Call of Duty ‘at risk’ from GTA 6, EA set for World Cup boost, and Switch 2 hits UK milestone

Hello and welcome to the game business show. As you receive this, we will be en route to Los Angeles for Summer Game Fest 2026. I'm simultaneously excited and very nervous. That's because we've got a big event on on Monday, June 8th, the Game Business Live, which is part of Summer Game Fest. We've got Matthew Ball now of Xbox. We've got EA president Laura Miele and games legend Jason Rubin all going on stage to chat with me. It's it's going well. I think by the time this will have gone out and we will have fully sold out of all tickets. Maybe there might be one or two left. It's coming together nicely, but as always still lots to do, lots to sort out. And but also there are loads of games and events and interviews we'll be doing over the course of the week. I'm excited and overwhelmed. It's my birthday as well. I believe we're going out for dinner later. So lots and lots happening. Today's edition of the show is our Summer Game Fest preview. We've got Piers Harding Rolls of Ampere with us in a moment to chat about some exclusive data. He's revealing with us

specifically for the Game Business Live. He'll be with us imminently. We've also got a short interview with I am 8-bit, which organizes Play Days. That takes place part of Summer Game Fest as well. I'll talk about that in a moment. And we're speaking to Samantha Lester, the studio head of Ichi Worldwide. They're a creative agency. They're owned by Keywords. They specialize in trailers and videos. And as it's trailer season, I thought I'd find out a little bit of the nuts and bolts that go into creating one of these thousands of trailers we're going to be seeing. So but before we get to all of that, there's a lot to get to. Let's do some news because although Summer Game Fest officially starts on Friday, June 5th in many ways it started already. On Tuesday this week we had the Sony State of Play event, which was headlined by Marvel's Wolverine and God of War. Wolverine opened the event. It was an M-rated. It is an M-rated take on the character from the developer behind the smash hit Spider-Man game. That's Insomniac. And the event closed with God of War Lafee. I I pronounce that wrong. That's a new take on the series starring Faye, the wife of traditional series lead Kratos

and set in the afterlife. In between those two, there was Until Dawn 2. I was really excited about that. I love Until Dawn. The original Until Dawn came out in 2015. That was developed by Supermassive Games. Supermassive Games now has its own Until Dawn-like series called The Dark Pictures Anthology. This game is being made by another UK studio called Firesprite. And that's coming out in 2027. There was also the Turn of Stunt Man, if you remember that one, Stunt Man Hollywood as it was announced. We had a Rayman Legends Retold, which is actually a 3D-ish remake of Rayman Legends. It's not It's a bit of I'm surprised why why it's not just a new game, but it looked amazing. I'm all over that. Um we had a load of release dates as well. Ace Combat 8 is out October 2nd. Uh Dune Awakening is coming to console September 22nd. Control Resident is due September 24th. Silent Hill Townfall is also out September 24th. Onimusha: Warlords is September 25th. Phantom Blade Zero was delayed. It's coming out October 29th now. And the Tomb Raider remake was delayed to February 27th, which makes sense considering all of that. Um but it does mean Tomb Raider misses anniversary year. For some reason, nobody's putting

a game out in November. I'm not quite sure what that is. Uh also, I guess part of the Summer Game Fest period of announcements was Call of Duty. That was um that was last week. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 was announced. It's launching on October 23rd across Xbox, PlayStation, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2. It's not coming to PS4 and Xbox One this time. It's PS5 and Xbox Series X and S. It's developed by Infinity Ward. It will feature all the usual stuff: campaigns, multiplayer, and extraction mode. It seems to have gone down well. The game follows the disappointing performance of last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Activision says it will no longer release quick sequels to its big games. So, they had a thing, Black Ops 6 came out and then the year later they had a Black Ops 7. Modern Warfare 2 came out and a year later they had a Modern Warfare 3. They're not going to do that anymore, um because they they they're not seeing the returns, I think, that they would expect. Call of Duty has actually lost half its audience over the last 12 months, according to Ampere. Modern Warfare 4 this year will not be coming to Xbox Game Pass on the day it is released. It will arrive year later. That's unlike the last couple of games, so that's quite a significant change. Interesting one that one. Disappointing news here, Valve has hiked

the price of its Steam Deck by over 40%. The 512 GB OLED model is now $789, €779, £669, and the 1 TB model will cost $949, €919, and £779. Previously, the 512 GB OLED model was $549, £479, and the 1 TB model came in at $649 and £569. That's a huge price hike, and it's because of those component shortages and price rises that's causing havoc to the whole hardware market. It's nearly World Cup time, and so FIFA football soccer governing body has announced things. It's announced its video game strategy called digital football. A lot of it is stuff we already knew. It covers the upcoming Netflix FIFA World Cup game, which we know nothing about, and the free-to-play mobile arcade game FIFA Heroes, which is out later in the year. It also incorporates last year's FIFA Rivals mobile game and the collaborations with Sega's Football Manager and the Roblox game Super League Soccer. FIFA also has eSports partnerships with Epic's Rocket League and Konami's eFootball. This all is a result of FIFA and losing its

