A glut of Q4 blockbusters rescued the UK games market from the ten-year low it hit over the summer.

Smash hits like Modern Warfare 3, FIFA 12, Battlefield 3, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and more kept retailers busy, while consumer events GAMEfest and Eurogamer Expo drew in thousands of gaming fans and families.

Meanwhile, trailers teasing the future delights of Grand Theft Auto V, The Last of Us and Fortnite prepared the industry for what is shaping up to be a busy 2012.

SEPTEMBER

NOTABLE RELEASE
FIFA 12 – EA’s venerable footy franchise hit its 19th iteration, but showed no sign of age, introducing new tackling and animations which transformed the game.

IN THE NEWS

Intent Media launches MCV Pacific
Game-streaming service OnLive arrives in the UK
Asda relaunches its entertainment site with plans for game downloads
Nintendo releases Metallic Red 3DS
GAMEfest attracts 30,000 visitors, Eurogamer Expo draws in 35,000
GAME and HMV open new concept stores in Westfield Stratford City at the Olympic Village
Star Wars: The Old Republic is finally confirmed for a 2011 release, due in December
Big Brother moves to Channel 5. We still don’t watch it.
OCTOBER

NOTABLE RELEASE
Battlefield 3 – EA’s major bid to reclaim the FPS market may not have toppled Activision’s Call of Duty, but significantly grew its publisher’s market share.

IN THE NEWS

Colin Campbell is named Games Media Legend at 2012 GMAs; Edge, Eurogamer, IGN and VideoGamer also take home prizes
Warner Bros adopts Online Pass system by locking second-hand users out of Batman: Arkham City’s Catwoman content
iPhone 4S lands on shelves ten days after its unveiling
Research shows that half of the UK’s population plays video games
EA Sports smashes its own records, with FIFA 12 selling 1m copies in the UK in one week
MCV reveals publishers are spending £165m on Christmas marketing
Apple founder Steve Jobs passes away
NOVEMBER

NOTABLE RELEASE
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Activision once again rewrote entertainment retail records. The game generated $1bn worldwide in just 16 days.

IN THE NEWS

Modern Warfare 3 and Skyrim contribute to the UK games market’s biggest week ever, with retailers taking £121m in seven days
The Government announces it will close the Channel Islands’ VAT loophole in April 2012
Microsoft’s Xbox brand turns ten years old
Angry Birds makes its retail debut as downloads reach half a billion
Best Buy pulls out of the UK market
Rockstar releases the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto V
Kennedy Space Center launches Mars rover Curiosity, the most elaborate Martian exploration vehicle to date
DECEMBER

NOTABLE RELEASE
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – While the game actually debuted in November, its sales have soared this month – thanks in no small part to its recent (and arguably premature) price cut*.

IN THE NEWS

MCV’s Annual Retail Survey reveals that 80 per cent of retailers are confident about their business in 2012
First details emerge of MCV Industry Excellence Awards 2012
Minecraft creator Notch steps away from the hit indie game
Spike TV Video Game Awards reveal trailers for new IPs The Last of Us from Naughty Dog and Epic Games’ Fortnite
Shigeru Miyamoto suggests he is stepping back from his current role but Nintendo reassures the industry that he is not retiring
GAME prepares digital gifts this Christmas
Girl band Little Mix wins The X Factor 2011

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/2011-...ecember/089042 ...

'Hack' appeared in the headlines so often during the summer of 2011, the word almost lost all meaning.

Not only was there the much-publicised phone hacking scandal that saw the News of the World closed and someone smash a custard pie in Rupert Murdoch's face, there were also several attacks made against video games companies.

In lighter news, we gained a glimpse at the future through E3 and Gamescom, with Wii U and PlayStation Vita taking the industry by storm. Also, Duke Nukem Forever finally decided to make an appearance, and Zumba Fitness enjoyed a ten-week run at the top of the charts.

