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

SK Gaming triumphed over Virtus.Pro to be crowned victors of EPICENTER 2017 at the grand finals in St. Petersburg, Russia. SK has been a dominant force this year, with the EPICENTER win being the team’s sixth championship win of 2017. They played with a stand-in, Ricardo ‘boltz’ Prass, but were …

Retailer GameStop has sort of just become a Blockbuster for games. Kotaku reports that its new PowerPass program offers a six-month membership program for $60. Once signed up, members can pick up games from the retailer’s pre-owned library and play them for as long as they want. There’s no limit …

The company raised their initial 65 bn Yen estimate to 120 bn Yen following a boost in console production.

Psychological adventure title Hellblade has sold in stronger numbers than its developer expected. The Ninja Theory game, which came out in August, offered an atmospheric tale framed by an interesting depiction of severe mental health issues. It was, of course, also a single player game – which is especially pertinent. …

Astralis has signed a deal with C7 Brands that will name C7 as Astralis’ official hydration partner. C7 Brands have said they’ll be providing Coco Fuzion 100, a carbonated coconut water to the team. Coco Fuzion is the UK’s first carbonated coconut water, and are looking to leap into the …

Nintendo has again increased its sales forecast for the Switch. The company had expected to sell 10m consoles in its current financial year. It now expects that number to be more like 14m. The console itself has now sold 7.6m units – that means that in six months it has …

Image credit: Clément Alloing Airbus, a european company that designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aircraft, has unexpectedly returned to esports, announcing their sponsorship of new League of Legends team Out Of The Blue. There’s no information on the sponsorship and what that entails yet, as the news broke on Friday …

Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed Origins has prevailed in the battle with Super Mario Odyssey to claim No.1 in this week’s UK charts. Origins’ week one sales are about level with 2015’s AC Syndicate, although revenues are higher thanks to the addition of some higher-price SKUs. Mario Odyssey comfortably beats the week …

Publisher EA has challenged the narrative that it cancelled Visceral’s Star Wars game because it was a single-player experience. Speaking to Kotaku in a wide-ranging peace about the development struggles endured by the title, executive vice president Patrick Söderlund said: “This truly isn’t about the death of single-player games — …

As part of our series of articles with Sumo Digital, creative director Sean Millard went to San Jose and Oculus Connect 4 to see how VR fits in to Sumo Digital's future