relationship with EA. They fell out. It wasn't very pretty. EA rebranded FIFA as EA Sports FC and has gone on to incredible success since then, and FIFA want to get back into games but really don't offer much outside of the World Cup license, but all of these partnerships are obviously very cool. A few other stories, Xbox has delayed Fable. It was coming out this year, it's now like Tomb Raider coming out February 2027. It's a big year for Xbox games. There's Gears of War, mentioned Call of Duty a moment ago, there's Halo campaign evolved, and all those other games. They just went, you know what, let's give Fable its own space. It's a sensible decision. I think Fable looks great. And for full transparency, my brother works for Playground Games, um but I'm a fan of a fan of Fable anyway. We both were growing up, which is why he's doing that and I'm doing this. Sticking with RPGs, The Witcher 3 is officially getting a third major expansion 12 years after it came out. It will launch in 2027. The developer CD Projekt also announced The Witcher 3 has sold 65 million copies worldwide. And The Witcher 4 is currently deep in development. And speaking of good numbers, 007 First Light has started

pretty well. The IO Interactive game has sold 1.5 million copies in 24 hours. And it's got a bunch of good review scores, 87 Metacritic score. It makes it the second highest scoring James Bond game after, of course, the classic Nintendo 64 game GoldenEye. Atari's Atari's acquisition strategy is a bit weird. Um Atari has acquired Crossy Road developer Hipster Whale for over $29 million of a total potential cost of nearly 40 million. The company stated it will use the developer to expand its mobile development and publishing capabilities. Atari does do a few deals like this. It's bought a few sort of indie publishers and indie games. But it's mostly been buying retro titles. But clearly they want to expand into more modern games as well. Or game modern games have a sort of retro feel. That's that's part of their strategy. Rockstar employees have formed the Rockstar game workers union, which operates as a subsidiary of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain. The union initially planned to launch last year after surpassing the 10% union membership threshold they needed to hit. But that was delayed after Rockstar dismissed 30 employees for distributing confidential information in the public forum. That's

always running and running and running. Uh this is this is a bit of an issue for some games companies. The California State Assembly has passed the Assembly Bill 1921, the Protect Our Games Act. The consumer movement Stop Killing Games has celebrated the decision. The bill would require game companies to give players advanced notice before shutting down games that require a server and provide a way to keep purchased games playable afterwards, such as offline access, community servers, or another workable option. The bill isn't finished yet. It needs to head to the California State Senate. And we'll see where that goes. But obviously there's a big push around this. And I think game companies are a bit against it. We saw the comments from the Video Games Europe a trade body who were trying to warn why they want to stop Well, they want to kill games, basically. Or at least well, they need to have that option. Um, hopefully there's a middle ground that can be found here where it doesn't harm companies too much, but we can keep our games alive. That's important, right? It is an art form, after all. And the final story I'll go through today is Integrated Media Company, the owners of GameSpot and Fandom, have agreed to acquire Bilateral Publisher Playstack. The firm's current owner, True Fin, had

been looking to sell the business. We knew that for a little while. And it's now agreed to sell its 84.5% stake in the UK company to Integrated Media Company. That's an interesting little story. Don't think it'll probably mean much for Playstack. Um, we're going to have Playstack on the show pretty soon, actually. Anyway, that's the news. Let's move on to some data. And to chat with me about that is our long-term partner and our friend, Piers Harding-Rolls from Ampere Analysis. Hello, Piers. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Chris. Great to see you, as always.
It's lovely to see you. How was Did you watch the State of Play last night? Did you watch Sony's event?
I I actually didn't watch it last night, cuz I was busy doing other things, but I did watch it this morning. I thought there's quite a lot of content coming out in the year, specifically in September. And yeah, it's looking actually pretty good. I mean, I would probably what, rate out of 10, maybe seven or eight, I think. Yeah. A lot of it was games that are coming out this year. So, that was really positive. There was also there was a few for 2027, I think.
PlayStation used There was a time when they I remember when they turn up to E3

and announce games that weren't even in development yet. I
[laughter]
Was there They've done that before. Absolutely. It was all to build up the hype. And I sometimes think they should try that now, to sort of go, "Come on, let's tease an Uncharted or whatever." But they don't seem to really want to do that. And that's probably the right call, I guess. Um, Wolverine, obviously, was the big one they started with, and God of War at the end. Um, but yeah, lots of release dates for September.
I think that's all right for single-player games. So, they're probably going to discuss GTA 6 a bit, I think. You know, I think it's all right for single-player games going in there. There's some sort of arguments to be said, as well, for, you know, you obviously you're looking for GTA 6 to did a lot of heavy lifting for selling consoles, but also it's for driving momentum back into the sector. And if you've got a game there which has already come out, that people are looking to add if they're fresh to the platform, then you know, you're you're in a lucky position, I think.
Yeah, we are going to talk about GTA in a moment, but I do have actually a weird and this wasn't this this is not your data, but I have a little data point

that's come in because the folks over at Nielsen IQ will always be chart track to me, but have shared that Nintendo Switch 2 in the UK has just surpassed 1 million units. It is the sixth fastest selling home console in the UK. We hit a million sales in 39 weeks. PS4 took 39 weeks as well. PS PS5, sorry, took 39 weeks as well. PS4 took 42 weeks. PS3 took 46 weeks. PS3 took 46 weeks. PS2 took 50 weeks and Switch 2 took 52 weeks, exactly 1 year. It's well ahead of Switch 1 and Switch 1 took 82 weeks to hit a million units in the UK. I UK's not the biggest market for Nintendo. Nintendo game consoles can do all right in the UK, but like give you an example, globally Switch 1 is the second best-selling games device of all time, but in the UK, it's still behind the 360, the Wii, PS2. It's just behind the PS4 now very narrowly. So, it's really interesting to see Switch 2 starting so well. In the newsletter that's part of this, I've got a little

