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

EA UK may be closing its NW studio, but Vivendi-owned Birmingham-based Swordfish could help those left in the region without a job as it opens a new office in Manchester, Develop can reveal.

Autodesk has lined up a number of notable computer graphics masterminds to speak at the London leg of its 3December event, which takes place on December 4th.

Ageia, the company behind physics middleware and hardware PhysX has changed its licence agreements - allowing developers to use the tool in commercial PC games for free.

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.