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

Half-Life 2 creator Valve and small indie outfit Turtle Rock have signed a deal to produce a  new shooter the two say will do for co-op gaming what Counter-Strike did for versus games.

Seattle-based Gastronaut's latest Xbox Live Arcade game debuts on Wednesday, and the team has put thsemselves at the centre of a special achievement designed to encourage users to engage in multiplayer skirmishes.

A gang of indie developers have bandied together for a multi-blog-spanning project that offers advice to aspiring games makers.

Swedish games developer conference Nordic Game has set its date for 2007, moving forward from its traditional September timing to May.

Side UK's music specialist team Bob and Barn have launched a SoundForge plug-in co-produced with Cambridge University that they say saves hundreds of man hours during games production.

Games industry royalty-auditing company Media Forensics is expanding, offering its finance services to US independent studios.

Publisher Activision has expanded its in-house development tools with the purchase of an Oxford Metrics Group mocap system.

If you thought that  Virtual Console, XBLA or Sony's PlayStation Store were the only way to get casual games on a games machine, think again - new site WiiCade has opened to get browser-based games working on Nintendo's new home console.

Square Enix's European CEO John Yamamoto has praised European developers' multi-format skills and suggested that the company could follow Sega's lead in acquiring local teams.

Today sees the launch of 1 Game Agent, a London-based talent agency for the world's game developers - and Sensible Soccer creator Jon Hare (pictured) is the team's first signing.