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

Developer Cryptic Studios and publisher Atari have announced that PC MMO title Champions Online is to become a free-to-play title from Q1 2011. The game currently requires users to pay for a monthly subscription. Once the change is made gamers will be able to download the title and get going …

Retailer GAME has revealed concrete details of its official Fable III launch event to be held at its flagship Oxford Street store in London this Thursday (October 28th). The first person in the queue will receive a hand-painted Fable III Xbox 360 console as well as a Limited Collector’s Edition …

Atari MMO becomes the latest title to ditch subscription charges

While Microsoft has remained tight-lipped about when Windows 8 will be unveiled, the software giant’s Netherlands team appears to have let the cat out of the bag by posting a blog that suggests a late 2012 release date. According to a translated version of the Dutch language blog, which has …

Considering that it will in a few months be launching the world’s first dedicated 3D games console, Nintendo will probably be pleased to see that its brands top the list of titles that gamers want to see given the 3D treatment. 3DRadar reports that a Japanese survey from Goo Ranking …

Special £50 rate for vacancy listings to run out this Friday

It has emerged that Apple CEO Steve Jobs was furious to lose Mac-loving Bungie to Microsoft back when Halo was an unknown quantity. Ed Fries, the former vice president of game publishing at Microsoft, and the man central to Microsoft’s acquisition of Rare and Bungie, told sister site Develop he …

Developers are free to choose between joypad and camera in upcoming 360 titles

First party developers for the Xbox 360 have not been told that they must use Kinect in all future titles, the platform holder has insisted. However, the company does remain hopeful that once the possibilities created by Kinect have become apparent, more devs will choose it as an option for …

Italian Videogame Developer Conference expands events list beyond December proceedings