Gamescom: E3’s demise has been good and bad for us

This is the Gamescom preview edition. Mhm.
It's a thing. It's growing.
There will be 1500 exhibitors. That's 40 more than last year. Wow.
72 different countries are present. That's eight more than the year before. Nothing massive, but I worked in events. I've worked at Rep. I worked across E3 and I know exactly what's going on in that space. And it isn't good.
There's declines across the board.
Yeah.
So, the fact surviving, let alone growing.
Yeah.
Is pretty amazing. Battlefield 6.
Uh-huh. Yes. It's doing pretty well.
Yeah, it's beaten the Steam Peak for Call of Duty.
Call of Duty War Zone is still better for streamers because in a War Zone match, there is a story in it. And now for a sponsored message from Keyword Studios. Passionate fandoms are the bedrock of a successful video game franchise, and our friends at Keyword Studios have a mission to cultivate that fandom. Keyword Studios' marketing services bring together expertise in research, strategy, creative production,

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Cologne. Uh you can read all about that in our newsletter. But for this week, it's our Gamescom preview and we speak to the German Trade Association about the event. We will also talk about the latest European market data, PlayStation shifting away from being a hardware ccentric business, Battlefield 6 delivering big numbers, and some more games industry financials. But to help me talk about all this, we have a returning guest host. She's a video game media expert, podcaster, producer, writer, and presenter from GameSpot, and the FPS podcast. It's Lucy James. Hello, Lucy. Welcome back.
Thank you for having me again. It's lovely to be back. How are you?
I'm all right. Well, I think I've got better at this since you last joined.
You're doing great.
You're basically one of my first shows
there on the ground floor
after Steven Tortillo. You were the second we had on.
Mhm.
How are you doing? What's going on? Well, it's the lead to Gamescom this week. It is packed for us, you know, finalizing appointments, making sure we have all the equipment. I head out uh at the weekend and I'm actually this is my 10th or 11th Gamescom.
Have you missed one or have you done

them all?
I think the only ones I would have missed would have been in during co.
Yeah.
So, other than that, I think I've been to every single one since I've been working in games. So, I'm eager to get back. As someone who now lives in America, it's a good place to see a lot of people who I don't get to see that often. Um, but other than that, been very busy over on the Games side. Uh, I did Summer GameFest with Jeff.
Yes, that was fun, I imagine. What's it like working with Jeff, Lucy?
Honestly, Jeff and his team made it. I think if I thought about how many people would have ultimately watched it, it would have been way more anxietyinducing than it actually was.
Jeff and his team, professionals, and just made the process so easy. And I think it also helped that the amount of people who are actually in the room with you is not that many, a couple thousand. And I was like, I've done that before. But then afterwards, my dad sent me the link and he went, how many people watch

this? And I I didn't need to know that. I didn't fall over. Yeah.
I didn't, you know, become a meme. That was my my two big things that I didn't want to happen and that didn't happen. It seemed to have gone down well. It was a great experience. I couldn't have asked for anything more.
Yeah. Yeah. He's all right. Any
Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. It was It was awesome. And just Yeah. Being being backstage and it's such a huge production as well. That's the thing that And everything is so professional. like I had a floor manager who would take me around places and make sure that I was hitting my mark and it was yeah it was just a very it was so much more professional than anything I think I've ever experienced before which is yeah saying something I've been doing this for such a long time. I have to say I was so intimidated when I started sending him videos of this
when we started working together because I said I think he's got this he's the like the producer right he's the games industry producer right
and every time I send him yeah yeah it's all right yeah it's good yeah I like it like surely some notes he's just

um
yeah easy going um well gamescom yeah yeah it's become essential um but and so let's talk about gamescom because that is that is the pre it's the gamescom preview edition Mhm.
It's a thing. It's growing.
It's not a huge growth. Don't get me wrong. It's not like it's double digit, but um there will be 1500 exhibitors there this year. Over 50.
That's that's 40 more than last year.
Wow.
72 different countries are present. That's eight more than the year before. 3,000 square meters more than they had um last year. Nothing massive, but I worked in events. I've worked at Rep. I worked across E3 and I know exactly what's going on in that space. And it isn't good. Right.
There's declines across the board happening. Um, so some things are starting to improve. PAX is starting to come back a little bit and stuff like that. In the UK, the event scene is just collapsed really.
Yeah. So surviving let alone growing.
Yeah.
Is pretty amazing. And of course there's more than one Gamescom now. They've got a show in Brazil. They got one in Asia. The Asia show is in Thailand this year. I think Thailand was the part the company of Gamescom in Germany as well.

