MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Cooking Mama, Zumba, Terraria… 505 Games’ decade in the games industry is littered with surprise blockbusters, and the publisher is now set to launch its most unusual line-up yet. We speak with 505 Games president Ian Howe and global marketing chief Tim Woodley on the firm’s story so far How …
Read More »GamesAid: A Short History
GamesAid is the spiritual successor to games industry charitable initiatives SoftAid in the 1980s and ESC (The Entertainment Software Charity) in the early noughties, both led by Rod Cousens. GamesAid was formed in late 2007 by the Trustees, Greg Ingham (who was chair, ex CEO of Future Publishing and founder …
Read More »Understanding the shape of the digital games market
Consumer retail analyst at Kantar Worldpanel Jules Williams reviews the growth of digital gaming, who’s buying into it and the direction of the digital pound… Digital game downloads have – in theory at least – been available since the 1980s. But it’s only in the past few years that advances …
Read More »The Story of Video Games in 10 titles
You could argue that every game is of some sort of historical significance, of course. The question really is how do you whittle down the list. Can you really have a list of the games that have defined our medium without the inspirational Half-Life? That skips over the technologically liberating …
Read More »Grand Theft Auto is the UK’s fourth biggest video games brand
There’s reason to be excited ahead of next week’s Grand Theft Auto V launch. GfK Chart-Track has told MCV that GTA is the fourth biggest revenue-generating brand in the UK games industry. The stat tracker revealed a number of GTA facts ahead of the blockbuster arrival of GTA V. The …
Read More »UK games retail suffers worst month on record
The UK games retail market has suffered its worst month in history. Just over 1m boxed games were sold last month, 40.4 per cent lower than June and 33.3 per cent below July 2012. In total stores generated just over 23m from game sales, almost half the figure posted the …
Read More »FIFA’s Ultimate ambition – the story of Ultimate Team
Back in 2005, EA began a brief dalliance with the UEFA Champions League licence. It only ever resulted in two games, with the last launching in 2007. And they weren’t particularly special, with some critics dismissing them as cheap re-issues of the previous year’s FIFA. Yet the final game in …
Read More »25 YEARS OF MASTERTRONIC: Timeline
For over 25 years, Mastertronic has been responsible for bringing some the biggest titles to market and worked with some industry icons. MCV offers a comprehensive tour through the company’s origins and greatest hits. APRIL 1ST 1988The Producers was formed by ex Activision-exec Andy Wood, Andy Payne and ex-EA exec …
Read More »OPINION: Can Nintendo stop history repeating itself?
Of course the sassy answer to any retailer telling you Wii U is ‘GameCube all over again’ is ‘What? Some of the most praised first-party games ever and the world’s most refined home console?’ But in this day and age, a handful of decent games and a good bit of …
Read More »Sleeping Dogs – from the scrap heap to the top of the charts
18 months ago the code behind Sleeping Dogs lay abandoned. A year and a half later, the game has been hailed as a triumph and sits proudly atop of the UK charts. Sleeping Dogs began life in 2003 when Activision released the Luxoflux developed True Crime: Streets of LA. That …
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