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

Share valuations now peg Apple as the most valuable tech firm in the world

It’s one of the most bankable franchises in the world of entertainment, and such is EA’s faith in BioWare’s upcoming MMO Star Wars: the Old Republic that it has spent more on its development than any other game in its history. It is the largest R&D project EA has ever …

It was described as the franchise’s extension into the action-adventure genre” by Activision back in March, but a new job listing for developer Sledgehammer suggests that its mystery Call of Duty title could be more conventional than first thought. A job listing for Sledgehammer on Gamasutra, as spotted by Eurogamer, …

4mm wants to set up a development studio in the UK in a bid to become a ‘global digital publisher.’ The US publisher/developer – which is currently working on promising music game Def Jam Rapstar – set up a UK sales and marketing office last month, and has recruited industry …

Mindscape takes its first steps into the digital games space next month with the release of U-Sing: Girls’ Night. The karaoke title, which is released on June 18th, will arrive with the launch of the U-Sing Wii Store. This online service allows Wii owners to download new tracks that can be …

THQ expects upcoming title Big Beach Sports 2 to become one of the best-selling titles on the Wii. The game follows in the footsteps of 2008’s Big Beach Sports, and is the third title in THQ’s Big franchise after last year’s Big Family Games. The original Big Beach Sports became …

Andrew Smith discusses best, and worst, practice for generating game ideas

Developer Blizzard will use a one-off Battle.net activation as its way to safeguard upcoming release StarCraft II from piracy. It’s opted for this approach over the use of DRM as it believes both that fighting piracy is, in its words, a losing battle” and that its developers should not be …

Biz dev role at independent's 1UP publishing division for former MumboJumbo man

It’s a big ask, but it’s possible that Sony’s PS3 could just catch Xbox 360 in terms of total global sales by the end of the 2010 – that’s according to a new report from Strategy Analytics, as reported by Industry Gamers. It claims that as of Q1 2010, the …