So got loads of loads of things going on. Um, so I had to sort of ask the Gamescom folks, uh, how are they doing it? Um, um, I caught up with Felix Faulk. He's the managing director of the confusingly named game, which stands for the German Games Industry Association. It doesn't stand for that, but that's what they are. Um, and, uh, and but anyway, here's part of that interview. What can business attendees expect? What can we expect from that side of things?
It's going up again. Um I mean we we've seen almost two years um of tough times in the in the global games industry also in Germany but um you know globally and starting with last year's Gamescom we saw a signal that it's coming it's it's getting there again and it's going in in the right direction and I think this year's Gamescom which from what we can see right now will be even bigger and more exciting and more you know um colorful that the industry is coming back in in a very positive way. So I think generally um it's you know it's

tough to tell because Gamescom is a 360 degree festival. So um it's it's hard to pick some things out but um you know in every corner of what we can see now there's a great development and I think it will be will be a great year at Gamecock.
I'm obviously based in the UK and our event scene has basically collapsed. We don't really have one anymore. um EDX still exists within Comic-Con and there's a few little small things but really it's it's we don't have a major event anymore in the UK. Um and and I see you know I worked with Reed for a little while and I knew the some of the struggles they had with bringing packs back and it it's it's got going again but it's it's still smaller than it was you know pre- pandemic. Gamescom appears to be growing. It seems it's not scaling back. It's not closing things. It's doing the opposite to that. Is it is it purely the brand? How have you managed to avoid the fate that some other events are struggling with? It's a mix, I would say. I mean, we when we faced COVID, uh, we went right into it and said, "We're

going to do a pure digital gamescom no matter what. We don't, um, you know, we don't cancel, which almost everyone else did." So, within 4 months, we put a pure digital Gamescom
together. Yeah.
Yeah. Put it together. And also the year after, we also had to cancel the on-site experience and had to do a digital one. So this helped us because we learned a lot and we invested a lot. So we took the time uh in the past years to invest heavily on digital reach and on partnerships and we also adjusted the whole concept you know don't take everyone uh for granted who is needed to come to games to experience but also to be present with um platform festivals everywhere where the community is. So this is one part. The second part is the great support and involvement of our members. So uh we do have a the main committee of gamescom. These are the most important exhibitors and members of ours as game association. So they are deeply involved and they are committed

because it's their brand. Of course we do it in in strong partnership together with KL Messa. I mean we as an association wouldn't know how to deal with 300 plus thousand people on site with everything. I'm really happy that we do have a professional partner, but the core strategy, the core competence and the core brand and the rights and everything that's within the industry and they support us a lot. So I I think these are some parts of why we are lucky um and and really delighted that we are stronger than ever before.
It's interesting because obviously that didn't it didn't work for E3, right? So they had they obviously did the digital event and and and then they did and they invested in that and they have obviously members the ESA have members of some of them the same ones that you have. Is it cuz Gamescom's so massive and it's got such a wide footprint and it it can be different things to different people. It could be a business show, it could be a

digital fring, it could be a consumer show, it's so many different things. Is that the reason why you think you managed to get those partners to keep supporting because you could serve their needs rather than uh depending on what they are rather than having to get them to all agree on one thing?
Totally right. I mean that's the next uh thing that uh we defined ourselves as 360°ree festival. So um of course the core of games call is always the community. So we wen focused on experts media, special interest, creators also, but you know in the core it's it's community and all sorts or all areas of the gaming culture. So you know be it the biggest B2B you know conference and
expert yeah
for Europe or also the P2C part festival music uh we do have esports as part of it. We have conferences we have def for the developers. So over the years there has been uh build a lot and also um over

the past years all the digital components like um Epics which is a game within Gamescom or um of course opening nightlife uh with Jeff Keley or some indies show for indies um the studio with IGN. So it's a it's a lot uh in the universe and I think uh important for that not only to be able to offer people what they like because the times are over when you just said here's your space square meters XY Z and you build your booth and that's it. But sometimes your lineup requests um something else than the next year. Sometimes you want to get involved with developers because you are planning to, you know, hire people and sometimes you want to use um with the with the announcement at the opening night live when you just have a trailer but not the play all game. Sometimes you do something else. So I think that's that's part of it. And also just to to say when when you said um others also had digital component that was tough in what was it 2019 uh first

