Rental giant Blockbuster has called for more publishers to give it exclusive DLC. It comes after the firm secured a deal with EA for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13. Blockbuster customers who pre-order the game will be able to get two additional downloadable packs. One pack contains four playable Premier …

Digital retailer Metaboli is an acquisition target for major video game firms. MCV has been told twice that distribution giant Arvato is set to buy the company, but twice Arvato has strenuously denied it. We are not currently in discussions with Metaboli about purchasing the business,” a spokesperson told MCV. …

The first prices for Vita games downloadable from the PlayStation Network have been confirmed by Sony. VG247 reports that launch title MotorStorm RC will cost just 4.79 – the cheapest of the first party titles. Furthermore, the game will be playable on both PS3 and Vita. Super Stardust, Top Darts …

The Hut Group, which includes the e-tail specialist Zavvi, has reported sales growth of 70 per cent for 2011. Total sales for the year stood at 142 million – 92 per cent of which came through the groups own websites, while the remainder was generated by services rendered to retail …

In MCV’s weekly rundown of the hottest vacancies and latest personnel news, industry veteran Al King returns to games and we run through the best job opportunities. WARGAMING.NET RECRUITS KING The company behind online games such as World of Tanks and World of Warplanes has hired Al King as global …

How the internet transformed game financing, and how Double Fine resurrected double-A

January was a grim month for UK games retail, with sales down 30 per cent year-on-year. There was a dearth of new releases last month – by comparison LittleBigPlanet 2 and Dead Space 2 were released in January 2011. In total 2,781,786 games were sold last month, down 27.7 per …

A new partnership between UK publisher Lace Mamba Global and Koch Media will allow the former to bring its titles to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Koch has secured exclusive distribution rights to Lace Mamba’s titles in these markets for the next three years. The first wave of titles will include …

The NPD Group estimates that downloadable, social, mobile and other form of non-physical games took up to $400m in sales last month. The research firm’s data shows that hardware and boxed sales were down 34 per cent year-on-year in January – coincidentally also around the $400m mark. NPD analyst Liam …

A lack of new releases and the comparatively strong sales in 2011 saw the US video games market drop by almost $400m last month. NDP data shows that combined sales of hardware, software and accessories fell to $750.6m, down 34 per cent from the $1.14bn taken in January. Both software …