MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Social games firm Zynga has inked a deal to promote Born This Way, the new album from Lady Gaga. The partnership involves a virtual ‘GagaVille’ farm in its FarmVille game, a contest in its mobile social game Words With Friends, and other elements. The GagaVille farm will let fans unlock …
Read More »Social games market will "crash very hard"
The social gaming market that has propelled firms such as Zynga to success is going to crash very hard”. That’s according to Silicon Knights’ founder Denis Dyack, who believes that Facebook gaming and similar phenomena are in for a shock when the bubble bursts. It is damaging traditional gaming for …
Read More »Buzz dev signs with IPTV service
UK developer Relentless Software is the latest studio to partner with TV games specialists PlayJam. The team behind the popular Buzz! quiz series will be able to develop social games for PlayJam’s aggregated games portal, which launches on Samsung and LG Smart TVs later this month. The portal will focus …
Read More »Capcom introduces Smurfs DLC cap
Players of Capcom’s hit iOS title Smurf’s Village will, once having installed the latest update, find that the game has introduced a cap on the game’s micro-transactions. From this point on the game will limit users to five in-game purchases every 15 minutes. PocketGamer reports that the move has been …
Read More »PopCap acquires ZipZipPlay
Washington-based casual games stronghold PopCap has made the surprise acquisition of social dev ZipZapPlay. PopCap has for years been considered a buyout target itself, though in recent months rumours have spread the Bejeweled company is seeking stock market floatation. The combined dev workforce has improved PopCap’s expectations for Facebook game …
Read More »EA acquires iPhone dev Firemint
Electronic Arts has announced plans to acquire Australian mobile games developer Firemint for an undisclosed sum, with the deal expected to close within the next four weeks. Firemint is one of the most well respected mobile developers, having originally made its name developing racing games and other titles on a …
Read More »Zynga UK is born
Social games giant Zynga has made its first acquisition of a UK development outfit. Wonderland Software, creator of iPhone title GodFinger, is to be renamed Zynga Mobile UK. Wonderland Software staff will now be working for Zynga, while the studio’s former CEO – Matthew Wiggins – takes the role of …
Read More »Sony unveils PlayStation tablets
Sony has revealed its first two tablet devices which will launch this autumn. The pair – codenamed the S1 and S2 – will run Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb software, which is powering an increasing number of tablets this year. The S1 will have a 9.4-inch touchscreen, while the S2 will …
Read More »Mind Candy invades US
London-based online gaming firm Mind Candy will open a US office in the next few months. The firm may be on the fringe of the games industry but its Moshi Monsters browser-based game is well-established with over 38m registered users in over 150 territories worldwide. The move is part of …
Read More »Epic: 59p apps killing the industry
The dollar mobile app is damaging the industry, a leading executive at Epic Games has said. Epic company president Mike Capps says the prevalence of the rock-bottom app price point is deforming the value of games in the consumer conscience. If there’s anything that’s killing [the retail games business] it’s …
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