MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Blizzard founder Mike Morhaime has defended Activision boss Bobby Kotick, saying that his status as the game development industry’s bogeyman is undeserved. The two companies merged in 2008 and Morhaime told MCV that his colleague is completely simpatico with Blizzard’s creative values and is often judged harshly by people who …
Read More »INTERVIEW: Blizzard
Looking back 20 years, can you recall your motivation for starting Blizzard. What your ambitions were for the company?Mike Morhaime, CEO: Frank and I went to UCLA and we became friends with Allen Adham. He was a smart, ambitious, driven guy with a mission: he was going to start a …
Read More »NPD freezes out media
US sales tracker NPD has issued a note to analyst Michael Pachter requesting that he stops handing out NPD data to media outlets. In October of last year the company announced that it was to change the way in which it publishes its monthly video game sales data, omitting most …
Read More »‘You can’t blame people for buying pre-owned’
It’s unfair to blame consumers for trading in their old titles when new games cost as much as $60/50 – that’s according to the CEO of TimeShift developer Saber Interactive. "I absolutely feel that cheaper, digital games have to be the future," Matthew Karch told CVG. "$60 is a lot …
Read More »New Katamari game on the way?
Publisher Namco Bandai could be readying a new instalment in the colourful Katamari series, if two new trademark registrations are to be believed. Siliconera reports that the company has registered both Katamari Amore and Katamari Amore Rolling Whopper. The most recent release in the series was 2009 PS3-exclusive Katamari Forever. …
Read More »RE: Operation Raccoon City confirmed
As was rumoured on Friday of last week, Capcom has drafted in a new development partner for work on a brand new Resident Evil spin-off series for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. SOCOM developer Slant 6 is working on the title which is described as a third person squad-based shooter …
Read More »Metacritic introduces individual dev ratings
Review score aggregator Metacritic has begun profiling individual games industry professionals. Individual listings of studio heads, project leads and game designers currently show a basic outline of their career work. Data for individual developers cannot yet be navigated from the Metacritic home pages or games pages, but custom entry URLs …
Read More »Xbox 360 dominates Crysis 2 sales
As well as shooting straight to the top of the UKIE GfK Chart-Track UK All Formats Top 40 this week, new shooter Crysis 2 has also set a new 2011 for EA. The game is officially the publisher’s biggest launch of the year, outpacing the likes of Bulletstorm, Dragon Age …
Read More »Kinect price cuts are retail led, MS insists
Retailers have recently cut the price of the Xbox 360 motion accessory, with sellers such as GAME and Amazon advertising the device for around 104.99. Kinect originally launched last November with a 129.99 price tag. Pricing is a decision that retailers make,” said Microsoft’s UK and Ireland general manager for …
Read More »Microsoft: Were winning over families
Microsoft has significantly grown its audience – and it has the accolades to prove it. The platform holder took home the Best Family Game award at this year’s Video Game BAFTAs for Kinect Sports. And the firm’s UK boss says that this represents a major shift in audience for Xbox. …
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