Contents CONTENT
Editor: Matt Broughton
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MANAGEMENT
Media Director: Paul Ryder
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www.mcvuk.com 5 Screen Time
What your new Editor has been wasting his time on
6 IRL Tarsier Studios and THQ Nordic’s exclusive REANIMAL preview party
7 Daniel Knight
How the Phasmophobia team are building the support they once needed
8 Critical Path The key dates this month and beyond
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12 Alexey Izotov Digital Vortex Entertainment’s CEO talks about the diversity of working with various developers
14 Sam Bennion Gamesight’s Senior Creative Strategist looks at marketing existing franchises
16 Gavin Smith UK Gaming: From Boom to Balance – A sector rebuilding on stronger foundations
18 Q&A: Magicave
CEO, Harry Holmwood, takes us through titles Mindset GO! and Beneath The Six
22 Women in Games Dr Marie-Claire Isaaman on why the organisation’s Individual Ambassador programme matters
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23 Amiqus Liz Prince presents “From pay gaps to ‘he/him salaries’”
24 The Future of XR MixRift’s Bobby Voicu, tells Matt where he thinks XR is going
26 Burntcrust Nathan Prestige: Space Pizza Warrior
28 The Renaissance Man
Stefano Petrullo explains what GDC 2026 tells us about modern game communication
29 Bad Ads
Ivona Pinjak explains why mobile game ads aren’t the problem
54 Final Boss Savvy Games Group’s Dr. Nika Nour
52 Plarium
Six rules for building a high impact LiveOps team, from Anna Hryshchenko
February/March 2026 30 Develop:Brighton
Everything you need to know about the July event 32 Fluid’s 30th Anniversary
Happy birthday! MCV/DEVELOP charts three decades of Fluid
36 Megabit We caught up with Megabit’s recently appointed CEO, Jonathan Hale
38 Side
A chat with Slide’s Olivier Deslandes 40 Planet Play
Rhea Loucas tells us: A new kind of co-op has arrived
42 Shala Chen City From Naught’s Co-Founder talks all things Brave New Wonders
44 “JJ”
In conversation with NCSOFT’s CEO of NC America, Jeonghee “JJ” Jin
46 Playing the market public web data can power smarter gam industry strategies
47 Tipalti Travis Hughson explains why thinking about payouts early matters for gaming success
48 Maximising Programmatic Advertising optimisation in 2026
50 Gamedev Production and Design Workbook “Why I Built a Workbook Instead of Another Framework” by Leszek Lisowski
51 Paul Sulyok Lessons from Australia for a stronger UK games industry
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February/March 2026 MCV/DEVELOP | 3
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