pure digital or 2020 the first digital against the whole part of the website when we did now with the digital experience we threw everything away um and build it from the scratch for the next year because we thought it's not good enough. So that was heavy investment but we we went there and said that this will be part of it and I think also not everyone was able to do so or willing to do so. So um in the end it was part of their advantage.
Yeah. Oh interesting. Does actually I ask one more one more E3 related question. Now that E3 is not in the calendar and I know there Summer Game Fest and stuff like that. Has that had a positive or negative effect on Gamescom?
I I would say both. Um, I mean, we were in a great partnership with E3 all the years and it was never like competition. It was more, you know, announce your game at E3 and play it at Gamescom or something like this. Um, so now it was

it's it's somehow good because um people expect us to be the major global um week for games with the highest visibility for everyone. Um so that's also our um responsibility to present a stage for the industry to fulfill this this need. Um also um it's a disadvantage because it's not so strongly in the calendar. So um sometimes you know we we had um to deal with the HQ teams uh more and it needs to fit the global calendar u for uh for for the companies. So I think in the past years it was a struggle and was a lot of discussion with some of those but if you see the lineup now and who's who's um part of Gamescom almost everyone is there. So I think we were successful in getting everyone almost everyone back uh to Gamescom and show that even if you can do a lot of what

you want to do marketing wise um purely digital for the community and for the involvement and and the engagement and also for all the areas um getting involved with creators with general media with special media with um politics for example um with with your communities Gamescom is the best place to do that.
What's your long-term goal for Gamescom? Now
the vision is to make it even more international and to have a bigger digital reach. um international reach I I think there is you know the numbers on site we are limited even if we put one more hall or two more halls next year it might be not 350,000 but 400,000 but you have to take care that you you still feel nice and it's not not full so that's not the KPI where we where we have can have growth we have seen an a tremendous growth in the awareness

worldwide for gamescom and digital visitors and co-streamers and and and partners. So I think that's an area definitely where we can grow and also it's interesting that we do see um many non-endemic companies and like um streaming companies Netflix other partners um who want to be involved in Gamescom and we need to take care that it's still a gaming event and we find the right partners who can show uh the right match in these um connecting ecosystems and connecting cultures gaming culture with other cultures. because um games is the the greatest force of pop culture. So we do see this in in the games universe in the games culture and we do have um you know we want to rep have this represented at Gamescom as well. That's also interesting. You will see like partners like Paramount and Disney and and Netflix as well. And that's interesting because it's part it's it's part of

gaming culture as you can count how many um um content of Netflix is actually gaming content. So I I think these these are some areas um of of what we what we are doing and also I I always say um it's it's a responsibility if you lead a market and we are delighted that Gamescom is the biggest event worldwide. If you lead a market, you need to lead it and we, you know, to push for new developments and new new things you can do. That's, you know, that's part of the responsibility and we want to do that also for the next years.
That's Felix there talking about the recent past and uh the future of Gamescom. Um some of the things that he actually talked about which I didn't include in that interview um which he talked about um in the business area now they've got they always had I didn't even know this. They had a kindergarten where you can um
what
yeah they have you can take your kids but it's only it was only for four plus and they started to see increasing number of people bringing young children

um and um there were people asking oh is there a place I can breastfeed
my kids and or my kid and the answer was uh no actually um so they they've now included that and encompassed that and expanded that. I think the thing with Gamescom is they just they do they did spend money when everyone else is cutting and um
they do everything to such a high degree. It's not just a business area, right? It's, you know, you you get lost in that that maze of
huge. I mean, there's they they have bars in there, too.
Yeah. Bars, coffee shops. Um I I've been going for ever since they started. I even run magazines and in the m I used to do daily magazines at Gamescom and the daily magazines featured a map of Gamescom and I still got lost. Um so I my job was the map maker of Gamescom. I didn't know my way around. Um it's uh it's huge. The consumer bit is obviously the biggest consumer show in the world. That that retail hall at Gamescom is bigger than most consumer events.
It's like stepping off a plane in a hot country going from the business center to the main halls. It's wild. I just I I

