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

Simon Watts will be joining THQ’s US team next week. He will be leaving the publisher’s UK arm after three and a half years to start his Stateside duties on March 1st. Watts will retain his role as global communications manager, having spent a year liaising remotely with the US …

Recruitment agency Austin Banks has branched out into the games industry. The Doncaster-based firm is currently restructuring its business, and a focus on video games will be crucial to the company’s future. We are moving away from local, support-level recruitment and into national, executive-level recruitment within clearly defined niches – …

RuneScape studio Jagex has signed an agreement with TripleACodes to distribute the game in Eastern Europe. TripleACodes will offer digital subscription codes in areas of low credit card penetration such as Poland. This means Eastern European players will now have the option to sign up to the MMO’s paid-for service …

Microsoft should be so lucky – it’s just signed a deal with a global popstar to ensure gamers can’t get Kinect out of their heads. Kylie Minogue will take Kinect and Dance Central on her 35-stop European tour following a deal between Xbox EMEA and EMI Music. In fact, Dance …

Mojang, the super-indie studio behind runaway success story Minecraft, has revealed the next project it is working on as a card game-focused title called Scrolls. Revealed by Gamasutra, the game is a single and multiplayer title focused on collecting and ‘battling’ cards on a game board. Jakob Porser, head developer …

Consumer games site Eurogamer has announced that tickets are now officially on sale for the fourth Eurogamer Expo which will take place at London’s Earls Court between September 22nd and September 25th. Early-bird prices are currently available with one day tickets priced at 8 – that’s the same as last …

New Mojang game Scrolls to hit private alpha in 2011

BioWare has assured consumers that Dragon Age II will be a more streamlined experience” than its predecessor. The studio’s executive producer Mike Laidlaw told PlayStation Universe that the game would have a good balance between the main storyline and side quests, describing it as a more aerodynamic” game. The original …

Sony has announced that the number of PS3 owners who have downloaded and booted up PlayStation Home at least once has reached 19m. Director of Home Jack Buser wouldn’t confirm how many users are actively using the service, however, though he did say that 1.6m people in North America played …

A class action complaint has been filed against GameStop after the US retail giant was accused of recording the personal information of its customers. The suit was filed by California resident Melissa Arechiga, who claimed a GameStop store kept her name, credit card, and other personal identification information after she …