chart which sort of charts the consoles that got to a million units.
Yeah, I mean, it's been so heavily loaded, hasn't it? There was a lot of anticipation and a lot of inventory. So, it was expected that it would sell quickly out of the blocks. So, it's probably not that surprising, but like you say, in the UK, Nintendo is relatively not as strong as in some other markets.
That's what surprises me. It's actually ahead of France in Europe, the Switch 2.
Yeah, that doesn't always happen.
No, it's a bit of a bit of a moment. Anyway, just a little little fact there. Actually, it was a tough month for consoles in May in the UK. The Nintendo Switch 2 did reasonably well. PS5 sales are down more than 50% for the May data, and that's because of that price hike that happened in April. In fact, it was only just ahead of the Xbox Series X and S. There was only like 400 units between them.
Wow.
So, uh the price hikes had a real immediate impact.
had a big pick up, didn't they, prior to the
Because people tried to get in before the price rise, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, that that's my piece of data that I've got there. Um but we're here

to talk about a new report from Ampere. It's being released alongside the Game Business Live, which is the event we've got going on on Monday. I mentioned it earlier. Um it features some of the topics we might be talking about. The report goes live on Friday, June 5th. So, depending on when you're listening to us, it's either out now or it's out tomorrow. If you know what appears, tell us about it. What is this report?
So, we did one of these last year, and and I think we focused on the multi-platform game and exploitation of games IP on different platforms. You know, there's a cross-platform tunes and things like that. This time we focused on big cultural moments, which is one of the the key topics. So, we've looked at the upcoming World Cup 2026 is obviously taking place in the US, the biggest console market, biggest advertising market globally, and what the sort of potential impact of that could be. I mean, it's the first World Cup where you've got this new strategy from FIFA uh in terms of licensing into games. They're now licensing some numerous uh different companies and trying to reach different audiences with different types

of experiences. And then the other obviously big cultural event, the biggest entertainment event of this year will be Grand Theft Auto 6. So, we've we've done kind of investigation into the potential impact from that on different genres of game and also different games using some of the data that we can see from the latest update for GTA 5 and GTA online.
Yeah.
And seeing where the the audience has pulled from for that and where there was kind of churn from different games and different genres of game. So, that's yeah, one of the areas. And then we've also looked at the sort of live service battlegrounds. So, the new big live service games that came out at the end of 2025, how they're progressing, what's their retention stats looking like, and how do they compare in terms of sentiment towards games, where they where they've done well and where they haven't done quite so well. So, that's you know, our greatest versus Battlefield 6. And then we're also looking at the annotation environment.

So, the commissioning environment. So, the extension of games into other areas and and what the kind of trends are around that. There's been quite a lot of news covering in in the sort of movie press talking about the Battlefield opportunity. There's a bidding war apparently going on at the moment for the rights to reduce that. And also they've also got a Call of Duty movie in the making as well. So, there's a lot of interest I think around those.
Call of Duty versus Battlefield 5 yeah, is going from the living room into the silver screen.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah. And but I mean one of the things we picked up from our games data is that you know, the audiences are pretty distinct. So, we investigate that a little bit. So, yeah, we cover quite a lot. It's free for people to download.
Yeah.
And you'll be sending out the link where you'll find it. So,
Yes.
looking forward to sharing that and getting some feedback on on what people think.
Yeah, I think it's a fantastic report. It's a lot more than I was expecting to be honest. I think it's bigger than last year's report. Feels it. Certainly a lot

in there. Well, let's let's dive into a couple of the topics because we're not going to dive into all of them, but I thought we'd pick So, I was actually I thought the World Cup was interesting cuz we don't we I'm not talked about it too much at all. Cuz there's stuff in here about the upcoming FIFA is obviously busy doing lots of partnerships with existing games. It's got a mobile game coming. It's got the big mysterious Netflix title that's you know, it's got to be ready soon, but we've not seen anything on it. But your data says that it's the non-FIFA title, the EA title that's likely to benefit the most from the World Cup.
Well, that's the kind of irony of it. I'd think that if you look at the impact when the last World Cup happens uh FIFA 23, you know, actually it was a winter World Cup, so it had that sort of outside impact because the game FIFA 23 had only kind of just come into the market really. So, there was a lot of premium sales driven from that. But there was also a lot of activity increase because of the rollout of that. Because they're the biggest game sport, you know, soccer game, football game that's available, I'm still expecting EA

Sports FC, which is still the new um version of FIFA, to gather the best sort of impact from from the World Cup. It's a bit more fragmented in terms of the impacts of all these other
Mhm.
sort of partnerships have been agreed and licensing arrangements. So, it's a it's a kind of broader spread of impacts, but I think that EA Sports FC will actually
Yeah.
enjoy the best pick up from from the World Cup coming up.
I talked about this at the beginning I talked about the the FIFA's digital football strategy. And um actually I think they're probably doing the right thing. When they initially split up with EA, there was a lot of like threatening to take down EA and we'll beat them and stuff, which is I think was a bit nonsense really. But what they've done here is they've sort of gone for um the areas where EA's not playing in, right? So, or not doing being quite so effective in. So, mobile is partnered with eFootball, which I think you told me earlier it's done really really well in mobile eFootball. Um and pro football manager, but it's also got its Netflix.

