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

A daring and contentious budget speech by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling was punctuated with an interesting promise: the UK economy is set to grow at the start of next year. Speaking in the Commons, Darling said that GDP will grow 1.25 per cent by 2010 and climb …

500 million online games since June last year, as FIFA and NFL each clock over 2.4 million registered users

Value retail chain Poundland has today announced that it has purchased 12 ex-Woolworths stores. One hundred former Woolies staff have been taken on by the firm following the buy, which forms part of Poundland’s planned expansion. The retailer is committed to opening at least 30 new stores in the UK …

Not long after Amazon shook up the games retail world by introducing Xbox Live Arcade download codes through its North American portal, the retailer has now started selling WiiWare games online. CasualGaming.biz has the full story – click here to have a read.

As part of its full year financial results posting earlier today, retailer GAME has dished out the numbers on UK lifetime sales of all today’s gaming platforms. It’s the DS that leads the pack, unsurprisingly, with total lifetime sales of 8.8m units. Next in line is its home console cousin …

Former Project Gotham dev reportedly working on the Mario Kart-like Blur

French magazine Joypad has seemingly got the first word on Bizarre Creations’ top secret new racing IP – a combat-based arcade outing entitled Blur. Bizarre is the studio behind Microsoft’s successful Project Gotham Racing series, but having been acquired by Activision Blizzard in 2007 (and with the Gotham IP returning …

Key networking event set for June 18th at London's Sway bar

The games industry’s charity is hoping to raise both its profile and much-needed funds at this week’s MCV Awards in London. Up for grabs are a PlayStation 3 with SingStar Queen, a Nintendo DSi console, a Logitech Pure-Fi Dream speaker dock, a Logitech HD Powerline kit and 500Gb media server …

Maxis co-founder clarifies his relationship with EA following his sudden exodus