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

A study by The Nielsen Company – which was commissioned by EA – claims that a recent Gatorade promotion run in conjunction with EA Sports saw an average increase in household spend on the product of 24 per cent. The report isolated households that had purchased either NHL 09/10, NBA …

Keen Nintendo enthusiasts will be pleased with the latest addition to the UK arm of the Club Nintendo store – a Wii compatible version of the SNES joypad. A variant on the already available Classic Controller, the peripheral first made an appearance on the Japanese version of the Club Nintendo …

Studio reveals the challenges in expanding a boutique title into a AAA blockbuster

Nintendo has revealed that it is to launch three new colour variants of the DSI XL in the UK. On the way are yellow, green and blue versions of the XL-sized handheld, all of which will be launched on October 8th. These join the already available wine red and dark …

Epic Games’ first foray into the App Store business has returned some positive numbers. The company’s vice president Mark Rein has revealed that Epic Citadel – the group’s debut iPhone and iPad app – has been downloaded over a million times. Epic Citadel is a public tech demo of the …

New video games trade-in site GaBoom enjoyed a welcome piece of mainstream TV coverage last night when founder Jess Ratcliffe appeared on BBC2 show Dragons’ Den in an effort to secure investment in the website. GaBoom.co.uk first emerged in July. The site offers users the chance to swap their used …

Halo studio Bungie is edging into production on new internal tech for its next ten-year Activision project, the studio has confirmed. Studio communications manager Brian Jarrard revealed in an interview with Develop the studio will not be licensing a third-party engine to develop its new game, despite Activision’s relaxed rules …

Publisher Square Enix has revealed that Call of Duty: Black Ops, a title it is publishing in Japan, will see some of the violence featured in the Western release cut out. More specifically, the game will omit the inclusion of any limbs being blown off characters, a feature that Japanese …

The Unreal Engine flaunts its power on iPhone and iPad

A fresh question mark hangs over the viability of the pre-owned software market this morning after a ruling in the US Court of Appeal upheld a developer’s right to prevent the resale of its software. Gamasutra reports that Autodesk has successfully won a case in which defendant Timothy Vernor had …