MAY

NOTABLE RELEASE
L.A. Noire – The year’s top new IP was a detective drama set in 1940s Los Angeles. Despite a developer calamity – creator Team Bondi was accused of horrible working conditions and months later went bust – Rockstar’s internal teams have since released it for PC and OnLive with touch controls.

IN THE NEWS

HMV sells off its Waterstone’s chain for £53m
Wii price lowered to £129
Activision announces Call of Duty social network COD Elite
THQ announces plans to take uDraw multiplatform
Daily Mail declares outrage over a MW3 trailer that shows scenes of violence in London
Sega announces UK studio Creative Assembly is working on a new Alien title
Development on Duke Nukem is finally finished
Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is killed during an American military operation in Pakistan
JUNE

NOTABLE RELEASE
Duke Nukem Forever – It made it to No.1, and was the result of a painfully long 13 years’ gestation, development and redevelopment. But it was hideous, and really only notable for the very fact it even managed to come out.

IN THE NEWS

Nintendo unveils Wii U
PSP successor named PlayStation Vita
Microsoft reveals core line-up for Kinect, including Mass Effect, Ghost Recon and new Fable
Hackers attack EA, Sega, Bethesda, Nintendo, Codemasters and Epic Games
Paramount announces new Star Trek game to tie-in with 2012 movie
Ocarina of Time 3D boosts 3DS sales
Online retailer Bee.com opens first High Street stores
Jai McDowall wins Britain’s Got Talent. Anyone heard from him since?
JULY

NOTABLE RELEASE
Zumba Fitness – Although over six months old by this point, Zumba started to really fly over the summer months, as casual gamers flocked in. It topped the charts 13 times this year.

IN THE NEWS

New MCV website launches
GameStop closes its two UK stores and launches a .co.uk e-store
Activision details first Call of Duty consumer event, COD XP
EMI Music signs up with new publisher Tubby Games for a Now That’s What I Call Music title
Valve-owned digital distributor Steam refuses to sell Battlefield 3 because only EA’s Origin will sell DLC
The Guardian exposes that News of the World journalists have hacked into the mobile phones of celebrities, politicians and high profile crime victims. As a result, News of the World is closed
AUGUST

NOTABLE RELEASE
Deus Ex: Human Revolution – The third game in the Eidos franchise arrived at the tail end of the summer. It was critically acclaimed and ended Zumba’s run at the top of the charts.

IN THE NEWS

New streamlined Wii console and bundle unveiled for Christmas release
Sony cuts PS3’s price to £199.99, announces new PSP model
EA details new Season Ticket scheme that lets gamers play FIFA 12 before launch
Nintendo lowers trade price of 3DS by one third, retail drops price tag to as low as £115
Browser games are added to new social network Google+
UK games market reaches ten-year low in terms of weekly sales value
A peaceful protest march in London erupts into four days of rioting, looting and arso

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/2011-...-august/088982 ...

Ubisoft and Capcom get it wrong, GOG and Avalanche get it right and Serious Sam's scorpion shows the way.


The year began on a hopeful note, with Ubisoft seemingly relaxing its DRM policy. Eagle-eyed Redditors noticed that older Ubisoft PC titles, including Assassin's Creed II and Splinter Cell: Conviction, were suddenly playable without a connection to the internet. The publisher subsequently confirmed that it had patched out its DRM from some older titles, with its future implementation to be decided on a case-by-case basis. Had it turned a corner?

Of course not. In July, it confirmed that Driver: San Francisco would require a constant internet connection, something Martin Edmonson, founder of developer Ubisoft Reflections, said was justfied because "PC piracy is just at the most incredible rates. This game cost a huge amount of money to develop, and it has to be, quite rightly, quite morally correctly, protected." In a bizarre attempt to deflect the impending fan backlash Ubisoft said: "Bear in mind, though, that the PC version of Driver San Francisco is released simultaneously to consoles." We still don't trust you, but hey, at least we'll start not trusting you a little earlier than usual.

Ubisoft, in other words, still doesn't get it, and neither does Capcom. In February it implemented DRM in the PSN release of Bionic Commando Rearmed, just as it had done with 2010's Final Fight: Double Impact. Both games were unplayable while Sony's network was offline after its security was breached by hackers.

