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

And now for something completely different – casual games studio Zattikka has acquired the licence to produce Monty Python titles. The first game will arrive on Facebook before other Monty Python titles on mobile devices and websites. A statement from Zattikka promised the game will be a homage to all …

The studio behind one of the PSP’s biggest recent releases has claimed that Sony’s portable machine was destined to fail from the very start. It was the first portable that Sony released – it’s a trial by fire,” Ru Weerasuriya, the co-founder of God of War: Ghost of Sparta developer …

Despite the poor performance from Tony Hawk’s Shred so far at retail, the key Christmas period could yet bring success to the title, Activision has claimed. Yesterday MCV reported that the game sold just 3,000 units in its first week on sale in the US, a number that represents a …

FIFA Superstars today went live on Chelsea Football Club’s official website, and Playfish has similar tie-ins lined up with at least eight other Premier League teams. The game was launched just before the World Cup and currently has 700,000 daily average users. Playfish is hoping to grow the audience "significantly" …

Last week, two of the biggest products of the year launched within 24 hours – and games retail certainly rose to the occasion. The High Street is accustomed to handling midnight openings and star-studded launch parties, but the timing of Black Ops’ and Kinect’s UK debuts triggered the busiest week in …

Recruitment event to be held next week

PS3 owners who have signed up to the PSN+ online service can download and play the Killzone 3 beta – for one day only. The beta allows gamers to experience the upcoming PS3 exclusive FPS before its February 2011 release. Sony made the following announcement on its European PlayStation Blog …

Platform holder looking for indie and mobile game developers

The latest release in the Assassin’s Creed saga – which is doing brilliantly with critics – has sparked off yet another price war on the UK High Street. The headline price comes from HMV, which is selling the game for just 2.99 when customers trade-in a copy of last week’s …

Foursquare and Spotify also victorious at annual mobile content gathering