So, it's I think from Netflix's point of view, again, it's something you were saying about um it it's a bit of a way of them getting involved in the World Cup basically or that despite the fact they don't have
driving engagement and it's it's a tool to get people back into the Netflix platform while the World Cup is going on. because obviously with the World Cup, you've got this attention scarcity becoming you know, even more sort of enhanced because of the World Cup and all the the fact that it's now 48 teams, more matches, you know, lasting longer. Um and then all these sort of advertising that's going on around the World Cup from the sponsors and the different partners of the World Cup. Um so it's taking a lot of attention into the event and that that obviously has a kind of broader impact on the game sector, so specifically for live service games. I mean, we're lucky that there's not a lot of premium games that coming at this time of year. It's not really a a quiet time of the year, so that's good.

But live service titles will be fighting for attention in in that context. And then um but the positive impact is that for games or soccer games, they also have a a positive impact on that from from the World Cup.
It does that depends on how long your country's in it. I remember back in my old MCV days, I used to um track video game sales and like the official World Cup game and those games would do really well when England were in the tournament. And then as soon as they were out of the tournament, everything just cratered like
[laughter]
Um so although for for football games in particular and then I guess the market might people pick up and then EA's got some data as well from when like in between football matches, people play FIFA and stuff. So or EA's not FIFA, EA Sports FC.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's what um Netflix is targeting. They're they're going for more kind of arcade implementation. They want people to pick up and play during the
Yeah.
during the thing. I mean, there's a long-term growth kind of story here for sport for sports games and soccer games because the US is under represented in

terms of uh football fandom or soccer fandom.
Mhm.
It is going up and it's now, I think, according to our consumer data, the third favorite sport uh in the US, which is, you know, is obviously quite significant.
Yeah.
And if you look at the player base of EA Sports FC, actually the US has the largest player base for a for a country. It's obviously got the most amount of consoles actually um doing well in terms of the amount of players there, but there is much more headroom to grow into. So, if EA Sports FC can take advantage of that increasing interest in in soccer, then that will have a positive impact on their their business from that perspective.
Let's talk about the other thing that's going to suck all the time out of the market. It's you touched upon it in your report, Grand Theft Auto 6. We have talked about it quite a lot on this show, and I imagine it's going to be talked about pretty much every week now between now and when it launches, and then after that. You've crunched the

numbers to work out which games are going to find it finding it keeping its audience the hardest during the GTA blast phase. I think everyone's going to have a bit of a trouble time during that particular moment. Um but your data or tell us your data is it shooters and sports games are the ones that are probably going to be most affected by the GTA 6 release.
Yeah, I mean there's multiple dimensions to this. Obviously, the the console business as a as a whole I think is looking for kind of sales momentum from GTA 6 coming to the market. So, that is really positive for selling new consoles, new new players of consoles, new buyers of consoles. They want lots of content. So, they're likely to buy all the games as well. So, that's what I was talking about at the beginning is that if you've got pre-release that's coming early, it's likely that you'll get this increased business because of that kind of uptick in sales. Then there's the two sort of main dimensions of GTA 6, which is obviously the pre-release, which is a massive blast

Mhm.
from November onwards, which will probably last into the late February or something, where people will be just spending a lot of time and energy and then a lot of focus will be going on to the title. And then there's the kind of unknown quantity which is the live service quantity which is we don't know much about what GTA 6 is going to do about online proposition. If we look at the data that GTA 5 is producing in terms of user activity and some of the latest data so we looked at the what the impact was of the world out of the latest update which is the safe house in the hills update. That uh came at the end of last year and it brought in a lot of new players. So we looked at the games where we saw churn and migration from titles and quite a few of the titles were newer games. So basically from games where players are not if they're live service

titles so for example the latest Call of Duty they have not got their sort of feet under the table and not so engaged. They haven't been playing it for months and months. And they're not necessarily stuck you know to that game so they're unlikely to sort of shift off and play other titles. And then there was other you know the in effect the biggest mass more mass market type experiences those shoot titles um that the sandbox titles obviously the sub UGC platforms etc and also the sports titles. Um so that's where we see some of the impacts being felt but it's also this unknown quantity so we don't know if there is going to be an on how GTA online is going to be treated. There's going to be this distinct audience on other platforms away from PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X or you know we don't know how they're going to be treated is you know it's obviously going to be fragmented in some ways we don't know