remember the first time I went to Gamescom, I did not know how to react to it cuz it was just bigger than anything I'd ever seen in terms of a show before. It was enormous and still is. what my old boss set me up for when I went, he said, "Gamescom, the venue coms, is basically a town. It's like it's a scale of a of a town and is it's obviously and they all they do they launched an announcement event. They didn't just do any old announcement event. They did it. They brought in Jeff Keley who produces the biggest announcement events globally." So, they don't do any there's no halfoff measures at Gamescom. It's always like they go really they do it properly and they do it big and you know, you know, I'm I'm going over there. They've got a partnership with us. They got a partnership with all the media outlets. They reach out to them. They do things with them. Um IGN has this incredibly big booth that when I was only when I was briefly there. Um and um uh yeah, it is it is I can So that's how they've done it really. I mean outside of the fact that it was Gamescom. Although one thing I'll say

despite the absence of E3, I don't think it's become a bigger announcement place.
No, I think that is the Game Awards.
Yeah. But even Gamescom used to be bigger for this. Like I remember when the days when EA had its own press conference and Sony
Sony had I remember that was big for VA was and indies were typically more
well it was so the way the way Sony used to work when they were regional based is that um it was the North American team handled E3. Gamescom was handled by the European team and the Japanese handled Tokyo game show and they were all competing with each other. So, um, so you get people in North America go, "Oh, we'd love to have that Guerilla Games game at, uh, E3." And then European lot goes, "No, we're saving that for Gamescom. Thank you very much." It was like, and of course, they would sit there, if we give you a bit of naughty dog, would you give us a bit of? And it became a little bit like that.
And also Sony's used to have quite local stuff, you know, there stuff that we loved in Europe, but US like PlayStation, what move, you know, and um and and things like um invisimals or

thing and
your wonder book that was announced at E3 that was announced at E3.
Oh my god. Yeah, I remember it. I remember that E3 one cuz it didn't um but um what else was there that they would do? You know, Dreams, Media Molecule games often. Was it
Yeah, I was going to say um uh what was the paper one they had? Uh Tear Away. Tear Away was Yeah,
that was great. It's my favorite. Um Xbox does also did announcements at this event. It wasn't quite of the scale of Sony or EA, but it used to do announcements. its events. They still do. Xbox is still there. They still do stuff. And look, we know Call of Duty is there this year with Resident Evil was being shown on Tuesday as well. So, there is stuff being shown and revealed, but because the big publishers now operate globally. There isn't the regional thing anymore. It's everyone's centralized. Um, it's hard to secure those big reveals. Gamescom is absolutely 100% a beat in the calendar for pretty much most major games companies. It's just not necessarily the first beat that might be the game awards or it might be something independent. It

might be packs. might be summer gamefest. It's just it might be games but it's
direct. Yeah.
Yeah. Expert. Yeah. Yeah. Or Nintendo director. Yeah. So there's just it's just it just becomes a beat in that calendar. Are you expecting much this year, Lisa? I know there's been some We know Resident Evil and Call of Duty has been announced as being there.
Yeah. I mean, I think there will always be surprises. There'll always be something big. I mean, you know, Jeff always puts on a good show opening night live. I I suppose he is a bit more hamstrung by what is there at Gamescom and there will always be surprises that you kind of find on the show floor as you walk around or that travel by word of mouth. I feel the industry is still very much struggling. Well, that's an obvious thing to say, but you know, in terms of just making sure that things hit certain beats and I don't know if Gamescom is going to be as huge as the Gamescoms of old in terms of announcements, but I think it will still be. I mean, I'm also very daintily stepping around what I know. Yeah, I know a couple. We've got one of some of the shows we've got going live next week. I've already recorded

which are about announcements.
And the announcements I know of, and you might know of bigger ones because the company, but I know of are Yeah, they're cool. They're fine.
There's a lot of stuff on my on my schedule that I am excited to see and play.
And and also, yeah, I think to Felix's point is that it used to be that E3 would be announcing Gamescom is when you'd get to play. And even just looking at my schedule, the amount of stuff that I am going to get hands-on with is great. And I that's the part that is the most exciting to me.
I think I because of the nature of my journalism, I have one hands-on session across the whole thing.
It's a few people have invited me to see their stuff, but I just it's just the sort of thing that I do. It used to be when I was even at E3, I basically would go people go to EA E3 and you go to EA booth tour and you'd be like 3 hours.
Yes. there to see all their games. I would turn up interview like Peter Moore for 30 minutes and then walk away and that was me at EA and done for the whole see you later.
Yeah. But the good thing was I had always a bit of time where I can arrange

