MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
The mobile game phenomenon Angry Birds will get its own line of retail stores, developer Rovio has announced. Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in Beijing, Rovio’s chief marketing officer Peter Vesterbacka said the move was partly to tackle piracy in China. He brought a couple of unofficial Angry Birds …
Read More »GAME rolls out digital Xbox games nationwide
As of today every GAME and Gamestation store in the UK has a range of Xbox Live digital titles on their shelves. In February this year the range was trailed in 44 stores, with customers receiving a code to download the content either on a paper receipt, email or SMS …
Read More »EA: Retail must learn from Apple Stores
Challenged retailers would do well to learn from one of the High Street’s success stories, Apple, says the new head of EA Sports. In an interview with MCV, Andrew Wilson – EA Sports former studios head, last week promoted to president of the label – said not enough games retailers …
Read More »GAME rolls out digital games to 1,200 stores
Retailer GAME has announced that it has rolled out its in-store digital games offering to 1,200 stores across the world. The move follows a successful trial of the scheme in the chain’s UK stores. The new territories now in on scheme are Ireland, France, Spain, Scandinavia and Australia. The range …
Read More »Comet confirms store closures
Comet is to close 17 under-performing retail outlets after being hit with an 8.9 million loss in the last financial year. According to the Dow Jones Newswire, like for like sales for the year dropped by 7.7 per cent and total revenue declined by 6.8 per cent, despite the company …
Read More »Best Buy’s UK plans in danger
It was once billed as a US revolution on the UK High Street, but now big question marks hang over the future of Best Buy in the UK. The European joint venture with Carphone Warehouse posted a loss of 62m this week – that’s triple the loss seen in 2010 …
Read More »EA Sports to open retail stores
Electronic Arts’ Sports division will open a chain of bricks and mortar stores in the US. The first shop – which will house a range of EA Sports games – opens this autumn at an airport in Charlotte, North Calorina. EA Sports told Forbes it hopes to open at least …
Read More »HMV to close 60 stores by 2012
Entertainment giant HMV is facing troubling times as the chain revealed that it is to close 60 stores (including some Waterstones bookshops) over the next 12 months. That number represents 9 per cent of the chain’s 700 outlets. HMV has 285 shops in the UK and Ireland. Shares in the …
Read More »Facebook credits arrive at retail
Facebook’s push into the games sector has gone physical today as game retailer GAME and supermarket Tesco both introduce Facebook Credit gift cards in store. GAME will sell the cards in denominations of 5, 10 and 25 while Tesco will offer the 10 and 20 versions. The supermarket expects to …
Read More »Alworths eyes 150 stores
Gaming has become a major part of Alworths’ plans, as the firm eyes 150 new stores over the next three years. Alworths was founded last year and at the time the retailer had no intentions of going big on entertainment. But that changed during the 2010, with music, DVD and …
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