Apparently unsatisfied by having angered PS3 players, in May Capcom announced that the PC port of Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition would use Games For Windows Live, giving offline players just 15 of 39 playable characters and no way to save their progress. After the inevitable furore and climbdown, Capcom's Christian Svensson revealed the DRM would be patched out soon after launch, saying: "We had it wrong … The argument that legitimate users would have a worse experience than pirates was the loudest and most convincing."

That argument is raised every single time a publisher opts to use DRM in its PC games, so why is the same mistake made time and time again? Ubisoft and Capcom are understandably motivated by the fear of piracy hurting their margins, but the latter admits its DRM has had little impact on piracy or sales. Does DRM really hinder pirates, whose first order of business is to crack and remove it? Or the legitimate customers who have to deal with it every time they launch a game?

It's something Guillaume Rambourg, managing director of digital download service Good Old Games, understands. "Pirates succeed to perform in areas where digital distribution fails to perform," he told us in a recent interview. "When you get a pirated game it's very simple: you download, you install, you play. Three steps. When you buy a game, you have to download, install, patch, pay, have a launcher bundled in the game … piracy is competition, because it forces us to simplify our methods to reach customers faster and win over piracy."

Christofer Sundberg, founder of Just Cause 2 developer Avalanche, is another noted critic. "If a DRM system constantly needs to be defended, something must be wrong," he told us in September. "As a developer you will never win over any fans if you constantly let everyone know how much it costs to develop a game and how much money you lose. I don't like always-on DRM solutions at all, since they offer nothing to the consumer … [they] say: 'Thank you for buying our game, we trust you as far as we can throw you.' I know people who go and buy the game, but get the bootleg version just to get rid of the always-on requirement."

There appears to be a divide in thinking between the old guard - traditional publishers like Ubisoft and Capcom - and younger companies like Avalanche, who understand the value in loyal, engaged communities. It's perhaps best expressed by Marcin Iwinski, CEO and co-founder of GOG sister company CD Projekt, developer of The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings.

"[Big publishers] are not asking themselves the question:' What is the experience of a gamer?', or: 'Is this proposition fair?'," he said. "Rather, they just look to see if the column in Excel adds up well or not, and if they can have a good explanation for their bosses. DRM is the best explanation, the best 'I will cover my ass' thing. I strongly believe that this is the main reason the industry has not abandoned it until today, and to be frank this annoys me a hell of a lot.

"You are asking: 'So why is it taking them so long to listen?' The answer is very simple: they do not listen, as most of them do not care. As long as the numbers in Excel will add up they will not change anything."

The industry needs a third way, a means to protect against pirates without affecting legitimate consumers. Croatian developer Croteam showed us all how it should be done with its Serious Sam 3: BFE DRM - a giant, super-fast, immortal pink ...

Electronista reports that Sony, Nintendo, and Electronic Arts have all pulled their support for SOPA, but have not issued any statements as to why. The house.gov list of SOPA supporters is here."

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/12/...w-sopa-support ...

Google bought Motorola, Nokia tried to regain its mojo, fake Apple stores were discovered in China..

20. NFC - coming whether you want it or not

The history of mobile can be carved up into three eras: voice, messaging, data. And after data, well who knows? But if the combined will of Google, Mastercard, Visa and the world’s operators has any bearing on it, it could be contactless payments. This year has seen a series of remarkable announcements in the field of NFC-based mobile wallets. In the US, the big three operators unveiled their own project, called Isis. In the UK, after Barclaycard and Orange rolled out a service, the big three networks unveiled a cross-operator collaboration. And then, in September, Google actually went live with its own Google Wallet service. Remarkable, given that NFC is present in just a single mainstream Western handset, the Nexus S. To be fair, the emphasis isn’t entirely on payments – Google and the UK opcos are more interested in coupons and advertising – but it’s still bold future-gazing stuff given that one survey in 2011 showed that 91 per cent of consumers have never heard of NFC.