to I not often go to the Nintendo booth. Um
I was going to say just pop in and just have a look.
Yeah. Yeah. Just for fun. But it's time for me to justify. I think there's some going to be some cool stuff and uh and there'll be plenty of stuff to talk about. But he has a different role to play. I think
it does. I think it is a lot more about that actual hands-on experience. I think it's a little more media friendly than some of the other events.
I don't think they have a dedicated media lounge though, do they? Or
they've got two press rooms. Um because the event the event is so huge.
There's press rooms at the opposite ends of the uh the convent. There's one in the business area and there's one in the sort of front of the consumer area.
Right.
I've never really used it because every time I've been at Gamescom I said, "Oh, we'd love our own room." And they go, "Here you go." Um, and they give us like a little little office to work out of or that's nice.
In the apartment years ago, I had a little booth as well. It was all um e Yeah, fandom has a booth this year, which I'm thrilled about. A place to
Yeah.
decamp and just sit for a bit. Oh my

god, I'm already excited at the prospect of sitting down at Gamescom. That's how you know it's bad.
Yeah. Well, let's shift our topic um uh which is connected to Gamescom because it's actually data firm AIA has put released some statistics about European gamers. The firm says that more gamers in Western Europe are spending money on new games, in-game resources, and subscriptions compared to a year ago. However, the average spend per gamer has declined. Louise Waldridge, a senior research manager at Ampair, says that more people are spending, but they're spending smaller amounts. Um this fascinated me. Last week I spoke to Take 2 CEO Strauss Selnic and he was commenting about how in tough economic times people gravitate towards the highest quality stuff. In other words, they might spend less overall but as long as you deliver the best stuff at the best value you'll be fine. Um ampairs research
doesn't necessarily contradict that but it actually suggests consumers are buying more on the smaller lowerriced items in games. So I asked Louise about this on the call we had earlier today and this is what she said. We're sort of saying that more gamers

are spending um on things like in-game spending, subscriptions, expansions. They're still spend spending on full games. Um but I think something that we've seen this year a lot is higher spending on more kind of mid-pric and indie game.
Yeah. So things like Expedition 33, which obviously did incredibly well, um indie games like schedule one, Repo, all of that kind of stuff, um have just had a really standout year this year.
Yeah. Peak one, isn't it?
Yeah, of course. Yeah, Pete as well. Um and that's probably linked to the kind of macroeconomic situation. Um of course, there are all really good games in them, right? Um
but yeah, I think it's definitely connected.
Yeah. So that's Louise sort of talking about where people are spending money. This is really the big question like if people in tough economic times with people in trying to choose, you know, people going, well, we still want to spend our money on entertainment, but

what do we do? Are they spending their money on more things? Are they finding things that are cheap? Are they do people did people buy Expedition 33 because it was cheap or was it
because it was good?
Because it was good. And I and I think I think the answer is perhaps they gave it a go. more people gave it a go at the start because it was more accessible because it was in game pass because it wasn't um it wasn't quite necessary the full price mega title but um I'm not convinced with either argument really I think looking at how and the thing is with um these this data it's all consumer research and I find it gives out wildly in this sort of unpredictable environment that we live gives wildly different wildly different responses there they have some other stats 43% of western gamers aged 13 to 64 said they bought a new game in 2024 before, which is a 4% increase over um the year before. There's also a rise in subscription services. According to Ampair, 36% of their European Gamer panel subscribed to subscription services, up from 27% the year before. This actually similar to what Sakana said. Fakana said there's been consistent growth with subscription

service since the start of the year. Subscription is interesting because again, I don't really know why this is. Is it because of Call of Duty going into Game Pass? That clearly had an impact. Game Pass has had a strong release lineup all year. The Nintendo Switch 2 launched with, you know, you get a Nintendo Switch 2, you got a Nintendo Switch online with that. Um, so that provided a boost. But both Louise Ampair and Matt Sakana believe the economic situation is potentially driving more customers to value offerings like subscription B uh services.
Well, bang for your buck.
Yeah, I I can see that. Do you I subscribe to all of them, but I I tend to
gravitate around the Nintendo Switch online retro stuff because I'm old.
Uh,
that's the one that's actually the one that I don't have. I didn't for my sins I never grew up really with Nintendo so I enjoy and play Nintendo titles but I don't have that pull towards them I suppose and actually the Switch certainly the Switch 2 is my least played console but then again I'm a PC gamer now so I'm uh I believe that makes me better than everyone else if the

