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

This year’s TIGA Awards will take place at the Haymarket Hotel in London on January 30th – and organisers promise it will be bigger and more prestigious than ever before. TIGA, the independent games developer association, has expanded the voting categories to bring in two new trophies – Best Technology …

Online game store Gameseek is offering a massive selection of games available for download – including a number of triple A titles – following a deal with digital distribution service Metaboli. Hundreds of PC titles are available on the new games-on-demand service, including very recent hit titles such as Colin …

Epic Games, the developer of recent PC release and upcoming PS3 (and at some stage Xbox 360) title Unreal Tournament 3 has revealed that it is to release a patch that will allow PS3 gamers to access content constructed with the PC version’s game editor. And the hurdle of getting …

Though it only has ten remaining stores in North America, Virgin Megastores has announced Q4 growth of 11.5 per cent in the territory compared to the same period in the year before. Video game sales increased by 111.9 per cent, ahead of the 18.1 per cent rise in DVD sales …

French publisher Ubisoft has announced that its upcoming FPS Far Cry 2 will not be a PC exclusive, and will also be released on Xbox 360 and PS3 as well. The original title was a pioneering PC outing in its day, blending FPS action and free-roaming, free-thinking gameplay to offer …

Following a troubled period for Microsoft’s gaming network Xbox Live that saw many users’ service disrupted over the traditionally gamer-friendly Christmas period, Microsoft has stated that it is to offer a free Arcade game to all subscribers. The announcement, which was made through Major Nelson’s blog, stated: During this past …

SPECIAL REPORT: Leading UK developers urge authorities to act in providing further industry support

Gore Verbinski set for keynote address at February event

Microsoft has revealed a new set of figures following a bumper festive period, according to Reuters . As well as reaching the 17.7m mark in terms of worldwide console sales, the platform holder confirmed that it has shifted 4.3m units in the last three months. On top of the hardware …

Late last year Microsoft announced a new XNA AI competition Silicon Minds, which offers contestants the chance to win an internship at Lionhead, Rare, or Microsofot's Research Labs team in Cambridge. We spoke to Microsoft Research Labs' Joaquin Quiñonero Candela to find out more