19. The Cloud – coming whether you want it or not

When did server farms in remote Nordic locations become the cloud? And, er, what is the cloud anyway? This year saw two huge announcements bring the cloud into the mainstream. Well, the B2B mainstream anyway. Because it’s pretty obvious the punters haven’t got a clue. Apple confirmed its plan to press ahead with the iCloud system that lets users keep all their music in cyberspace (the stuff they’ve purchased anyway) and have a copy locally too. Then Google did the same, but letting users upload their collections. Then there’s the DNLA consortium, which is trying to give OEMs one standard through which to offer ‘access anywhere’ media on TVs, in-car etc etc. Then there’s Spotify. All are slightly different, and all have distinct business models. Yet they’re all the cloud. It was so much easier when we had external hard drives.

18. Did we all dream the Nokia N9 MeeGo phone?

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In the first series of Happy Days, Richie Cunningham had an older brother called Chuck. The makers soon realised that Chuck wasn’t interesting, and that Fonzie was ‘the one’. So one day Chuck went to his room and was never seen again. In the mobile world, the Nokia N9 is Chuck Cunningham. It’s the lonely MeeGo device deemed surplus to requirements. A handset with no narrative purpose when set against the Arthur Fonzerelli that is WinPho 7. Get an N9 now. Keep it in the box. And save it for Antiques Roadshow.

17. If you've got one I want one too: social gaming

There’s money in coins. Well, of course there’s money in coins. That’s the whole point. This year it was the virtual coinage offered by various social gaming platforms that lit up the M&A columns. As micro-payment surged (app analytics firm Distimo found 49 per cent of the revenue on iPhone apps in 2010 came from in-app purchases), these firms suddenly looked very tempting. After DeNa bought ngmoco in 2010, RIM swooped for Scoreloop and Gree bought OpenFeint.

16. There are other tablets beside iPad. It's just that no one buys them.

When Apple launched the iPad in 2010, people said ‘oh tablets, that’s been tried before. No one will buy them.” They were right. No one would buy tablets. They’d just buy iPads. It’s an exaggeration of course, but the truth is that rivals have tried smaller tablets, cheaper tablets, tablets with 3D – and still Apple rules. Analysts put iPads share as high as 75 per cent. In October, ComScore revealed that 97 per cent of tablet data traffic in the US comes from iPads.

15. Never mind fake iPhones, let's fake an entire Apple Store

China eh? It’s like a foreign country or something. They certainly do things differently there, as one US blogger discovered when she felt there was something weird about the Apple Store in Kunming. There was. It wasn’t one. Your heart bled for the cheery staff who thought Steve Jobs was their boss, not some bloke who could also do you dodgy D&G belts. A month later the BBC unveiled 22 more fake stores. It’s not funny.

14. Barcodes may not be shit

Designers hate the way they look on adverts. Most consumers don’t know what they are. Barcodes are rubbish, aren’t they? Not so fast. In June, 14m Americans scanned mobile barcodes (says Scanbuy), and overall global scans grew 88 per cent in the quarter to May (says I-nigma). Barcodes are everywhere and they are converging around a single (QR) standard. The public is catching on. And when the first codes hit the peachy backsides of Olympic Beach Volleyball players, the mainstream may beckon.

13. Spotify streams into the US

After protracted legal negotiations Spotify finally hit the US this year, and then pulled off a coup by tying up with Facebook. The results were impressive, which must have royally annoyed Real, Napster et al. Spotify now has 2.5m premium subs, roughly half of which come from the US.

12. Here you go, InMobi. Have $200m.

Over the years, we’ve become accustomed to large VC rounds in mobile. And why not? If you’re going to invest in tech firms, then damn right you should be looking at mobile media players. But the $200m thrown ...

The demise of LA Noire dev Team Bondi was emblematic of a year filled with closures and complaints of crunch.


