gg! - Goldpact Goblins launch 🚀 tariff impact 💰 pitch tips 🎮
Business & Finance
Neon Doctrine co-founders return with new developer services firm Goldpact Goblins (3 min read)
Neon Doctrine's co-founders launched Goldpact Goblins, a developer services firm that actually lets you keep your money. No rev-share — just community management, marketing, QA, and strategy support for small and midsize studios. Already working with six devs across Asia. Finally, someone's playing the anti-publisher.
(Gamesindustry)
Four tips for pitching your game to investors and publishers (9 min read)
Game Developer published four tips for pitching to investors and publishers. Know your audience, nail the deck, lead with gameplay, and maybe skip the metaverse slide. Solid fundamentals that somehow still need saying.
(Game Developer)
38 percent of game industry leaders are feeling the impact of U.S. tariffs (5 min read)
38% of game industry leaders report U.S. tariffs are hitting their bottom line—not a statistical blip, but a real structural problem. Time to add trade policy to your quarterly forecast spreadsheet.
(Game Developer)
Roblox reports significant growth for 2025, hitting $4.9bn in revenue (3 min read)
Roblox crushed 2025 with $4.9B revenue (36% YoY growth) and $6.8B bookings. 144M DAU, and top creators pulling $1.3M each. The UGC economy just claimed 3.4% of global gaming market share -- turns out passion projects do scale.
(Gamesindustry)
Ghost of Yōtei shipped 3.3M copies since October and "significantly contributed" to Sony's 6% digital revenue jump ($4.8B). PS5 hardware pricing rising due to memory costs—Sony's betting software monetization over unit sales. 92M PS5s shipped to date.
(Gamesindustry)
AppMagic data shows mobile games growth slowed down in 2025 (2 min read)
Mobile games revenue grew just 0.2% in 2025 while downloads climbed 4.6%—the market hit maturity and it's now a zero-sum game. Strategy games are the only winner at +16%; RPGs and casino games are bleeding. Time to stop chasing new players and start keeping the ones you have.
(Gamesindustry)
PS5 unit sales drop during holiday period, Q3 hardware revenue down 15% to $3.9bn (3 min read)
Sony's PS5 hardware sales tanked 15.7% during Q3 to 8 million units, dragging revenue down 15% to $3.9 billion. Game and network services picked up the slack, but console demand weakening mid-generation is a signal devs should probably care about when planning their platform roadmaps.
(Gamesindustry)
Ghost of Yotei outperforms Ghost of Tsushima to bolster Sony financials (3 min read)
Ghost of Yotei's Q3 sales outpaced the original Ghost of Tsushima, pushing Sony's G&NS division to record software and services revenue. Hardware sales dipped 4% YoY, but operating income jumped 19%—proof that the console business is alive, just now running on software and subscriptions instead of box sales.
(Game Developer)
Nintendo president says a long-term memory shortage 'may put pressure on profitability' (4 min read)
Nintendo's president flagged that memory shortages from AI demand could tank profitability if prices stay high past next fiscal year. No Switch 2 price bump announced yet, but the company's locking down component supplies while Valve's already dodging hardware reveals over the same crunch. Console margins are about to get spicy.
(Game Developer)
Nintendo's locking down memory component supplies to dodge a hardware price hike—at least through Q4. Furukawa's playing it cool on future increases, but Valve's already sweating the same supply crunch. When platform holders start worrying about component costs, it usually means everyone's about to feel it.
(Gamesindustry)
Studios & People
Report: ProbablyMonsters lays off devs while unveiling Nazi hunting game (3 min read)
ProbablyMonsters cut staff again while announcing Nekome: Nazi Hunter — continuing CEO Harold Ryan's hit-and-miss cycle of greenlit projects followed by mass layoffs. Hundreds of millions raised, two low-budget games shipped since 2016, and Firewalk Studios already sold to Sony (then shuttered post-Concord). The pattern's starting to feel less like ambition and more like chaos.
(Game Developer)
Tencent subsidiary Sumo Digital is making layoffs (7 min read)
Sumo Digital's trimming headcount again. Tencent's studio can't seem to stop the layoff cycle, which honestly just tracks with the rest of the industry right now.
(Game Developer)
MachineGames asking more staff to move to full-time office work (2 min read)
MachineGames is yanking senior staff back to five days in the office, up from three-day hybrid. Director Jerk Gustafsson claims in-person collab drives efficiency -- easier to sell when your commute isn't brutal. New northern Sweden office incoming to sweeten the deal.
(Gamesindustry)
UK co-development house Sumo Digital announces redundancies (2 min read)
Tencent-owned Sumo Digital is cutting staff while pivoting toward exclusive co-development deals. They're not saying how many heads are on the chopping block, but swear active projects won't suffer. Par for the course in 2024.
(Gamesindustry)
Games & Releases
Resident Evil: Requiem's PC specs are refreshingly gentle -- RTX 2060 Super / Ryzen 5 5500 recommended. Capcom's RE Engine keeps looking good without melting your GPU. Even the Switch 2 port squeezed in, though the handheld's limits are showing.
(IGN)
Dovetail Games is shipping Thomas & Friends: Wonders of Sodor, a Train Sim World-powered game where you drive tank engines around Sodor. Character stories, mini-games, timetable sim, and free roam included. The train enthusiast community has already declared it will print money. Coming to Steam.
(PC Gamer)
Krafton's PUBG: Blindspot—a free-to-play 5v5 tactical shooter spinoff—hit Steam Early Access today. Top-down indoor combat, team strategy, Competitive Season 1 next week. Your battle royale IP just went indoors.
(GameInformer)
Bandai Namco's patching Code Vein 2's performance issues: frame rate boosts in combat, stuttering fixes, and better action mode stability coming across multiple updates. Also tossing in action rebalancing and—sure, why not—bangs as a hairstyle. No ETA yet, but they're "committed."