internet is to be bleed I'm kidding I'm kidding but my um so despite having all of the subscription services I default to is it on Steam because I have a PC plugged into my TV. I have a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse. I do the whole thing. I'm an absolute degenerate, but it's just I I in my brain because it's all in one launcher that's easiest for me to see it's there and play it and I don't know, it's this price conversation. Um,
if cuz I bought one of the games I think is interesting, Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3+ 4, right?
I'm a massive Tony Hawks fan. I'm absolutely I I bought that. I had it on Game Pass, so I had it on console version, but I bought the Switch 2 version as well cuz I wanted a portable version.
I would have bought they could have charged 100 quid for that game and I bought it
because I'm I'm in on it.
Yeah.
But at the same time, I look at the numbers and the Game Pass numbers are great,
but the rest of them aren't. You know, the PlayStation numbers quite low. And
it's interesting.
I was like, well, maybe they should have

gone a lower price because it's a bit it's a bit smaller.
But then, of course, I started reasoning that if they went for a lower price, they'd have missed out on money from me. and and and and you know Jordan Middler, our sort of friend at BGC, you know, he
he's like me, he probably spent extra for it.
And I and I think you can always go down in price, you know. You know, and we are starting that's the big trend we're seeing people buying games later. And so when you've got something like Tony Hawin, you know you've got a dedicated audience, maybe small, but they will spend on it
and then you can go to half price on Black Friday and you can bring in a load of other people that are perfectly happy to wait because we've got so much stuff to play, watch, listen to. We're swamped with it. Um, they just released a Night Dive. One of my favorite studios just released that Hexon Heretic pack and I definitely want that game. But I still I'm still going for Dog Hong Bonanza. I've got Night Dime's last game, System Shop 25th anniversary edition, System Shop 2, um to play through and I just thought by the time I get to it, it might be in a sale some
and and

well, that's the thing. Are you I am a big wishlist person on all platforms. So, I get as soon as that price drops, I get the email and that's what you know, I get my purse strings.
I my my life is so chaotic that
you don't need another email.
I can't plan for that. You know, the truth is I would probably never ever get into heretic or but the but anyway, yeah, I should really do that. It would give me a little bit, but I would probably spend more. I'm not sure that's a good idea. Um but the um I end up having a longer list of things to get through. I'd have a long
Oh, I No. Well, that's the thing. I have um I have like a to-do list of games to get through. I have I have certain lists on my Steam where it's want to play, backlog, abandoned but get back to, you know, things I played in nextfest. I am an obsessive list person. And so even being very type A about it, you still can't get to everything. No,
there's so there is so much choice.
There's so much stuff. And I think that

means that um that's created this sort of phenomenon. I mean, it's always been a case people happy to go back to things, but if you everything's also silo in because the way media's been spread out, it's not like that one thing everybody's playing. It you still get a little bit bold and scary three moments and stuff like that, but um you don't get as many of them, you know. There's in my community, everyone's playing Donkey Kong Bonanza and I was talking to another group of people recently and they said, "Oh, did anyone buy that game? Anyone play that game?" Everyone's playing that game. But we but we live in different online ecosystems and we see different things and um and that is uh and that I do I do I'm interested to know how that phenomena shakes out but I don't necessarily think that um I don't know if if people are necessarily gravitating towards lower price things. I think it just happens to be this is a year where there's been a lot of things that have been slightly lower price and people happen to have bought them because they could. I think as well though when you are gravitating towards something that is a lower price it is it is the little treat you know it's oh I deserve something but I'm not necessarily going to spend 70 80 quid on

something however ah this game it's five I'm trying to I'm trying to localize in because I've been stuck in America for too long it's like it's five quid that's what's that a cup of coffee and there there are ways that you can rationalize things and god knows I do it all the time when I'm out and about and that's where I wonder it's like, hey, it's still this little hit of serotonin because you bought something for yourself, but you don't buy something that's expensive enough to make you feel guilty about a purchase.
Yeah, I think I think it's depends on um to sort of go with that. I think Xbox would have done worse if it wasn't if it was priced higher if it wasn't in Game Pass and all those sort of things because the fact that that game was cheaper and more accessible, brought more people in in that spread. Um
particularly if it's a new IP, right? If you Tony Hawks Press 34, it knows who it audience is. it knows who's probably going to spend the premium deluxe edition and and it knows what it's going to do for that. If you're a new IP, if you're a new game trying to stand out, you can't charge too much for it really. Um, and I think that's, you know, and