Closures

The year saw the unwelcome end of a host of developers, kicked off with the demise of much-loved Liverpool studio Bizarre Creations. Parent company Activision recommended it be closed after the commercial failure of Blur left it unable to find a buyer for the studio, and it closed its doors for good in February. It was a busy month for Activision: it also closed its Guitar Hero business unit, causing a rush of job losses and spelling the end for 7 Studios.

Disney was busily swinging the axe too, closing Tron: Evolution developer Propaganda Games and Split/Second studio Black Rock. THQ, meanwhile, closed New York-based Kaos Studios following the lukewarm reception given to Homefront, then did the same to its UK wing Digital Warrington, a Phoenix, Arizona-based developer and two Australian studios, Blue Tongue and THQ Studio Australia.

2011 also meant the end for Hudson Entertainment, MTV Games, three Sony Online Entertainment studios, Game Republic, Fat Princess developer Titan Studios, Bedlam Games and EA's Visceral Studios, with recent reports claiming STALKER dev GSC Game World is also on the brink.

Team Bondi

The Sydney-based developer of the Rockstar-published LA Noire endured a protracted demise. The month after its release in May, former staff painted a picture of excessive, unpaid overtime and questionable leadership from studio head Brendan McNamara, with more than 100 staff who left before the end of the project omitted from the game's credits.

The IGDA said it would investigate the reports, and shortly afterwards it was claimed Rockstar had grown so weary of the studio's lack of direction under McNamara's controversial stewardship that it had washed its hands of the developer, leaving it without a publisher for its LA Noire follow-up. Gameplay lead David Heironymus moved to defend McNamara, writing an open letter to the IGDA in which he insisted that claims of regular 100-hour weeks were wide of the mark and said: "It was not any one person's fault that we weren't making progress."

News that the studio was in acquisition talks with film production company KMM were followed by claims that it had sold its assets and IP to KMM, helmed by Mad Max director George Miller. In early September, it was put into administration: the following month it emerged it was to be closed at the behest of unpaid creditors. Our trawl through documents filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission revealed that the bulk of those creditors were its own staff, with unpaid wages and bonuses accounting for over 75 per cent of the debt - more than a million Australian dollars - that brought the studio to its knees.

McNamara would later blame inexperience for Team Bondi's woes, saying "we literally took people fresh out of school who had never made a game before." Only those within Team Bondi truly know how much his management style contributed to the studio's untimely demise, but the closure sparked an industry-wide debate on the perils of asking staff to work long hours without guaranteed recompense to ensure a project ships to deadline.

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/2011-round-development ...

Minecraft's stunning success, bundle overload and other highlights from the year in independent development.


Minecraft

It may have been our 2010 indie game of the year, but last year was merely the beginning for Minecraft. In January, developer Mojang confirmed the game had been bought one million times, just eight months after launch and while still in beta. It was still very much in active development, even though Mojang announced its new project, Scrolls, at GDC in March. At the same event, Minecraft won both the Grand Prize and Audience Award at the IGF Awards.

Peter Molyneux hailed it as "a complete work of genius ... the best thing I've played in the last ten years," and the audience agreed: in April, it hit 1.8 million sales. By this point it had grossed £20 million for Mojang, with charismatic studio head Markus Persson saying: "I try not to look at it ... but there's a big pile somewhere." To celebrate, he announced the game's final release date: November 11. By the end of the month, sales had passed two million.

Its unprecedented success on PC meant that the spread of Minecraft to other platforms was inevitable, and so it proved, with the announcements of releases on iOS, Android - a timed exclusive on Xperia Play - and Xbox Live Arcade, Kinect support included, the port handled by Dundee developer 4J Studios. By the middle of June, sales stood at 2.5 million, total revenue amounting to almost £30 million. A few weeks later it hit 10 million users. It was still in beta.

Mojang then announced Minecon, a Las Vegas convention set for November where Persson would launch the final version of Minecraft on stage. It didn't quite go off without a hitch: there was a brief but very public fallout with Yogscast, the YouTube sensation whose creators told us they deserved some of the credit for Minecraft's success. With Minecraft finally at version 1.0, Persson stood down as lead developer, passing the torch to Jens Bergensten while he moved on to other projects.

