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

Writing about HMV is a welcome change to all the doom and gloom surrounding retail at the moment. Their profits? Up. Their store count? Increasing. Whereas the rest of retail talks of consolidation and decline, HMV is enjoying expansion and growth. And the reason for this success? Well, the loss …

Video games will play a major part in HMV’s ambition to become an ‘entertainment superbrand.’ The firm wants to be seen as more than just a retailer, and already sells music tickets, owns music venues and cinemas. And during its entertainment conference last week, the retailer called upon the games …

EA Sports has announced a major deal with the English Premier League that will promote the brand throughout televised matches – and deliver extra content for future FIFA games. It has become the EPL’s Official Sports Technology Partner and will be creating the EA Sports Player Performance Index, to be …

All Argos stores will offer a video game trade-in service from Saturday July 24th. The pre-owned offer coincides with the launch of the firm’s 74th Argos catalogue. Customers will have the chance to trade in around 250 different titles for Argos gift cards that can be spent on any product …

A standard edition of popular PS3 RPG Demon’s Souls has been confirmed by Namco Bandai, and will hit stores on August 20th. The publisher released the UK version of the game last month in limited numbers. It was only available as a ‘Black Phantom Edition’ with a CD soundtrack, art …

The Daily Star journalist who penned yesterday’s story claiming that a Grand Theft Auto game based around the recent Rothbury shootings is in the works has stated that he’s surprised by the reaction to the piece. Furthermore, speaking on his Facebook page Lawton chose to make a further dig at …

When Xbox Live first made the move to PC, cross-platform play between Xbox 360 and PC gamers was very much central to Microsoft’s ambitions. So why is Shadowrun still the only high-profile game to offer the functionality. There was a project that got killed at Microsoft,” Voodoo PC founder and …

The upcoming Sly Cooper Collection could be the first 3D game on PS3 to include a software ‘slider’ that would allow the user to control the amount of 3D effect applied to the graphics. A Sony producer told Kotaku that such a feature would prevent a user having to position …

After a successful couple of years at Camden’s Jongleurs, the games media’s big night out is moving upmarket – but will still stop short of being ‘formal’. Now at The Bloomsbury Ballroom in London, the event will be able to accommodate a larger audience, meaning more journalists and industry guests. …

Publisher Ubisoft has confirmed that Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2 will be released in the UK on September 3rd. The first title in the genre-defying Tom Clancy series was by many accounts a surprise hit for Ubisoft, successfully fending off the advances of a number of other more established IP in …