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

Best Buy’s arrival in the UK comes at an ideal moment. The UK’s market value is in the gutter – albeit temporarily – driven down by a mix of a weak release schedule, post-recession caution, a lack of new hardware and the distraction of an election. Games’ heartland UK retailer …

Local winner goes head to head in European public vote for a share of the â?¬1 million prize fund

Realtime World’s MMO APB will hit retailers across Europe on July 2nd, the studio has announced. That’s just a few days after the game hits the US, where it lands on June 29th. The PC game is being distributed by EA and will be into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian …

It’s a solid business deal with one of the most reputable developers in the industry, but the announcement of Activision and Bungie’s ten-year agreement is (almost) as much about PR as it is about profits. Nonetheless, analyst Michael Pachter doesn’t believe the news is enough to completely counter the negative …

CEO Wilson says itâ??s easy for games to qualify as culturally British

With games tax relief nearly secure, Richard Wilson explores the next steps

Microsoft has shelved plans to launch a folding, two-screen touch-screen device, known as Courier. The highly anticipated product has been much discussed in tech blogs and news outlets in recent months. The two-screen tablet was to incorporate touch-screen and pen-based controls. And although Microsoft has never confirmed the existence of …

The games industry will get hands-on time with key games at October’s Eurogamer Expo during a preview that’s closed off to the public. Organisers of the three-day event have also added a special two-hour preview to the show. Eurogamer Expo runs from October 1st to 3rd at Earls Court, but …

Arguably the biggest aspect to Bungie’s deal with Activision today isn’t that the Halo-creator has signed with the publisher embroiled in an ugly legal spat over treatment of its studios. No, it’s the fact that the once Xbox-exclusive studio has changed focus to a new IP that will be released …

As part of its exclusivity agreement with Bungie, Activision will be funding the development of the new IP in question and could make as much as $65m from the first game to be released. That’s the prediction of – yes, you guessed it – Michael Pachter, who claims that Bungie …