MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Ubisoft has moved to greet the mega-publisher Activision Blizzard to the international industry – and said that it can comfortably ‘rise to the challenge’ of the new competition. Ubisoft’s UK managing director Rob Cooper told MCV: "Ubisoft are well placed to meet any challenge with our strategy of strong internal …
Read More »ACTIVISION BLIZZARD: Bring em on, says bullish EA
Electronic Arts has fired out a warning shot to new publishing goliath Activision Blizzard – warn the Vivendi-owned giant that it will not give up its dominance of the market without a fight. Vivendi and Activision announced its new ‘merger’ on Sunday, which sees the French publisher take 52 per …
Read More »ACTIVISION BLIZZARD: Vivendi to increase stake in Activision
French entertainment giant Vivendi is set to increase its stake in Activision from 52 per cent to 68 per cent within five days of the initial deal closing. The news comes following yesterday’s announcement about the ‘merger’ of Vivendi and Activision to create new games giant Activision Blizzard. In a …
Read More »ACTIVISION BLIZZARD: What it all means
Vivendi will also purchase 63 million shares of Activision common stock for $1.7 billion, leaving the company with around 685 million fully-diluted shares outstanding. The new company (Activision Blizzard) will then tender $4 billion for up to 146.5 million outstanding common shares at $27.50 per share. Vivendi has agreed to …
Read More »Theres no escaping the festive frenzy
Clearly, it’s a great chance to cash in on the festive season – take a glance at the number of piss-poor ‘comedy’ DVDs that have been rushed out in time for the don’t-know-what-to-buy-your-dad market. Even Piers Morgan’s got a football gaffes DVD out – a man who not only has …
Read More »Games to blame for illiteracy, says The Sun
English children’s reading skills have slipped from third to fifteenth in the world, according to a new study – and it’s all the games industry’s fault, says The Sun. Kids hooked on computer games have sent England plummeting down world league tables for reading,” begins the story in today’s Sun. …
Read More »The digital download BBFC loophole
The Video Recordings Act 1984 makes it an offence to supply a recording containing a video work without BBFC classification. Video games which are not video works, or which are not supplied as a video recording, will not require classification from the BBFC. The question in each case is therefore …
Read More »Outlook healthy at Future after profits boost
Future Publishing has posted a pre-tax profit of 9.2 million in its full-year financials, up dramatically from the 36.7m loss of the previous year. While revenues were down from 188.1m in 2006 to 165.7m for the financial year ended September 30th 2007, the company is confident that it has turned …
Read More »Kotick: All consoles must hit $199 in two years
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has forecast that both Sony and Microsoft will need” to drop the price of their next gen consoles to $199 (100) in the next two years to reach mass market consumers. He added that he believes the Wii, which currently sells for $250 (125), would drop …
Read More »Striking Hollywood writers to turn to games?
US movie journal Variety has predicted that cinema and TV writers striking in the US over royalty payouts may soon turn to scripting video games. Members of the Writer’s Guild Of America union have been on strike for four weeks over the amount of money they receive from DVD sales …
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