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

Categories for 2009 confirmed as lobbying opens ahead of July 15th ceremony

The Game Boy has seen off competition from the likes of Sega, Nokia, Neo Geo and Atari, and has made Tetris and Pokmon household names. Today, Nintendo may have dropped the Game Boy name, but its DS still holds the same principles and has managed to revolutionise the sector yet …

Publisher 505 Games is to release the latest title in its Mama brand, Gardening Mama, in the UK on May 1st. Available exclusively for the DS, the game sees Mama shun her traditional pans and fresh food in favour of crops and tools as players work to turn her plot …

Leading internet firm AOL has lifted the lid on its brand new casual games site FlytrapGames.com, which it hopes will tap into the ever-growing casual games community. The site is being run in conjunction with established games website Kikizo. It will cover everything from expansive downloadable titles to browser-based gaming …

Think Services accuses China Game Publishers Association of violating chinese anti-monopoly law

17,000 attendees converge in San Francisco for over 500 lectures and sessions

Activision Blizzard’s powerhouse franchise Call of Duty racked up yet another success at the weekend with the news that the recent downloadable map pack for World At War was downloaded over a million times in its opening weekend. The number includes all sales of the DLC on both Xbox Live …

Call for speakers still open to industry leaders

Publisher THQ has revealed that its upcoming FPS sequel Red Faction: Guerrilla will be released on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on June 9th in North America, according to Shacknews. No European date has been announced as of yet, though a June 12th release is now likely. Volition’s title once …

Sources have told MCV sister site Develop that a huge amount of layoffs have hit THQ’s Big Huge Games studio. Based in Baltimore, Maryland, Big Huge Games most recently made the Xbox Live Arcade title Catan, and was working with Elder Scrolls creator Ken Rolston on a ‘Big Huge RPG’. …