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

The shortlist for BAFTA’s Young Game Designer competition is now online. Ten finalists have been selected for each of the four main categories, and the winners will be announced on July 8th at a special ceremony at BAFTA HQ in London. Now in its sixth edition, this year’s competition, which …

Developer Arkane has explained the motivations that saw it offer a playable female lead in its recent release Dishonored 2. Speaking to Anita Sarkeesian in an interview for Engadget, co-creative director Harvey Smith responded to criticism of the first game’s handling of female stereotypes. Your comment, which I’ll always remember …

Yahoo Esports is shutting its doors this Friday, on June 16th, as Verizon brings Yahoo and AOL together in a merger, mashing the two former internet giants together into a new company, Oath.  It seems that in the restructure, Yahoo Esports didn’t make the cut, with Travis Gafford writing: “Unfortunately, …

It looks as if the rumours that Beyond Good & Evil 2 will be exclusive to the Nintendo Switch were unfounded. Speaking on Instagram, of all places, the game’s creative director Michel Ancel said that the title was not a Switch exclusive as far as I know”. Admittedly this is …

Sony may have had a great showing at this year’s E3, but for SuperData’s Joost van Dreunen, it was Ubisoft who "stole the show." Ubisoft had "a top-notch release slate that combines corporate and creative courage," van Dreunen told MCV. He also praised Ubisoft partnering with Nintendo for its Switch …

PlayStation platform holder Sony has said that the Xbox One X’s power advantage over PS4 Pro will likely not be as evident as some suspect. The current high-end PS4 Pro boasts an eight core 2.1GHz CPU, a GPU with 36 911MHz compute units and 8GB of GDDR5 RAM. The Xbox …

We knew it was coming, but somehow Ubisoft still managed to surprise us. No, we’re not talking about Beyond Good and Evil 2 (although let’s just pause for a moment and luxuriate in that tremendous trailer again); we’re talking about Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle.  We’ll admit, even our resident Nintendo evangelist …

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has bitten in what is almost approaching a war of words in the crossplatform multiplayer dispute. An upcoming update to Minecraft will introduce online multiplayer across PC, Xbox, mobile and Nintendo, but not PS4. The same is true of Rocket League, whose upcoming Nintendo Switch version …

Is it miscommunication, strategy or is it a genuine concern that cross-play will be a danger to players?

Analysts might not have made up their minds about Microsoft’s Xbox One X reveal at this year’s E3, but most seem to be in agreement that Sony showed a much stronger hand of exclusives and upcoming releases. Yesterday, IHS Markit’s Piers Harding-Rolls predicted that, given the current momentum of Sony’s …