what the online position is going to be.
You can play out so many different scenarios. Are they going to release it like alongside the PC launch? Are they going to separate the two the GTA 6 online and GTA 5 online? Are we going to have them somehow how close are they going to be? I mean, we started to I thought maybe we talk about this for a bit, but I realized there's so many different permutation and it's so much speculation that it's it's like
It's a long discussion.
We don't know and it is a big unknown. It is going to be a big deciding factor. Phil Rogers, the Embracer CEO, was on my show on Tuesday and he said that he believes there'll be people a load of people that will buy GTA obviously and then there'll be people who drop out and some people might complete it and some people might get a few hours in or whatever, you know, like you always have that data where not everyone finishes a game and you think that's where there might be an opportunity for
[clears throat]
for other games, you know, to to swoop in and be that title, you know, week before Black Friday GTA 6. So there's like there's all of that element. I know Black Friday's a bit of an old school way of thinking about it, but
That's another area we look at how which is the GTA online and the retention of that in the context of other live

service titles and it does not have the best retention. There's a lot of kind of lapsed players or kind of loose players that come in and out that experience and ongoing you know, retention stance isn't all that great. But if if they're implementing a new kind of online scenario proposition, I expect the new kind of stickiness of that to be kind of improved over time. So I think
Yeah.
You know, looking at the the situation now is probably not exactly the same as the what we're going to get moving forward from GTA 6 in an online proposition.
Here's I'm I think a lot of it's in the report. I don't want to ruin the whole report. It's the winning attention and defining cultural moments report. Be out tomorrow or depend depending on when you listen to this, it might be out now. It's part of the Game Business Live which takes place on Monday, June 8th and I can't wait for you to read it. It's really really there's a lot to it. Game Business Live is part of Summer Game Fest. Piers, Cuz you not you've never been out to Summer Game Fest, have you?
I actually haven't, no. I mean, I obviously I used to go to E3 back in the

day, but I have not been Summer Game Fest. But the longer you do this game business live I'm sure I will be joining you at some
Well, there's a lot more business events happening this year, I have to say, not just mine, GamesBeat's the one as well. So, actually there is a bunch of events that happen in person. So, I think for a lot of people at home, it's all these digital showcases, but there is the Xbox FanFest and there's IGN Live, which are more for consumers. Then there's the Game Business Live, which is very much for business. Um GamesBeat has an event. And all of these are official Summer Game Fest events, but they're all happening in LA, physical events. But my favorite is Play Days. It's mostly a media event, although industry can go, too. I think it's the closest that is actually to the old E3. It's basically they've got this sort of I better describe it as like a side street. It's quite a wide side street with loads of buildings that they just sort of take over and they put games in them. It's really chilled. And it's full of unreleased games. It's sort of anti-E3 in terms of how relaxed it all is. There's loads of games. I've been going three years in a row. Um this one looks incredible. It's five years, I think it's been going in total. As I say, it is part of Summer Game Fest. It is partnered with Geoff Keighley, but it is

organized by Iam8bit. Um and I had a chance to chat with Iam8bit bosses Amanda White and Jon Gibson about this year's event. And here is the chat. Hello Amanda. Hello Jon. Welcome to the show.
Hello.
Hello. Thanks for having us.
It's very exciting. Play Days is my highlight of the year. It's a very chilled, but also packed event full of cool things. What can we expect this this the very general opening question, what can we expect this year?
Many more partners than last year. It's the the biggest Play Days yet. And it's [clears throat] the the fifth anniversary of Play Days, too, which is quite exciting.
You making any changes this year? Anything new that we can any surprises that we can expect?
You're asking all the tough questions. Uh we are we do a survey every year for partners, for attendees, being media creators. Uh we ask them what they want. And creators specifically asked for more experiential stuff. You know, we've experimented and dabbled the last couple years. We had the Super Mario Brothers

plumbing van from the movie. We had uh you know, a few other things here and there. But this year, there's a whole bunch of it. So we're very excited. Our friends at Bethesda are bringing a few really fun experiential things.
Ah.
Epic will have something quite cool as well. Uh I don't know. What else do we spoil, Amanda, without giving away too much?
Atari is doing something kind of awesome. Let's see. There's also Bandai will have something cool. There's a lot more sort of eye candy, interactive, fun
Oh, nice.
uh you know, things that will translate well on social media and visually.
We're also investing in uh the first-ever Summer Game Fest Play Days pool.
I What What kind of pool are we talking about here?
You'll have to come and see, Chris.
I would love to.
The big thing about Play Days is it's the chance for the media to go hands-on with with these games. And um but we're seeing a reduction in the number of journalists, obviously, and even outlets. It's been a bit of a miserable time for those operating in that space. How How's that affected you?

Yeah, our numbers are actually up from last year in terms of the number of uh media coming.
Mhm.
And also our creator numbers are have sort of skyrocketed. They're they're um significantly higher than last year, which may in itself reflect the journalism media world um and how it's kind of uh evolving.
Mhm.
[clears throat]
I was going to ask are you you looking to branch further into that creator sphere, but you just basically answered my question.
Um as a as a former journalist myself, back when magazines uh paid people well,
Mhm.
[laughter]
and people wrote actual newspapers, uh it is it is interesting to observe the shift. You know, like both of us are are super big advocates of the New York Times and subscribers. Like we read a lot. We love media and journalism, but you know, it's a creator's world. It's evolving in a in a wild and different way and we're certainly embracing it.

