MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
It’s been live less than a week but Star Wars: The Old Republic could have as many as 1.5m users signed up already. EA’s subscription-based PC MMO went on sale in UK retailers today, although customers who pre-ordered it early have been able to log in and play it since …
Read More »PopCap: 120m people play social games
More people are playing social games than ever before, says PopCap. The casual giant found that 71 per cent more play social games today compared to last year – 120m players in total. Plus, the number of ‘avid’ social game players have more than doubled from seven per cent in …
Read More »Old Republic could steal 1m WoW players
The global launch the Star Wars MMO could trigger a mass-exodus of World of Warcraft subscribers, according to new analyst data. Lazard Capital Markets has downgraded Activision Blizzard’s stock from ‘buy’ to ‘neutral’ after a recent survey found that more than half of existing World of Warcraft subscribers have grown …
Read More »FEATURE: Older gamers’ playing habits
Pensioners may be overlooked within the industry, but that doesn’t mean they’re not interested in games. PlayableGames’ manager Ben Weedon looks at the playing and buying habits of the older generation. The proportion of people over 65 years old is increasing at an enormous rate. Approximately 10,000 people will turn …
Read More »Brand Map: Civilization
We look at a snapshot of players just prior to the launch of Civilization World to see what they are enjoying about the game series. The original Civilization game by Microprose celebrated its 20th birthday this year.Currently owned by Take-Two (published under the Firaxis and 2K labels), its latest offering …
Read More »2m leave World of Warcraft in one year
The number of World of Warcraft subscribers has fallen from over 12m to 10.3m in one year. Yesterday Blizzard announced that 800,000 players left the PC MMO between July and September. During October last year the game reached a peak with over 12m users. Earlier this year that figure fell …
Read More »Over 8m played Battlefield 3 beta
EA-owned developer DICE has released a number of stats about its recent Battlefield 3 multiplayer beta. A total of 8,125,310 took part in the game, firing a total of 47bn bullets and downing 1.5bn other players. 19m players were killed by a knife while 21m M-Com stations were destroyed. 2.2bn …
Read More »Microsoft ditches Zune hardware
It won’t be a shock to hear that Microsoft has admitted that it has ceased production of Zune hardware. The Zune brand will live on, however, as the face of much of Microsoft’s content sales service. It can still be found, for instance, on the Xbox dashboard as the branding …
Read More »COD makes you quick
Cognitive scientists from the University of Rochester have discovered that playing action video games trains people to make the right decisions faster. In an upcoming study in the journal Current Biology, researchers Daphne Bavelier, Alexandre Pouget, and C. Shawn Green report that video games could provide a potent training regimen …
Read More »Brits spend £200m on MMOs
British gamers spent 195m on MMO games last year, ahead of Germany and France, with 165m and 145m respectively, according to a new report. It also reveals that Brits spend an average 10.50 each month on Massively Multiplayer Online games such as World of Warcraft and EVE Online. For the …
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