even games like Mafia the Old Country, which has a slightly lower price. I'd love to say it's slightly lower price. It's still for me.
What how much is Mafia?
It's now $50 or something.
50? Yeah.
Yeah. It's interesting. Um, some of the rampaden.
I do I do wonder how mafia's performing.
It's an interesting little game.
Yeah, it's made in the UK. It's made a lot of that was made in Brighton.
Oh, and hanger 13. Yeah.
Yeah. Now, some other stats from Ampair. There are between 10 and 13 million fewer gamers.
Oh.
Uh, Louise told me uh at the moment than there was during the peak of the pandemic.
Wow.
Gone outside.
Yeah. Oh, there there was a lot of people that I one of the facts I love about it is that if at one point the Wii remote returned to the Amazon charts during the pandemic, right?
Somehow the Wii remote returned
and that was because I there's lots of people going, "Oh, I used to play. Oh, I need something to play with. Oh, what about this box that we've had in the cupboard?
Blow the dust off the top."
People might go a bad thing we lost all these gamers, but I think it's an opportunity. These people did come back

and they can come back again if you give them something worth um um um um coming back for. And now for a sponsored message from Greenman Gaming. Greenman Gaming is creating new revenue streams and discoverability options that will help businesses extend the life cycle of their video games and grow their audience. Greenman Gaming recently revealed its charity bundles platform, a curated way for publishers to reach new audiences, generate incremental revenue, and support causes that matter. The platform offers transparent stock levels, instant key fulfillment, and regional pricing, all while raising funds for charities such as special effects one special day. You can get involved at ww.gmananggaming.com/comp/charity-bundles. Elsewhere, Greenman Gaming Distribution is a new service that helps studios boost discoverability by activating titles across 180 plus vetted retailers, reaching over a 100 million gamers and delivering up to 20 to 30% more revenue compared to Steamon sales. Now, back to

the show. Before we wrap up the show, time for some of the other stories to run through. During Sony's financials, Sony SVP, I didn't put his name down here. Probably meant that I couldn't pronounce it. Uh Sony's SUV said that in the gaming business, the company is moving away from the hardware ccentric business to more to the community-based engagement business. This follows the news that Hell Divers 2 is coming to Xbox. It follows LEGO Horizons Adventures coming to Switch. It follows an increasing number of PlayStation games coming to PC. Naturally, social media commentators are being called and collected about what that might mean. Oh, no, wait. They're proclaiming the end of exclusives and the death of PlayStation as we know it. Um Lucy, you must have seen um you must have seen this. I mean, we're uh
following suit from Xbox because yeah, consoles are expensive, hardware is expensive to manufacture. Why not just put your games out on other platforms?
Well, Sony is a hardware company at its heart. I think this is a bit of a pivot for them because they've always made machines. That's what they do.

Xbox going, we're going down the software and services route. Well, that's what Microsoft has always been. But um but I don't think Sony's I think this is well Sony's not at the point of bringing God of War to Xbox. Um what we're seeing here is live service games being everywhere which is sort of essential.
Makes sense.
Legacy games coming to PC. We just seen Stella Stella Blade which is a PlayStation game recently delivering huge additional revenue on PC.
Mhm.
Um
kids games.
Yeah. Big sense for Lego.
Lego Horizons on Switch makes absolutely sense. So it's audience expansion. But it is worth noting, you know, Xbox as a hardware company is dying. As a games company, it's never been bigger, but it consoles are declining. I saw some numbers for the US in June, and it's so low. I wouldn't be surprised. It's actually some of the lowest monthly sales figures Xbox has ever published.
Wow.
They've clearly cut their production. Um, there will always be Xbox consoles. Of course, they're about to release some handhelds. But when your main rival, so from Sony's point of view, when your main rival simply isn't playing anymore,

um the incentive to gatekeep all your content, it's sort of gone. Not entirely,
certainly to some degree,
although one thing I thought Xbox delivering really low numbers. PS5 is not making up the difference.
It's broadly keeping track with PS4 and that's despite what's going on. That's, you know, so is keeping track of PS4 despite the fact it's competitor sort of not playing anymore,
is bowing out. So, the console world is shrinking. I think that's what we're seeing at the moment. Maybe that might change. I hope it does. But the reality is right now younger gamers are not engaging in consoles in the same way that they did when I was younger or perhaps when you were younger, Lucy.
Kids in their phones. Yeah. Attention economy, right? It is what else is taking up everyone's time. It is the doom scrolling. It is
Roblox.
Roblox. It is Minecraft still. It is being on an iPad which can do I mean that's the thing. Like when we were kids, we did not have this magical all-in-one device. And now everyone just has it in their pocket.
Yeah.
Um why would you need to, you know, break your attention from one thing, go