You want a tough question, John. We've We've anecdotally heard of people being reluctant to travel to the US. I I get that to my UK peers. It's something GDC faced, certainly. Have you experienced some international drop-off as a result of, you know, the political environment that we're we're all enduring at the moment?
We We certainly gotten questions about safety concerns of that nature. We write a lot of visa letters for many different companies across many different countries. But we haven't seen a drop-off at all.
Mhm.
It's more curiosity to make sure everything is is okay, but we're more than happy to sponsor folks to come and and we do it, yeah, we've done it more this year than than any other year, frankly. But, you know, the world is a political place these days. There's no avoiding it.
I fear you might be facing the events dilemma, which is that as you get bigger and yeah people love everyone loves a small event. I get to move about, I get to speak to everybody, there's plenty of

time to relax, I don't feel stressed out. And then as you get bigger, as more partners come along, as more exhibitors come along, that as more attendees, sorry, come to that event, you end up that ends up naturally [clears throat] falling away. You want that those things to happen cuz that's how you build a successful event, but then you then you have to manage the fact that, you know, some of the things that people liked about it from before sort of fade away. I don't really have a question there, but is it something that you're mindful of?
You know, our our partner is Geoff Keighley in all of this. You You know him quite well. As you know, the Game Awards is a curated show. You know, the Summer Game Fest live show is curated and so is Play Days. This isn't a show you can just buy space at. Like it is very much a a collaborative effort from partners with us and vice versa. Like it's a it's a full cycle thing. So, as partners are expressing interest in Play Days, they're also showing us their games. They're talking about what they want to do on campus. And then we're agreeing to that because our perspective is that

everyone on campus is helping everyone else. So, if one person's games are really solid and we say it's thumbs up, yeah, come on X company. It's going to be good for all those other companies. And if if everyone's bringing good content, it's going to be a successful show. But that also means that not everyone makes the cut at the same time. Uh because yes, we have limited space. The the fun part about Play Days though is we're on the same campus as we always have been, but we chose that campus for a very particular reason because there's always been secret venues and every year we activate more of them. So, it doesn't feel like a larger footprint, but there's more places to go, but it will still feel as navigable and as comfortable.
I think too, we take some inspiration from something like South by Southwest. You know, it it started smaller than it is today. I think it it it maintains a core vibe for lack of a better word or the culture of that experience has not

changed too much. I agree with you. Some of it has to sort of fall away because you just have more people and more things to do, but I think our aim is really to hold on to that because that's what people love about Play Days. It's exactly what you said. And I think if we lose that, we do defeat ourselves in one of our aims, right? Which we absolutely want to hold on to.
Listen, it means we bought some more snacks for people. We we spend a little more money on chips, but you know.
I was going to ask about the venue because it's it's obviously it's a unique venue. It's in a slightly dodgy part of town, but it's feels quite safe when you're in there. But obviously it's also you're getting bigger. Uh so I was going to ask, you know, you're telling me there's loads of secrets, tunnels, and and and hidden areas that we go to, but is there a need at some point to to think differently about where you're based?
It's possible. Um we we have contemplated the question you're asking, and I think that we have some potential notions. If the need arose and we needed, you know, three times the space

or something, we we do have ideas about how we might hold on to this intimate sort of casual feeling and take the event somewhere new. Uh I don't want to reveal where, but um we we've thought about it.
Great. Um I'll ask sort of one final question. Where would you like to see Play Days in in 5 years? What's your longer-term vision?
That's our That's the toughest question of all, isn't it? Because it This is an evolution. It's it's growing every year. It's changing every year uh for the better. We don't know where it's going necessarily. Uh we're kind of riding the the wave of it while being very careful about listening to everybody, all the partners, what they want, what attendees and the media creators but they want because at the end of the day, if the media creators don't see the value in the show, uh that's not good for anybody. We're there as the wizards behind the curtain just kind of observing and noticing things and and tweaking things and just kind of going with the flow.

In 5 years, we want Play Days to continue to be the kind of marker in June that that starts summer for games. We are that tentpole event that everyone kind of sits around, which is really lovely for the entire industry, regardless of if someone's on campus at Play Days or if they're doing a a digital stream elsewhere in that periphery, we're creating a moment in June that everyone can succeed.
I've got views, John and Amanda. I'll talk about it off camera. Uh let's not let's not let's not reveal the uh uh so but thank you so much for your time. Good luck with it. I appreciate it's so busy right now as you as we gear up for the uh for the event. I think I think looking at the lineup that you've got and that with Xbox of course being down the road doing that I mean they're at your event as well, but they they're doing their big showcase and and all the stuff going on. I think it's going to be quite an exciting week. It might maybe the biggest one since the fall of E3. So, I'm I'm certainly looking forward to it.
What's E3?
[laughter]
I think you'd enjoy Play Days, Piers. I think you'd uh I think you'd uh enjoy sort of just mooching about,

having a a latte, and checking out some games.
Sounds very relaxed. Yeah, definitely my vibe.
I'll see this year. There's a lot more media this year, which it surprises me actually considering the the political situation, but um um not more media this year and a lot more games. And Nintendo being there is really cool, I think. Right, before we go, we have one more chat for you. It's with Samantha Lester. She's the head of Itchy Worldwide, a creative agency that's sort of best known for building trailers. And as we're in trailer season, I thought it might be interesting to hear about what goes into making them and what's working in 2026 uh and what isn't working in 2026. So, to finish off our Summer Game Fest preview, here is my conversation with Samantha. Hello, Samantha. Welcome to the show. When you are working on something, what is the process that is you might play the game or I mean how's it work?
Yeah. Generally, I think we are most games within This is quite a broad statement, so I'll probably retract it a little bit. We have a huge team and most of them if

