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

Recent actions from EA, Sony and Codemasters to deter pre-owned sales will not work, says GameStop. All three publishers are offering free DLC to those that buy their titles brand new. Games involved in the scheme includes Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, Race Driver GRID: Reloaded and SOCOM. If a …

The development sector’s growing reliance on public betas has made a significant – and often troublesome – impact on the development process, according to a panel of industry experts. Publishers are more commonly offering the public a chance to play early builds of titles such as Halo 3 and LittleBigPlanet, …

The release of Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City on PS3 and PC has been delayed by two weeks from March 30th to April 16th. Rockstar said on its blog that a last minute change was made by Sony to edit in-game content, including the Liberty City radio station, …

Sony, Ubisoft, Nvidia and Gaikai head for Los Angeles event

GAME plans to seriously beef up its digital strategy in 2010, MCV understands. The High Street games retailer this week launched the GAME Moonbase on PlayStation Home – the first part of a new push to reach download-savvy consumers. The Moonbase is a virtual area that features mini-games, meeting places, …

Rental giant Blockbuster is looking to sell off its entire international business, including its 650-store UK operation. MCV understands that the retailer is in negotiations with landlords to reduce its store count to make it more appealing to potential buyers – placing some of its 5,000 UK employees at risk. …

Both use a main wand and an auxiliary joystick-equipped controller and both claim to track precise body movements, but Sega’s North American and European president and COO Mike Hayes has asked questions of the comparisons being drawn between PlayStation Move and Wii. Yes, I think that is unfair,” he told …

Valve believes the upcoming launch of Steam for Mac is "the biggest event in Steam’s history since the service was first launched". Speaking to Joystiq, John Cook, director of Steam development at Valve, said, "There are several people involved, from the UI team working on Mac support in the Steam …

Social network parody scoops South By Southwest gong for Best Game

Vaizey, Cecil, Farley and Oâ??Lunaigh set for key industry event