MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
The eSports Championship Series from FACEIT and Twitch is one of the biggest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive leagues in the world. Despite only kicking off earlier this year the competition offers large prize money, regular competition and impressive production values. But for some reason it is often overlooked as a top …
Read More »Nintendo Switch: The Known Knowns, Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns
There is nothing in this industry that stimulates as many opinionated hot takes as Nintendo. Covering Nintendo always feels a bit different to covering other companies. Of course, all brands – be they PlayStation, Xbox, Apple or Ouya… OK, maybe not ALL brands – have their advocates. It’s impossible to …
Read More »OPINION: You can argue the case for PS4.5, but it’s a hell of a risky strategy
What appears to be concrete talk about an updated version of the PlayStation 4 is probably the most interesting thing to have come out of GDC last week. For those who missed it, Kotaku seems to have what sounds like pretty firm inside news on a new version of PS4 …
Read More »So which VR headset am I going to buy?
Following the confirmation of PlayStation VR’s launch details last night, we now have a pretty clear picture of what virtual reality has to offer punters this year. Which means for many people it’s decision time. But what am I going to opt for? The only way to find out is …
Read More »What the hell does ‘indie’ even mean anymore?
Indie. It’s a word that instantly conjures visions of 2D platformers, retro graphics and quirky gameplay, of bedroom designers and nervous-looking developers showing their life’s work in the corner of games industry events. Today, the term also brings to mind some of the most innovative, influential and talked-about titles ever …
Read More »Is it game over for Kickstarter?
Power to the people,” John Lennon sang in 1971. It’s unlikely he was referring to video games – Pong wasn’t released until the following year – but the games industry certainly seems to have taken Lennon’s philosophy to heart 43 years later. Kickstarter is now synonymous with the crowdfunding trend …
Read More »The Death of TV Advertising
There was a time when you couldn’t flick on Coronation Street without seeing Ant and Dec prance about on a Wii Fit Balance Board. If a game was worth stocking, it had a TV ad. And there were hundreds of them, often found alongside big football matches orThe X Factor. …
Read More »FEATURE: 2012’s biggest TV advertisers
Jonathan Chambers, AV manager at media planning and buying specialist Generation Media, looks at how much impact publishers and platform holders have had on TV advertising so far, how this year’s investments stand up against 2011 and who the top advertisers are… TV remains essential to games and consoles advertising, …
Read More »FEATURE: The next Assassin’s Creed
Have you noticed that the number of annualised franchises in games is actually shrinking? As the mid-tier of boxed games essentially vanishes off of High Street shelves and top publishers knuckle down solely on triple-A, retailers have been banking on fewer hits to see them through. A total decrease in …
Read More »ANALYSIS: How Alan Wake survived
It was E3 2005 when Alan Wake was first unveiled. The ambitious story-driven thriller was from Remedy, the studio behind Max Payne. A series it had just sold to Rockstar for $45m. After Max Payne, we could have sat on a beach sipping cocktails for quite some time,” Remedy’s head …
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