French publisher Ubisoft has reported a 19% increase in net sales and an “excellent” outlook for the second half of the fiscal year, ending March of 2006.

The report showed that the company still lost €11 million ($13 million) the first half of the 2005-2006 fiscal year, an improvement from a €33 million ($39 million) loss [...]

I was asked to participate in the BBC’s Politics show last week. It featured a discussion about Rockstar’s Bully.
Broadcast on the Sunday before Xmas it featured Dave Doak, FRD, myself, Roger Bennett, ELSPA, and Keith Vaz MP. It centered around the danger of Bully falling into the wrong hands and the game becoming damaging [...]

Electronic Arts has been poking around the mobile games industry for a couple of years, but finally the company has committed in typically extravagant fashion – by putting in a successful $680m bid for US mobile content publisher and developer, Jamdat. You can get the full financial story here but, in brief, EA is paying [...]

“Through December, Next Generation is running a series of features looking at how leading publishers fared in 2005, including the highlights and lowlights.”

Grand Theft Auto, was found to featured hidden sexual content. The game was pulled, reclassified, and became the subject of an FTC investigation, a class action lawsuit, untold lost dollars and gallons of [...]

“Through December, Next Generation is running a series of features looking at how leading publishers fared in 2005, including the highlights and lowlights.”

Activision extended its Spider-Man deal, and held Dreamworks into a 12-year agreement, covering the likes of Shrek and Bee Movie.
In the last year, Activision bought Vicarious Visions, best known for [...]

Sony Computer Entertainment World Wide Studios has officially brought Killzone developer Guerrilla Games. Sony announced its acquisition of Amsterdam-based Guerrilla Games, developers of the Killzone franchise and its next-generation PS3 iteration. The two companies already had a strong working relationship, as an exclusive development agreement was already in effect since March of last [...]

“Through December, Next Generation is running a series of features looking at how leading publishers fared in 2005, including the highlights and lowlights.”
Electonic Arts

Responding to an attack on its turf from Take-Two, EA got serious in the sports market.
EA also added to its portfolio of international development subsidiaries, picking up Digital Illusions in January, and [...]

WMS has issued its preview of NPD’s TRSTS report, estimating a poor November for the industry. The analyst has forecast sales of $715 million, down 16% over last year. It has also downgraded its full-year estimate from 6% growth to zero growth.
NPD’s final stats are due Thursday, December 8. WMS’ numbers are an estimation based [...]

Earlier this year, there were some in the industry who said that moving from one console generation to another has become as easy as stepping over puddles. They were wrong.
Earlier in the year, many were confidently predicting that we had it all figured out. Hard experience would help us through this console transition, in [...]

BBC Research commissioned a UK study of gaming in the media context. BBC News got a preview, and have done a little snapshot of the major headlines; the big paper bit is being laid out and subbed. Probably another week or so in the works.
To understand how games fit into people’s everyday lives, the BBC [...]