MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
There was a time when everyone was playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero. And then they stopped. All of them. At the same time. The billion-dollar plastic guitar industry vanished overnight. It was a painful time for everyone associated with that genre. But Harmonix, the studio that created both franchises, …
Read More »Reality check – HTC on whether VR is going to change the world
In the last few years, VR has gone from a one horse race to having a number of different players. For a long time, Oculus alone was the VR scene. Then last year, PlayStation revealed its Morpheus headset. And the likes of Samsung and Razer have headsets, too. Then earlier …
Read More »Football crazy – the story behind SoccerManager.com
When you think about football games, your mind probably drifts to FIFA, or perhaps PES and Football Manager. You probably don’t think of Soccer Manager Worlds, a ten-year-old franchise developed by the aptly named SoccerManager.com. Created by the Gore brothers, Andy, Steven and Chris, Soccer Manager is a free-to-play browser-based …
Read More »Koei Tecmo’s gaming dynasty
Koei Tecmo’s Dynasty Warriors has been going for over 18 years now, with eight numbered releases and countless expansions and special editions. And in spite of being – for lack of a better term – very Japanese, the series has been a moderate success in the West. Since the start …
Read More »Kiss and tell – indie label Kiss on streamlining the publishing process
Kiss is a company built on the principle of making the process of getting games to market as painless as possible. The firm was founded in 2012 by industry veterans Darryl Still and Peter King. In the past Still had worked at Atari and launched the publisher’s ST, Jaguar and …
Read More »Was GAME’s £20m Multiplay deal an astute purchase or an unnecessary risk?
‘Retail should get involved with eSports’. It’s a headline we’ve run several times in MCV over the last two years. The big eSports specialists believe that the High Street is its opportunity to turn pro-gaming from a niche (albeit widely watched) pastime, into something every gamer can participate in. GAME …
Read More »The Great Escapists – developer Mouldy Toof on the indie prison game
Alongside Tomb Raider, Halo and Quantum Break on stage at Microsoft’s Gamescom 2014 press conference was a pixel-art title called The Escapists. It’s an indie game set in a prison and has been developed by one-man studio Mouldy Toof, aka former roofer Chris Davis. Having my game shown to the …
Read More »‘Don Bradman Cricket has closed the gap between cricket games and the FIFAs of this world’
Football video games may generate all of the record-breaking statistics and headlines, but another of England’s national pastimes has consistently attracted players to its latest virtualised offerings. While they might not rack up the sales figures of FIFA or PES, cricket games have built up a dedicated community of followers. …
Read More »Pushing it to the Climax: interview with Climax Studios CEO Simon Gardner
Climax may not be a company you’d associate with being an ‘indie’ developer. Over its 25-year-plus history, the company has actually worked with some of the industry’s most iconic video game IP. Starting out with console ports of Diablo and Warcraft, before moving onto its original Silent Hill games (Origins …
Read More »Breaking from indie retail into eSports: interview with Am2Pro MD Carl Moore
Former ThatGameShop owner Carl Moore is breaking into the pro-gaming market with his latest venture, eSports outlet Am2Pro. MCV caught up with Moore to find out more Can you please give a brief overview of Am2Pro and what it offers to consumers? Am2Pro differentiates itself from its competitors as we …
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