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

Employees of Empire Interactive are experiencing ‘dreadful circumstances’ as the company drags its feet over confirming their fate. MCV broke the news on Friday that the firm had fallen into administration, and that all staff are expected to be made redundant this week. One employee told us: On Friday, MCV …

Former Take Two and Capcom man to lead Scottish studio

Retiring PlayStation Europe boss was unaware of Scottish studioâ??s existence until last week

Ex-Zavvi head of games Patrick Kelly joined Play.com this week, and is already planning new ways to grow the firm’s games offer. Prior to joining Zavvi, Kelly had worked in games for Virgin Retail, and now replaces Gian Luzio at Play.com. Luzio joined The Hut as product director earlier this …

In the interests of fairness, we should also invite Microsoft, Gamestation Birmingham New Street, Rockstar North, HMV, Centresoft, Sony, Play.com and the managers of GAME Oxford Street to take a few bouquets. Winning at the MCV Awards is a huge achievement. Fighting through to become a Finalist and then gain …

PC unit releases odours â?? from â??fired gunâ?? to â??burnt tyreâ?? â?? when triggered by in-game events

inFamous, one of Sony’s major 2009 PS3-exclusive releases, will arrive at UK retail on May 29th, MCV can confirm. Developed by Sucker Punch, inFamous takes a similar approach to the free-roaming sandbox Grand Theft Auto mechanic as was seen in Realtime Worlds’ Crackdown – granting the player super-human abilities with …

The benefits of freely downloadable DLC have been demonstrated this week by the re-entry of Valve’s Left 4 Dead in the ELSPA GfK-ChartTrack All Formats Top 40 just days after the developer released hyped new DLC for the title. Last week saw the release of the Survival pack, a free …

Wii Fit is this week enjoying its fourth straight week at the top of the ELSPA GfK-ChartTrack All Formats Top 40 this week, taking its total tally of number ones to 13. In capturing the crown yet again it successfully fends off Atari’s The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena, which …

What has led Majesco to go direct?We’ve got the best ever line-up of games in our current portfolio in terms of breadth, quality and potential. We felt it was time for us to be completely responsible for those from day one – I think 100 per cent focus is the …