it's out and it exists and it's like maybe an iteration, we generally have fans. Like we generally have fans of the game of a franchise. I think it's very very rare that a brief comes in and there's no one in the studio who actually kind of knows anything about it. Um but if we were just taking it as a brief comes in, um generally and this is the real nuts and bolts. So, apologies, Chris. This might not be the most interesting, but I'm just going to do it. I want to know the nuts Nuts and bolts. Um, usually a client will give us a brief and then they vary in terms of how detailed or undetailed they are. Uh, we always turn that into an internal brief um, and that sits as kind of our responsibility to make sure that we've got all of the information that we need. Um, so sometimes clients can make it quite top line. Um, so we want to get bit more into the into the weeds of what's, you know, what's the messaging, who are you targeting, where is this trailer going to end up? Is it just

uh, kind of a YouTube? Is it your own channel? Is it does it need to end up on TikTok? Whatever it might be. So get the full brief of what they're trying to do. Generally there's a creative kickoff where we always ask can we have the game build? Um, and where, you know, technically we're set up with lots of different, you know, hardware and uh, consoles [clears throat] and anything you might need. So generally we can play any build that's sent to us. And then it kind of goes through a bit of a discovery uh, phase. So uh, what is the game like? What's it like to play? How good it, you know, the product is. Um, and that kind of is where the technical our craft team really meet with our kind of creative ideation team. Um, and that forms almost the the foundations of actually this is how we think we could do the best by this trailer, by the client and what they're trying to achieve. And obviously there's a phenomenal accounts team, a phenomenal production team there as well which is kind of keeping things ticking over. Um, and then I would say generally with kind of trailer briefs, the first phase

is the most key. So kind of getting down on paper, this is we, you know, we feel this is the route to go before we actually get into kind of capturing and editing. Um, because I think that's also where you can waste a lot of time um, if if you're not in full alignment. Um, and then once you're kind of at that point it just moves into us doing initially probably like rough assemblies, throwing out for kind of feedback and discussion, bringing it back in, finessing, you know, music comes in quite quickly cuz I think music is a huge part of actually impactful trailers, which I'm a huge This is personal preference, but I think music for me is such an emotive part of what a trailer can be that you know, we generally do it quite quickly into the process cuz it gives you an idea of, you know, the pacing and how that edit can

come together. And then it's just, you know, whether it's three whips, four whips, five whips, but eventually you get to a kind of a final assembly. And sometimes we work with very We work with Sometimes we work with builds which are not quite there yet. So, some of our clients are still Some of the developers are still working on the game. Like they want to make it the very best in terms of like the fidelity and the quality all the way up until launch. So, it's pretty usual that like a month out, we will recapture. So, we'll agree on an assembly and then we'll recapture all of the shots so that they're they're at the very very best. So, when when you see it as a fan, you are seeing really truly what the game is going to look like. So, that is very common within the process as well. And then it's any kind of localization, versioning, all the lovely sexy things at the end that you need to do just to get it out. Um So, yeah. That's That I would say that's

the nuts and bolts.
That's the process. That's the journey that a lot of games go on. So, but I'm I'm going to ask This is probably the reverse way of asking this question, but what doesn't work anymore in in regards to these things in 20 What What What are you finding isn't connecting?
So, again, I would caveat all of this with my own personal take on this um and I think some things actually in anticipation of talking to your good self today um I was on my lovely Tik Tok and actually things that that actually came out to me or I spotted were things that don't work or when you are not adapting the content to the platform. Um I won't name the IP cuz I was nearly about to and that's not fair. But sometimes I find that when I'm looking at trailers on that kind of portrait, your eye you can't you're like, "What am I trying to look at?" And like you're like the framing isn't quite right and you're jumping around a lot and you're

like, "Hold on, I can I can hear the VO but I can't quite understand." Like maybe, you know, characters are cropped slightly oddly or you're missing a piece of like the environment and you don't understand like what what's unique about it. So, I would say that's definitely something I think that isn't working if you don't take the content that you've got and kind of make it work for the platform that it's going to. Um I also find it a bit I find it odd when um any kind of environmental audio is switched off. Like these are like the nuts like these are very like minutiae things. Sometimes Yeah, getting quite technical but I think that if you turn off some trailers, they turn off all that ambience and just have the music which I think again it feels quite like flat as opposed to like this is the world that we've built and that kind of immersion into it. Um And then the last one for me actually is and again VO I think can play a very key role in terms of like explaining

um what's happening and like placing you in somewhere. But I always feel like sometimes a trailer has to be a trailer. It's not a product demo. I think a product demo exists as its own thing and it is needed so people can kind of understand the nuances. Um but I think sometimes there's confusion and a trailer it is almost like a bit it's almost like a bit of a dump of information through the medium of VO, which I actually think also it can be quite chaotic and quite confusing. So it's like just letting kind of VO has a place if it's needed, but I think that sometimes is a bit it's too much information and you're just for me it's like what's unique about the game and what is going to be my takeaway. Um and sometimes when you're too I think too heavy on like the features or the lore of where you've come to, um it can be just a bit too oversaturate like too much saturation.
But what what do you say to people who

