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

After its planed reveal for today was scuppered by internet leaks over the weekend, Sony’s LittleBigPlanet 2 has at last been officially unveiled. Whereas the first game saw users designing individual levels within the title’s platform-based games universe, LBP2 gives users a whole new level of creative freedom and the …

Sales of brand new boxed games on the High Street now account for just 54 per cent of the overall video games market according to a new study entitled the Newzoo Games Market Report. The remaining 46 per cent, it claims, is accounted for by sales of pre-owned games, DLC, …

Codemasters is embroiled in a legal dispute with rival local racing studio Playground Games. The Dirt 2 outfit accuses Playground Games of hiring key Codemasters staff, and thus, trade secrets. Playground Games opened at the start of 2010, having been established by former Codemasters CEO Nicholas Wheelwright. Now Codemasters claims …

Facebook has lost a substantial amount of its game users since altering its notification system, with FarmVille alone recording a dip of 4.4 million players. Gamasutra first reported the story, noting that 18 of the top 25 Facebook games lost players in April – with 12 of those games losing …

Alleged wife of ex-Derby staffer says wage and redundancy pay promises haven't been met

Latest edition has been mailed to subscribers and is now available to read online

Publisher Namco Bandai has reported a $312m loss for the fiscal year ending March 31st 2010, a sharp dip from the $126m profit reported in the year before. Revenues hit $4.1bn, down 11 per cent year-on-year. Its video games operations saw revenues of $1.5bn but suffered an operating loss of …

Notification changes cause gamers to flock away from social network site

Gamers can now for the first time trade in their digitally downloaded titles with the official, albeit slightly delayed, launch of Green Man Gaming’s ecommerce portal. The service arrives with 500 games from 26 publishers. Current offers include Broken Sword 3 for 3.99, Ninja Blade for 19.99 and the award-winning …

Dirt 2 group says Playground Games has poached key staff with knowledge of trade secrets