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

Japan’s physical video game market was up 14.8 per cent during the first half of 2017 after being valued at 153.2bn, according to the latest figures from Famitsu. This makes H1 2017 the biggest era of growth year-on-year in Japan for the first time since H1 2014. Unsurprisingly, the launch …

Gears of War Esports, the official organisers for all Gears of War esports events, has announced two brand-new summer tournaments, focused on grassroots players in North America and Europe. The North American tournament, the CMG Offseason Open, will run from August 5-6 and is being organised by Casual Misfits Gaming, …

Special cereomny held at BAFTA HQ on Saturday celebrates four young designers and industry mentors

Netflix’s anime adaptation of cult game series Castlevania will return for a second series. Deadline reports that the Wow! Unlimited Media’s Frederator Studios production will see its run time upped to eight episodes next time out, having been limited to just four episodes for the existing series. Season One stars …

Games industry analyst Michael Pachter has predicted that Sony will not release the PS5 until 2019 or 2020 – and is right to do so. Speaking to GamingBolt, Pachter argued that this timing makes more sense than Microsoft’s decision to release the 4K-centric Xbox One X later this year, as …

SK Gaming have continued their run of dominant performances with their third big offline win this month, sweeping Cloud9 3-0 to win their second ESL One Cologne tournament in a row.  SK have been competing in Europe for the past month, winning first the Dreamhack Open in Jönköping, Sweden and …

The For Honor leaves to be director of design for the Guild Wars 2 developer

Singer Dion DiMucci is taking Bethesda to court over the use of his song ‘The Wanderer’ in an ad for Fallout 4. Kotaku reports that DiMucci believes the game depicts repugnant and morally indefensible images” of violence that offer no redeeming value”. As a result, he has taken exception to …

The Killzone director leaves the Horizon Zero Dawn developer after 12 years

Nostalgic platforming remake Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy is the UK’s No.1 for the second week in a row. Activision’s title remains immovable despite week two sales dropping by over three quarters. In doing so it becomes the first PS4 exclusive to hold onto successive chart top spots since Uncharted 4 …