are trying to stand out in that amongst that medley of of trailers?
There is no silver bullet. It absolutely depends on the game, which I know, you know, is is true. I think some of the things that resonate with me humor. If you have a game that lends itself to humor, I think that can be a way of kind of cutting through like cuz it's quite unexpected. I think anything that happens which is you're not expecting it. I think again talking of my own um experience, generally a lot of the game trailers that I get served with are I think quite serious and quite dark. Um it shows something about my gaming habits, but sometimes when actually something pops up which is like completely out of the blue, something that is humorous, that is like playful in tone, it cuts through to me, um which I think can help. But it's got to feel authentic to the game. So I would definitely say if that's not your game, then obviously maybe don't go down that route cuz I think it can land badly as well. Um one of my first projects that I

did um back in the day, this like 14, 15 years ago, um again I don't like I'm kind of dubious to name and name and talk about it, but it was a relatively serious game about the Yakuza and we use like a Tarantino style VO over it to kind of give it a little bit of uniqueness and it's something that I always remember because it's like the juxtaposition of the game versus the VO. So, sometimes it can work. But I also think it it plays it in a certain time and it probably hasn't aged that well if I were to look at it now. Um But yeah, I think humor can be a way of kind of cutting through and having impact. I mean, we used to talk about it Chris like the gameplay itself is king, absolutely king. Um And again, things that I you sometimes don't realize how good a trailer is because of how well it's been captured and edited together. So, in terms of

like the pacing and the seamlessness of which are, you know, they've been captured as separate shots, but actually the transition of one to the other whether you're using like a character's powers or you're using something within the environment that allows you to kind of flow through it. I think that's a way of just it's full immersion in the world which I think again is a really lovely experience like as you're watching it. So, anything that kind of takes you through that journey, I think really helps and it's quite subtle, but I do think it makes a big difference. Um
I know you mentioned this earlier. There's obviously short form video as plays a lot I guess when you're building these things now. You're not just thinking about how can we make a really cinematic epic two minutes on a on a on a on a stage or or in a on a on a YouTube video. You're also thinking how can we cut this down to 30 seconds on a on a YouTube short or a TikTok video or you know, Instagram reel or whatever. Um that's Does that check Does that Is it

easy just to cut that down or do you do you think about that from from the very beginning when it comes to the stuff you're creating?
I think a trailer needs to exist in its theatrical sense. So, I definitely think first point of call is always going to be what does it look like like on a big screen, what does it look like as it's meant to be, um how we're showing off the world, how we're showing off the environment, how we're showing off, you know, the you know, the developers have done a phenomenal job with kind of the art style or whatever it might be. So, I definitely say that's always like the first port of call. I maybe I This I might regret saying this. I don't think we've ever created it. I don't think the social has ever been like the primary driver of where is this going to land. This is me thinking back now on briefs, but I think it's that's it's almost the secondary. But, what we do do is we'll do a separate cut of it with the same footage. So, it's So, it's like you're you're making it um the best use of what we you want to show

off in the format that it needs to sit in. So, it's its own completely different deliverable um as opposed to just uploading it and you know, hoping that the platform crops it in a way which is which is good for what you're trying to do. So, I think it's this whole is a whole different language for sure.
Well, good luck with
Thank you.
uh with anything. I don't know if you've got any trailers in the upcoming events, but if you do, good luck with them. Um and um and yeah, thank you for your time.
No worries. Thank you so much.
That was Samantha there. Thank you for Samantha. Piers, are you What's your favorite type of trailer?
Uh it's hard to say what my favorite is. There's so many good trailers, but I would say probably the original Dead Island trailer was a really
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, but [clears throat] it's so kind of movie and it's so lent into the whole you know, zombie movie experience. So, I thought that was great. It's certainly not an in-game trailer, but the advert, I guess, for Halo 3 with the miniatures.
Oh, yeah, that
was really

breathtaking. I thought that was absolutely Sometimes what stands out for me is depending what's all around it because my favorite trailer, even though I don't think it's my favorite trailer, and it's in the context of everything was the South Park the South Park: The Fractured But Whole trailer cuz it landed in the middle of this Xbox 360 conference which was just full of very miserable and dark and horrible games with lots of gore and misery. And then there was a genuinely funny There's a lot of trailers that say they're funny. They're not always funny. But genuinely funny trailer that was bright and loud and and and just, you know, delightful. That that stood out for me. Well, I'm looking forward to it Well, we are out of time. Thank you Piers for joining. It It's great having you on. And yeah, thank you for your time.
No problem. Pleasure. Thanks a lot, Chris.
All that's left for me to say is I hope you enjoyed our Summer Game Fest special. We will have a Summer Game Fest round-up episode of The Game Business Micro for paying subscribers on Monday. So, if you're thinking of becoming a paid member of TGB, now is a good time to do it. Our next free episode is Tuesday as it always or Tuesday and Thursday episodes are always free. I can't tease this one though because

it's related to something that's happening over the next few days. But trust me, it's great. Of course, I hope to see some of you at the Game Business Live on Monday. But that's it for me today. Until next time, thank you for tuning in.