games BAFTAs, hosted by comedian Dara O’Briain. BioWare sci-fi RPG won the coveted Best Game prize, though Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain was arguably the star with three accolades – Technical Innovation, Original Music and …

THQ’s CEO Brian Farrell says he doesn’t want to kill off pre-owned as it is something consumers demand. The publisher has adopted various second user charges in order to make money from second-hand sales. But Farrell says THQ’s real goal is to deter gamers from trading in. The most important …

Tired of ‘copycat’ campaigns, Valve has built the Portal 2 TV ads itself. Because, it says, no one knows how to market a game better than the people that made it. The studio said unoriginal ideas and late meetings make the value of creative agencies ‘pretty close to worthless’. No …

The industry must unite and start sharing data if we’re ever going to get a digital download chart. That’s the message from UKIE this week as pressure mounts from the highest level for the industry to move away from retail-only sales rankings. In the US, Electronic Arts has hit out …

Ninja Theory explains how best to use NaturalMotion's Morpheme animation system

Leading UK games retailer GAME has tonight at London’s video game BAFTAs announced that it is to stage its first UK consumer games show later this year. Called GamesFest, the event is actually an extension of the retailer’s store manager conference. Entry will be reserved exclusively for Reward Card customers. …

Doodle Jump passes 10 million paid downloads milestone