It's a true indie success story: four million sales while still in beta, users not only funding but assisting in development of the final product by giving feedback and suggesting new features. It's created a new business model, one that Mojang is following in publishing Cobalt, a side-scrolling action game developed by fellow Swedes Oxeye Game Studio.

Humble Ennui Bundle?

While the first two Humble Indie Bundles were released last year, 2011 saw the pay-what-you-want indie promotion become one of the most immediately lucrative business models available to independent developers. All games in the promotions are DRM-free and compatible with Mac, Windows and Linux, with buyers able to stipulate how they would like their payment to be split between the developers involved, the bundle's organisers and charities EFF and Child's Play.

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/2011-round-indies ...

HTCDEV annouced today "HTC is committed to listening to users and delivering customer satisfaction. We plan on releasing the updates that will allow you to unlock your bootloader in the coming months." However they do note this: 'It is our responsibility to caution you that not all claims resulting or caused by or from the unlocking of the bootloader may be covered under warranty' and this 'We strongly suggest that you do not unlock the bootloader unless you are confident that you understand the risks involved.' This looks like a new year gift to some.

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/...of-its-devices ...

This week, we’re focusing on the best gifts for those that can be the most difficult to buy for: the grown-ups. What do you get for those that say they “don’t want anything” or seemingly already have it all? Here is VigLink’s list of the Top Gifts for Grown-ups, with items at all price points.


TOP 10 GIFTS FOR GROWN-UPS
1. Amazon Kindle Fire
The top selling item across the network for the past 30 days! Movies, apps, games, music, reading and more — plus Amazon’s cloud-accelerated web browser.
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Fire-Am.../dp/B0051VVOB2

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2. Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10 Noise Isolating
High-quality earphones are especially popular this holiday season, in particular, this pair by Ultimate Ears. Give the gift of great sound.
http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Ears-.../dp/B0019RBJOE

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3. Watches
A stylish and practical gift. Popular brands include Casio, Seiko and even a GPS enabled watch, the Garmin Forerunner model.
http://www.amazon.com/Watches-Mens-W...node=377110011

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4. 3D HDTV
Lots of last minute shoppers are picking up HDTV’s for loved ones, with the 3D HDTV made by LG being one of the most popular picks.
http://www.amazon.com/LG-Infinia-47L...dp/B004OVEVO2/

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5. Sony Cybershot
Combining a variety of intelligent, easy-to-use features, the Cybershot digital camera makes it a breeze to shoot life as it happens.

http://www.ebay.com/ctg/Sony-Cyber-s...ver-/100113431

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6. Just Dance 3 (Wii / Playstation 3 / Xbox 360)
This is the most popular game overall this month, and its great for kids of all ages! It features more than 40 tracks across a wide range of musical genres, including pop, hip-hop, rock, R&B, country, disco and funk.

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Dance-3-N.../dp/B0053BG26C

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7. Panasonic DMP-BDT210 Blu-Ray Player
Our top-selling Blu-Ray player. Features Wi-Fi and 3D capability!

http://www.ebay.com/ctg/Panasonic-DM...yer-/101735454

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8. Harry Potter: The Complete 8-Film Collection
Top movies this season include the complete Harry Potter collection, Inception, and X-Men: First Class. Pick each of them up via one of the links below!

http://www.ebay.com/ctg/Harry-Potter...Set-/110258144
http://www.ebay.com/ctg/Inception-Bl...Copy-/96903884
http://www.ebay.com/ctg/X-Men-First-...opy-/108812110

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9. Scrabble Slam Cards
Our top-selling game is a great, inexpensive gift ($3.49) for all the Scrabble lovers in your life!

http://www.amazon.com/Parker-Brother.../dp/B001FVPS0K

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10. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Steve Jobs’ biography by Walter Isaacson has been selected by Amazon as one of the “Best Books of 2011″ and continues to top bestseller lists.

http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Wal.../dp/1451648537 ...