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

Last week's Game Connection event in Lyon saw its biggest turnout ever – over 600 development executives attended to forge deals with publishers and service providers.

Finalists have been announced for the ninth Independent Games Festival, which takes place in March next year as part of GDC 07.

Red 5, the US studio put together by former developers of World of Warcraft, has been boosted with a $18.5m investment injection from Benchmark Capital and Sierra Ventures.

Sentinel Studios, a new five-man games development team, has been opened in the US by the former bosses of Ubisoft's Sinister Games and independent Vicious Cycle.

After a successful beta, Microsoft's indie development tool Game Studio Express has hit public release, with XNA Creators Club, Garage Games' Torque X beta and a design competition launching, too.

The Casual Games part of 2007's Game Developers Conference has been expanded to two days.

Valve, creators of Half-Life and owners of the Steam distribution network, has said that the  addition of in-game advertisements to its Counter-Strike game could help fund new game mods.

MotorStorm developer Evolution is already thinking about the next PlayStation, with CEO Martin Kenwright predicting that the games development business model will be radically different once the PS4 appears.

Realtime Worlds, the UK development outfit established by the creator of Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto, has received a USD31 million cash injection.

Cult TV and movie franchise Firefly is to be turned into an online adventure game by MMO tech firm Multiverse - and the company is now scouting for a studio to handle production.