Tag Archives: christopher-dring

Where are OUR summer blockbusters? That’s the question being asked by games retail bosses this week as the UK games market slumped to a new low. Retailers are begging games publishers for ‘summer blockbusters’ to rival major movies such as The Avengers – otherwise, the increased focus on Q4 will …

Electronic Arts has named Stephen Wanigesekera as senior brand licensing managerfor Europe. Wanigesekera previously worked on EA’s corporate sales team in Switzerland. He officially started this role back in February but relocated to the publisher’s Guildford office this month. As well as developing EA’s licensing operations,he will represent the publisher …

UK games stores have applauded Activision’s ‘risky’ new direction for Call of Duty. Black Ops II thrusts the series 13 years into the future, and introduces non-linear gameplay to the franchise. I sense that there’s a real commitment from Activision andTreyarch to raise the bar once again for the Call …

TheUK games retail market was down a third in a tough April for the trade. Retailers made 45.8m from software sales last month, a 34.1 per centdrop over the same period last year. Just over 2m games were sold at UKretail, a year-on-year decline of 33.2 per cent. However, there …

Publisher 505 Games is toasting retail this week as Sniper Elite V2 hit the top of the charts. The shooter was comfortably the biggest seller, besting action rival Prototype 2.505 says the game’s success was due to the ‘amazing’ support from its retail partners, which included GAME in Milton Keynes …

Specialist games retailers cannot survive without second-hand, says Blockbuster. The firm’s UK commercial director Gerry Butler has hit back at trade-in critics, and told MCV that the current new release business model is broken and in need of a radical overhaul. If you’re a specialist you need certain margins to …

Just weeks after telling MCV it will cut the store space dedicated to games, HMV has changed its mind. Instead it will actually now grow the amount of space for games as it looks to take advantage of market gaps left by the shrunken GAME. Earlier this year the High …

According to the FICCI-KPMG Indian Media and Entertainment Industry Report 2012, the Indian games business was valued at 13bn Rupees ($259m) in 2011 – up 30 per cent. The market is expected to grow by 38 per cent to 18bn Rupees ($359m) in 2012 and to a staggering 46bn Rupees …

Codemasters’ decision to abandon the shooter genre was made last September. Bodycount – the firm’s bold attempt at an FPS – had failed. And the game’s Guildford studio was shut. Its racing studios are all that remain. And last month the publisher made it official. The days of Operation Flashpoint …

Electronic Arts took to London last month to show the press its upcoming triple-A blockbusters. And alongside the core console shooters, it demonstrated its latest PC, Facebook and iOS titles. The biggest games on display were shooters including upcoming modern day blaster Medal of Honor Warfighter (October 23rd). EA also …