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

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’. …

Sony Computer Entertainment America’s hardware marketing boss John Koller has stated that he believes the recent price drops to PS2 in the Europe and the US – though not in the UK – could see the PS2 eat into Wii’s market share. We do think the $99 price point could …

Catan and Rise of Nations developer sees headcount slashed in THQ cutbacks