MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
As if video games aren’t already bad enough, it has now been revealed that they are as addictive as another really bad thing. So says The Sun, anyhow, which has a spread in today’s paper (via @scully1888) with the headline: ‘Gaming as addictive as heroin’ carrying a ‘The Sun Investigation’ …
Read More »‘DLC is pretty much accepted’, says Ubisoft
Modern games consumers are comfortable with the amount of additional digital content and extras that accompany modern games. That’s according to Ubisoft’s VP of digital publishing Chris Early, who told Games Industry that there was no resistance” to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag’s ‘Time Saver’ DLC that allowed players to …
Read More »Japanese market flat for H1 2014; PS3 sales beating Wii U
An increase in hardware sales and a decrease in software has left the Japanese games market flat for the first half of 2014, according to Famitsu data. Hardware sales grew 6.4 per cent compared to the same period last year while software sales declined 3.8 per cent, leaving the overall …
Read More »TV advertising still pivotal to kids market
Generation Media says that television advertising is the most effective way to reach a younger audience… Consolidated TV data year-to-date reveals an increase in children’s focused TV advertising from the games market. This follows an increase to kids’ exposure to emerging media channels and new technology. Various sources suggest that …
Read More »Digital costs more than you think
Leading games industry analyst and SuperData CEO Joost van Dreunen on how the move to digital isn’t generating revenue quite as easily as some companies might have hoped… I attended several analyst meetings at this year’s E3. Almost unanimously publishers pointed toward digital – the transition to digital development, publishing …
Read More »Immorality in games could INCREASE morality in real-life
Many a Daily Mail headline would have you believe that violent games create violent people, but one new study suggests the opposite might be true. As reported by Polygon, a new research paper entitled ‘Being Bad in a Video Game Can Make Us More Morally Sensitive’ actually concludes that the …
Read More »VR – is it for the payers?
The owner of London’s video game caf Loading Bar James Danceshares his thoughts on the new virtual reality headsets and whether they will have mainstream success… Recently I heard about Sony’s VR headset which stole the show at GDC courtesy of Develop’s ‘An Audience With…’ series. It answered some of …
Read More »Kantar: Pre-owned games offer an average £4.40 saving over new
Kantar Worldpanel consumer insight analyst Jules Williams examines the opportunities and challenges involved in this lucrative market… Some gamers love them; some hate them. Either way, pre-owned games are an important part of the market. They make up 10 per cent of the UK games market and had a strong …
Read More »GOG: Gamers are not criminals and do not need DRM
The video games industry should follow in the footsteps of the music sector and rid itself of digital rights management (DRM). That’s according to GOG North America boss Guillaume Rambourg who told Eurogamer that DRM does nothing other than punish loyal gamers. "We totally believe that distributing games without DRM …
Read More »Video games contributed £1bn to UK in 2013
A new report from TIGA says that the video games industry contributed 1.02bn to the UK economy in 2013. That’s up from 947m the year before, and resulted in tax revenues of 419m for the Treasury. The total number of people employed by the sector is up too, from 9,224 …
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