(Eurogamer)
Highguard Episode 2 Is Here, With a New Warden, Map, Ranked Mode, And More (5 min read)
Highguard shipped Episode 2 just two weeks after launch with a new warden, map, ranked mode, and free cosmetics. Wildlight's iterating at warp speed—gear polish and raid stats tracking already live. That's the kind of post-launch velocity that makes other devs nervously check their roadmaps.
(IGN)
Insomniac teased Daredevil's arrival in Marvel's Wolverine with a pun about "fancy lawyer lingo"—a wink at Matt Murdock that builds on Nelson & Murdock Easter eggs scattered through the Spider-Man games. Fans are already connecting the dots. Game ships H2 2026.
(IGN)
Black Ops 7's new Overload mode shipped with a wallhack bug and comms issues that have pro players like Exceed and Xotic calling it the worst mode ever added. Treyarch's response? Shipping it anyway. Nothing says "we heard you" like ignoring feedback from your competitive scene.
(Esports Insider)
Guild Wars 2 finally shipped fashion templates, and the community immediately complained that ArenaNet made them so convoluted players need a 1,500-word guide to use them. When your QoL feature requires a tutorial, you've already lost.
(PC Gamer)
Magic's 2026 slate stacks four licensed Universes Beyond sets against original in-universe content like Secrets of Strixhaven. Wizards is marketing Marvel, TMNT, Hobbit, and Star Trek so hard that homegrown Magic is getting lost in the noise—déjà vu from last year's Edge of Eternities flop. WotC wants revenue; players want their game back.
(IGN)
In defense of Assassin's Creed Unity (7 min read)
PC Gamer's making the case for Assassin's Creed Unity: yes, launch was a dumpster fire (floating faces, co-op connection nightmare), but patches salvaged it into a tight, Paris-focused experience with crowd systems that still beat newer bloated entries. The hot-air balloon mission remains peak AC.
(PC Gamer)
AI/Tech & Tools
Roblox announces AI-powered object and scene creation model (4 min read)
Roblox's new Cube Foundation Model lets creators text-prompt entire 3D objects and scenes into existence—fully functional cars, cyberpunk cities, the works. 160,000+ objects already generated in early access. Eventually they want natural language handling assets, code, animations, and full scenes. The "I have a dream" approach to game dev just got a lot more literal.
(Game Developer)
Game Developer broke down how hand tracking reshapes VR interaction design using Dimensional Double Shift as a case study. If you're building VR and still wrestling with controller abstractions, this is required reading for making your input feel less janky.
(Game Developer)
Valve updates hardware launch timing due to component pricing (3 min read)
Valve's delaying exact pricing and launch dates for its three new Steam devices (Machine, Frame VR, Controller) due to AI-driven memory and storage shortages. H1 2026 ship window intact, but RAM costs have more than doubled since October. Blame the data center gold rush.
(Gamesindustry)
Steam Machine pricing and shipping details delayed due to RAM shortage (4 min read)
Valve's pushing back Steam Machine pricing and shipping details thanks to a RAM shortage. Supply chain gremlins strike again—apparently even Valve can't escape the chip shortage hangover. 🎮
(Game Developer)
Policy & Labor
Tightening immigration rules will impact the games industry in 2026 (7 min read)
US and UK immigration overhauls in 2026 will tighten visa standards and add social media vetting to work visas. Studios banking on global talent should brace for longer hiring timelines, stricter job docs, and project delays. International devs just got more expensive to recruit.
(Gamesindustry)
Culture & Community
Games for Change announces partnership with London Games Festival (1 min read)
Games for Change is landing in London on April 15, 2026 with its first UK summit, partnering with London Games Festival. Developers, educators, and policymakers will debate games' social impact. Speaker submissions close February 26 -- time to pitch that passion project with a purpose.
(Gamesindustry)
Sandfall Interactive's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 earned France's Order of Arts and Letters from the Ministry of Culture—a rare honor that basically amounts to the French government officially blessing games as legitimate art. Not bad for a debut title.
(PC Gamer)
Global Esports Industry Week Coming to IEM Cologne (3 min read)
ESIC's Global Esports Industry Week hits Cologne in June alongside IEM, with ESL FACEIT Group handling logistics. New dev and education tracks debut alongside an Esports Leaders Honours ceremony. Four days of handshakes, networking, and the occasional deal that'll be announced in a press release nobody reads.
(The Esports Advocate)
Portuguese Esports Federation Renews Deal With Moonton Games (2 min read)
Moonton Games locked in a renewal with Portugal's Esports Federation, making Mobile Legends: Bang Bang a centerpiece of the Portuguese Esports Cup 2026 (June 4-7). €15k+ prize pool across 20 competitions. Part of Portugal's push to become an esports hub. Good news for Moonton's competitive presence in EU.
(The Esports Advocate)
Gore Verbinski wanted BioShock as a dark R-rated psychological thriller with Oedipal themes and branching endings. Universal passed. He still hears rumors about the project annually, but apparently no studio's willing to actually make his version. Rapture stays in the deep.
(PC Gamer)
FF14's community engineered a full 140-page D&D-style ruleset to run competitive Blitzball tournaments using nothing but raid markers and macros. Yoshi-P keeps joking about never adding it officially? Doesn't matter—players already built it themselves.
(PC Gamer)
RGG Studio defended casting actor Teruyuki Kagawa in Yakuza 3 Kiwami despite sexual assault accusations, claiming they wanted someone "unsettling." Fans are not buying it—#REMOVEKAGAWA is trending with a 10k-signature petition. The optics are rough: Sega recast Pierre Taki in 2019 for cocaine possession, so the double standard stings.
(IGN)
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