In my team: MCV

Who’s in your team and what are their roles?

We’re a four-person team. Jem Alexander and Jake Tucker are our content editors, with responsibilities for games development and business plus esports respectively. Marie Dealessandri is our senior staff writer with responsibility for influencer-related content. And I lead the team, providing editorial direction, working on native content deals and helping our events team organise a broad lineup of highly-respected industry events.

Tell us a bit about MCV’s history and role within the gaming industry

MCV is just about to reach its 20th anniversary. That easily makes it the world’s longest-running publication supporting the games industry. MCV started as a weekly primarily aimed at the UK games retail channel, but it’s shifted over recent years to become an industry-spanning brand with a website, daily email newsletter and a monthly print run. Its role is to report upon, analyse and support the UK games industry. To provide a platform for companies in the sector to communicate and build better creative and business relationships.

MCV has just been reimagined, how has that gone and what can readers look forward to

Towards the end of last year we took the decision to merge all our gaming brands together. That brought MCV, Develop and Esports Pro into a single team under the MCV brand. The games industry is constantly evolving and we have to evolve with it. Digital distribution has meant the line between developers and publishers has been steadily erased. We increasingly found big stories, say an indie developer self-publishing a competitive title, that intersected all three of our old brands, so we thought it best to join forces. The new MCV will speak to everyone in the industry, it will tackle the tricky issues and help individuals, studios and businesses of all sorts achieve their goals. Have a flick through and you’ll find lots of content that affect the PC games industry and the hardware the underpins it. You can read the magazine for free in its digital form at https://issuu.com/newbayeurope

What is the best event you’ve attended as a team?

There’s less flashy game launches than there used to be, admittedly. Activision used to push the boat out every year for Call of Duty and once recreated a sizeable warzone in and around Battersea Power Station for the night. The best event of late was the Monster Hunter World launch. They turned a BBQ restaurant into a game-themed experience for the weekend with a huge spit-roast outside providing plentiful meats for hungry gamers.

Our biggest team outing every year is Gamescom, when the whole team travel to Cologne in Germany for the week and turn out three daily magazines to incredibly tight print deadlines.

Who is the best gamer?

Jake is absolutely convinced that he’s the most skilled in terms of competitive games – particularly first person shooters – and he’s probably right. That said, we all have our strengths in our favourite genres.

Contact: sbarton@nbmedia.com Tel: 0203 871 7388