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

The App Farm reports nine per cent global conversion rate

Although there has been plentiful speculation about O2 losing its iPhone exclusivity over the last few weeks, MCV’s sister site Mobile Entertainment has seen documentation that states it will end officially on October 9th. Orange and T-Mobile have been linked heavily with iPhone over the summer, and both networks already …

Developer axes 15 staff as work on engine building concludes

Whilst it was the Wii, thanks to the success of EA Sports Active, that really shone for EA in its latest fiscal quarter, just as big a surprise is the fact that the publisher’s PS3 returns far outstripped those coming from Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Wii revenues lead the charge at …

Proving that third parties can still succeed on Nintendo platforms, EA has revealed that its EA Sports Active has to date sold 1.8m copies worldwide. Its success has not only validated EA’s earlier statement of intent to increase its focus on Nintendo’s home platform but also propelled the company to …

Namco Bandai is increasing its efforts on iPhone, promising to announce a new title every week in order to be a part of the format’s ongoing gold rush”. The publisher has hired Jonathon Kromrey, a former iPod and iPhone games producer and designer at Apple, to lead its own development …

Co-founder of The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde, has announced via his blog that he is to leave the file-sharing portal. Sunde has been the spokesperson for the website, and is currently facing a year in prison for infringing copyright – although this conviction is under appeal. The departure could allow …

What’s new for this year’s Festival?We’re in a new venue this year, the Corn Exchange. It’s certainly going to be funkier than in the past. It has nice features and we’re trying it out. It has the same benefits for attendees, but might be even more fun. Also, this is …

I read with interest your cover story last week (‘Can recession end price war?’ MCV 24/7). It was an interesting take on things, and appears to make sense: as games retailers’ margins become more and more squeezed, and Argos leads the way by putting up its prices, many more of …

Following its recent financial posting, publisher EA has confirmed that The Sims 3, which was released in June, has now sold 3.7m copies worldwide, becoming the company’s top selling title in both North America and Europe for the three months ending June 30th. CasualGaming.biz has the full story – click …