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

Flash-based games portal sold for an undisclosed sum

In what can only be described as a hugely significant move, video games retailer GameStop has acquired leading online Flash games portal Kongregate. The website boasts in the region of 10m users and is one of the most important players in the increasingly significant casual games sector. Kongregate will now …

Read the full letter by Demiurge Studios CEO William Reed

Curt Schilling gets approval for huge loan if he moves to Rhode Island, but locals urge him to stay

With developer relations remaining very much a touchy issue at Activision for the time being, Blizzard Entertainment’s VP and executive MD of internal operations Michael Ryder has told MCV that the merger between former owner Vivendi and Activision hasn’t made any difference to Blizzard’s internal workings. Since we had our …

THQ says the runaway success of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption’s damaged sales of its brawler UFC 2010. The 2009 edition of UFC was a smash hit, debuting at the top of the All Formats Charts and even receiving a nomination for Sales Triumph in this year’s MCV Awards. So expectations were high …

Michael Jackson: The Experience will be Ubisoft’s latest million-selling sensation, the publisher has told MCV. Speaking in an exclusive interview with MCV, UK MD Rob Cooper says the firm was approached by Michael Jackson himself – long before his death – to create a game based on his iconic dance …

Academic-focused event ProtoTeach to run alongside ProtoPlay

According to latest ABC figures, ToyNews published an average of 6,043 copies every month between July 1st 2009 and June 30th 2010. Nearest rival Toys n Playthings published only 5,215 copies per month during the same period. This means that the ToyNews monthly circulation is nearly 16 per cent higher …

The bad news just keeps coming for Apple. The US Government has ruled that owners of the iPhone are legally able to ‘jailbreak’ their phones, a process that allows then to run unvalidated code of the machines. Owners usually jailbreak iPhones so to run programs not obtained via iTunes. This …