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

Creative Distribution has bought a majority share in publisher Reef Entertainment. The deal is part of the distributor’s move into the publishing arena, which began with the launch of Sniper Elite in December. And now the company is in discussions with developers to sign new games, primiarly for PlayStation 3 …

The UK games software market plunged 11.8 per cent in December, according to GfK Chart-Track. 14.91m units of games were sold last month, down from the 16.9m sold during the same period the year before. The software value figure was also down, albeit slightly. 366.63m was made by UK games …

Three companies proposed themselves for publicly-funded game; Just one from UK

The creators of MouthOff are leaping deeper into the casual market in 2011

A trade event has been added to The Gadget Show Live, bolstering the hugely popular consumer expo. The Gadget Show Live Professional will take place on Tuesday April 12th, the day before the five-day consumer exhibition takes place at the Birmingham NEC. Some 250 companies will take part in the …

Jenkins Software's cross-platform networking engine to bolster Vision Engine offering for free

Virgin Gaming is now the official provider of online tournaments for EA Sports. Virgin’s tournament platform will now integrate directly with certain EA Sports titles, it will offer community tools and web functionality for competitive play across Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles. The first tournaments will begin early this year …

Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead Redemption may have picked up various ‘game of the year’ awards, but which titles topped the charts in terms of units sold? Gfk Chart-Track’s Top 50 data has revealed that Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops was the biggest game of 2010, followed by …

THQ core games boss reveals concerns for future platform releases

Disney has confirmed that it has closed Vancouver-based Propaganda Games. The studio had been working on the halted Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned game on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Disney also confirmed that all work on film tie-in Tron: Evolution has been finished. The news comes …