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

Regardless of whether you’re a fan or a critics of last week’s Byron Report into the effects of violence in games, there’s no denying that the document is one of the most important moments ever for the UK games industry. MCV has published its complete interview with the Report’s author …

Codemasters Online will be bringing a range of Mumbo Jumbo’s casual games to European retail. The deal kicks off with an initial catalogue of ten, all available from the 25th April. The range, set for release under the Funsta label, and will include worldwide titles like LUXOR and 7 Wonders …

Do you have any fear that continuing with two ratings systems has the potential to confuse parents? No – because I’ve made some changes to the statutory bits, but also to the consumer-facing element. That’s the bit that stops parents making the right decision at the moment. As far as …

Analyst Daniel Ernst of Hudson Square Research has predicted that following its runaway success in 2007, sale of Nintendo’s Wii will amount to more than those of Xbox 360 and PS3 combined in the next year. GameDaily reports that the firms predicts global sales for each console in 2008 to …

Our friends at Atari have always been a generous bunch, and in celebration of newly released The Sun Crossword Challenge, is offering gamers the chance to win one of five copies of Beautiful Katamari on the Xbox 360. To be in with a chance to win the cult video game, …

EA-owned development studio Pandemic has confirmed that Mercenaries 2: World in Flames will be released on September 5th for PC, PS3, PS2 and Xbox 360. The developer announced the date through GameSpot, following a trailer that revealed a US launch date of August 31st. The game, which follows the misadventures …

Although reports on the web say that Nokia is still holding back on an official announcement until Monday, the Finnish phone firm has finally launched its N-Gage games service. Sister site Develop has the full story – head over there for details.

Rockstar’s GTAIV may have survived its BBFC classification unscathed in this country, but the upcoming game has been cut prior to its release in Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. No details have been released about what aspects of the game were removed, though the BBFC’s recent report about the …

Official announcement is still due, but N-series phone users can now access Nokia's game service

George Lucas’s gaming arm LucasArts has confirmed that its massively hyped and much anticipated Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be released on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP and PS2 on September 19th in Europe, CVG reports. It will hit stores a few days earlier in North America on …