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

Hi-Rez has announced a Paladins “Console Wars” competition that is due to take place at DreamHack Valencia.  The competition will pit the best Xbox One and PS4 Paladins teams against each other, as they compete for a share of the $50,000 prize pool. The Xbox finals will take place first …

Car care company Turtle Wax has announced it has extended its sponsorship of OpTic Gaming.  The deal was originally formed back in early 2016 and has seen the two companies work together on content, and of course keep the cars of the OpTic stars looking fresh. The expansion will see …

The World Esports Association has announced a new set of rules for its competitions that restrict one company owning or having a financial stake in multiple teams in the league.  A statement released by WESA states that “no team is permitted to be completely or partially owned or controlled by …

Here’s a surprise – an upcoming VR game from one of Sony’s experimental divisions is in development for HTC Vive. UploadVR reports that Sony’s Wow Factory, which is a set of projects from the company’s innovation labs, unveiled a title called Gold Rush VR at the SXSW festival. Innovation lab …

Blizzard has announced that Blizzcon 2017 will take place on November 3rd and 4th 2017 and will once again return to the Anaheim Convention Center.  The two day event will, as ever, feature panels with developers discussing all aspects of their games, hands on with new updates and potentially entire …

The co-founder of YouTube channel Kinda Funny has quit the group after being drawn into a row about a sexist tweet. Colin Moriarty left IGN to form Kinda Funny in 2014. However, after tweeting about enjoying the peace and quiet on International Women’s Day, he has faced severe criticism both …

The launch of the Nintendo Switch earlier this month saw all major US retailers enjoy a boost to their online traffic. VentureBeat reports that data from analyst SimilarWeb shows that both GameStop and Toys R Us saw monthly traffic peaks on the day Switch launched – March 3rd. Traffic from …

Ahead of the formal launch of BAME in Games later this year, MCV talks to its first chair Kish Hirani about ethnic diversity in the games industry and what we can expect from the new advocacy group. You were appointed the first chair of BAME in Games last year – …

It’s easy to chalk up Bandai Namco’s big wins of late: 2015 was The Witcher 3’s year, while 2016 was Dark Souls III’s.  For 2017, though, the Japanese publisher has a more diverse, strength-in-depth slate, with a particular emphasis on European-developed titles, both indie and triple-A, which could forecast a …

Swedish publisher and distributor Starbreeze has signed an agreement with Otherside Entertainment to publish System Shock 3 on PC and other platforms. Starbreeze will pour $12m into the title, and it says it will be able to recoup 120 per cent of its full investment including marketing costs. Under the …