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

The flood of FIFA games released this year means FIFA 11 could attract the largest audience in the series’ history. In addition to strong sales of FIFA 10, the brand has benefited from the release of 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, Facebook game FIFA Superstars and the PC-only FIFA Online. …

Announcement expected next week as sale is finalised; impact on jobs remains unclear

Forget Call of Duty or FIFA – Halo: Reach could be this year’s biggest video game. And to help it along its way, Microsoft is putting more of its marketing spend behind Reach than it did for 2007’s Halo 3. A huge mainstream marketing campaign will see the title promoted …

Rhode Island hedges bets with $24m loan pay transferred to a special debt reserve

The trade will be treated to a good old fashioned format war next week when Sony steps into the motion controller ring – toe-to-toe with Nintendo, and two months before Microsoft’s Kinect debuts. It’s been a long time coming. For ages the Wii’s controller has been its unchallenged point of …

Incubator Scheme to give graduates their first start-up experience; separate placement programmes on the way

The reviews are in and new IP RUSE has been given a thumbs up by the critics. Eurogamer, Edge, Videogamer IGN and GamesTM have all given the title an 8 out of 10, while CVG has given the game an 8.3. The highest score came from Gamesmaster, which awarded the …

US online publisher THQ*ICE has closed. The firm was a collaboration between THQ and Shanghai-based I.C.E Entertainment to handle MMO Dragonica Online. It was formed in September 2008. According to Gamasutra, THQ sold its interest back to ICE in March 2010, and now ICE has ended its US operations entirely. …

Apple has released the iOS 4.1 firmware upgrade for iPhone owners giving them access to Game Center. The Xbox Live-rivalling service allows users to invite friends to play games together, track and unlock achievements as well as compare high scores on the leader boards. So far reception for Game Center …

New online retailer Gametail is already preparing aggressive expansion across the continent – just a week after making waves with cut-price promotions Gametail generated a lot of buzz this week with one-day-only bargain deals (including Halo: Reach for 31.99) used to trail its brand before official opening. The company doesn’t …