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

Industry veteran Ian Hetherington now on the Northwest Vision & Media board

One of the biggest franchises in strategy gaming is turning its attentions to the world of social networks with news that the free-to-play Civilization Network is heading to Facebook some time next year. For all the details follow the link through to CasualGaming.biz.

iPhone is "attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia's innovation" says handset firm

Technology Strategy Board ready for new round of investment in digital firms

As retail prepares for tomorrow’s release of Pro Evolution Soccer 2010, Konami has pledged to support the title with free downloadable content going forwards. We really appreciate your help making the best PES yet and we hope you’ll continue to give us great feedback,” the game’s production team stated on …

Games retail has drawn up contingency plans ahead of strike action by Royal Mail staff, MCV can reveal. Disruption to delivery services has been affecting parts of the UK already, which has forced online specialists including Play, Amazon, Gameseek, ShopTo, SimplyGames, The Hut and Zoombits to source rival postal firms. …

Reports suggest that Sony has made numerous staff cuts at the dev studio behind popular PSN title Pain – a game which saw more downloads than any other on the PlayStation Store by Nov 2007. Head over to Develop for the full story.

Peter Molyneux confirms motion support for his studioâ??s Xbox 360 RPG

Viacom’s global kids entertainment network Nickelodeon has paid 5.9m to capture the worldwide rights to the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brand from The Mirage Group. The firm has pledged to continue working with many of the Turtles’ existing licensing partners, though question marks remain over the long-term future of …

Publishing rights to Russian studio 4A Games’ long-in-the-works Metro 2033 have been bought by THQ. The publisher will release the game on 360 and PC next year. Metro 2033 is based on a best-selling Russian novel by Dmitry Glukhovsky and is built with 4A’s cutting edge proprietary engine. For the …