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

Sony, Rockstar, Microsoft and Activision will go head-to-head at this year’s GAME British Academy Video Games Awards. BAFTA announced its full list of nominations last week ahead of the March 10th awards ceremony at the London Hilton on Park Lane. The event is being held in association with GAME and …

Research and analysis firm Parks Associates has predicted that the annual market value of the premium casual games business” will exceed $1bn by the year 2013. The boom will be fuelled by the fact that casual games and portals, the report claims, are increasingly seen as viable marketing and distribution …

Lightning Fish currently working on debut Wii title

Namco Bandai is to resurrect the Dead to Rights franchise with a new title for Xbox 360 and PS3 named Dead to Rights: Retribution. Framed in what is described as an intensely dark, dangerous and tragic narrative”, the game promises an innovative new hybrid combat system” including both melee and …

Nintendo has quietly announced a new controller for the Wii on its Japanese site called the Classic Controller Pro. On the face of it the device appears to be a standard Classic Controller with some sort of additional housing on the back, but the shift of the secondary shoulder button …

GamesAid, the UK games industry charity, today announced that it has raised over 125,000 since October 2008 through a number of industry-led initiatives, alongside the appointments of Andy Payne as Chairman and Sarah Seaby as Vice Chairman. Mark Ward from Bastion and Richard Stickler from Gem Distribution have also been …

Sony’s surprise announcement of a number of big-hitting PSP titles yesterday proves that it remains firmly committed to its portable platform – but one analyst has said that Apple could yet prove to be a fatal thorn in Sony’s side. Speaking to MCV’s sister site CasualGaming.biz today, Game Brief’s Nicholas …

Our look at the careers opportunities in the industry starts today

With the world bracing itself for turbulent times ahead in 2009, is it really the best time to be looking for a new job? Ed Fear caught up with the games industryâ??s recruitment agencies to divine their forecast for the year aheadâ?¦

Experienced director Kate Saxon offers tips on capturing quality dialogue