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

Senior VP of game design at WoW developer to be quizzed about the future of the studio

Bill Gates announced last week that Microsoft – which he founded and is chairman of – will invest some $147m on growing its business in South Korea. And some of the money will be spent on building a games development studio there, he added. AFP reports that Gates pledged to …

Independent retailers across the UK are finding refuge online, in order to offset pressure from supermarket price cutting, digital downloads and piracy. Alongside an increased online presence, many independents are focusing on their customer service, their range of retro software and console repair services, allowing them to grow in the …

Our in-depth article looks at how Bright Light has torn up the corporate rule book

GAMESCom organisers insist that the German games fair fits in with the trade’s preparations for Christmas, despite criticism over its timing. Earlier in the year the German trade association Bundesverband Interaktive Unterhaltungssoftware (BIU) and Cologne’s trade fair business Koelnmesse announced that GAMESCom will kick off in September 2009, which drew …

Two thirds of women with access to the internet play casual games, according to a new survey – however, despite the financial potential this emerging sector remains largely untapped. While 70 per cent of women who are aged between 16 and 45 and live in households connected to the internet …

Develop visits EAâ??s Guildford-based Bright Light studio to learn out about its journey to create a new casual kids franchise, and why the team has torn up the rulebook on the wayâ?¦

North American retailer GameStop has revealed to Newsweek’s Level Up blog that 64 per cent of its first-week GTA IV allocation was sold on Xbox 360. However, in a phone conversation with Newsweek, PlayStation’s senior vice president of Marketing Peter Dille has claimed that the PS3 consumer is ‘overindexing’ on …

Activision has announced that a new iteration of its classic Pifall franchise will be released on Wii in the autumn. Pitfall: The Big Adventure is in development at Activision studio Edge of Reality. Pitfall is one of the most legendary franchises in the history of videogames, so we look forward …

Sorry, Ubisoft Montreal: our monthly developer chart crowns Nintendo king once again