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

Rumour reports on the web claim to spill the beans on part of Sony’s GDC announcements – five days before the format-holders’ keynote in San Francisco – saying that the PS3’s online offer will be updated into a MySpace/Second Life style hybrid called ‘PlayStation Home’.

LucasArts is working on a handheld game based on its new Clone Wars CG TV show, and its sister production studio at Lucasfilm Singapore has been expanded to handle the development.

Funcom plans to turn its Dreamfall series of games into an online-only episodic franchise and has secured a grant from the Norwegian Film Fund to support the project's R&D.

Tandem Events, the organiser of the Develop Conference and Expo in Brighton, has launched a series of careers fairs designed to bridge a gap between students and staff-hungry developers.

Martin de Ronde, co-founder of the studio that went on to become Sony's Amsterdam-based Guerrilla Games, has founded a charity-oriented games publisher.

Kuju's Brighton has rebranded itself just ahead of GDC, revealing the new name of Zoe Mode. But the new identity isn't represented by a logo: in a curious move, it is embodied by a person.

In this exclusive essay on user-generated content in games Develop executive editor Owain Bennallack examines how the internet might be the real winner of the format wars…

The internal technology teams at Sony Computer Entertainment have teamed up to deliver PlayStation 3 Edge, a new set of tools for developers working on the format-holder's new console.

Warren Spector's new studio Junction Point has forged a 'new creative deal' with publisher Vivdeni Games.

SCEE's developer-only event DevStation returns in May with a three-day conference targetting PlayStation 3 development, Develop can reveal.