through the arduous process of turning on something else, booting it up, downloading something when, hey, I could just play Roblox on my phone.
Yeah. Also, the cost of these consoles are so much higher today than they were even a generation ago.
And that's going to put off even maybe some even more established console users are going, you know what, I'll wait for GTA 6. Um
yeah. Um, look, Sony is absolutely right and Xbox absolutely right to focus on its services, focus on its games, um, building that community. Console hardware is part of that, you know, that's that's part of it. Um, but I think it makes sense to go, you know, the platform for Sony is PlayStation Network, just as the platform for Xbox is um, Xbox Live or or Game Pass. Um, do I think we're seeing PlayStation doing an Xbox and going full multiplatform? I don't think we're seeing that yet. I don't think we're near that point yet. Um, but they ultimately still want people they look they want people to buy their machines, right? And they over a PC, over an Xbox, over a Nintendo Switch 2 even. Um, but they are on a similar path to Xbox in that you know they want

to re they want their games to sell to more than 20 million people. They want to they want to grow that and the way to grow that is to go to where they are
rather than expect them to come to you. So I think
yeah on the one hand a little bit of you know I'm not expecting Spider-Man 2 to have an Xbox edition. Xbox is an interesting one because it's such a smaller platform and it's getting smaller.
I was going to say, is it even worth their time?
PC makes a world of sense. PC is, what is it, the year gap they kind of leave before putting things on PC and then they see a huge bump in sales and Yeah. boom, lovely.
Hell Divers 2 on Xbox makes sense to me.
Yeah.
As soon as I saw Hell Divers 2, it looks like an Xbox game, right?
Actually, yeah. I don't know if it makes sense for Horizon or but may, you know,
but I think there's a pride thing in that too. I I I don't think PlayStation You said it earlier. I don't think PlayStation would want Kattos on Xbox.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I I I just think ultimately they want people to buy a PlayStation.
Exactly.
That's what they want. And I and I think the best thing they've got is their exclusives.

Well, that that's the Nintendo model, right? It's hey, you have to come to us if you want to play these games. We are not putting them on anything else. But what's funny about the reason why Xbox and PlayStation were always lumped together is that if you look at the reasons of why people buy a PlayStation, there's loads of reasons, but the big reason it's for NBA, it's for Madden, it's for EA Sports FC, it's for Call of Duty,
it's for Mrated games,
Nintendo.
Well, yes, I guess I guess it is for adult more adult titles there, you know, but um it's the same reasons those are the same reasons people buy an Xbox and that's why, you know, they were actually talking to the same audience a lot of the time. Nintendo people bought and that's why Switch 2 a Switch audience is such overlap with PlayStation Xbox all the time because if you want to play Zelda and Pokemon or Mario and Donkey Kong or you Animal Crossing, Smash Brothers, whatever, you have to buy a Nintendo. Um, you're not choosing between anything else. You just have to get that machine. They are also expanding their games into other onto other platforms, but not in the same way. Um, this is a conversation that will run and run and run every single time PlayStation do anything that looks

like it's moving to other platform. I suspect we're about to get a bunch of new Xbox announcements from PlayStation after on PlayStation games after seeing um how Forsa Horizon has just done on on there.
But um it's a definite change. Um interesting. I have another point about competition. But you know, it leads me into my next um story. Battlefield 6.
Uhhuh. Yes.
It's doing pretty well that you've seen.
Yeah.
Over half a million concurrent players. It it achieved during its recent beta. Um, to put that into context, Call of Duty HQ, which is
all of the Call of Duty games basically. Um, its previous peak was 490,000. So, it's done beaten the Steam Peak for Battle for for Call of Duty. This has prompted um former Activision boss Mike Kubara to post on Twitter, Battlefield will boot COD this year, but the real win here is COD won't be lazy anymore and we'll all get better FPS games for it. Lucy, are you a fan of Battlefield?
I am in. Sorry, I'm just reeling from the from that
from that uh interesting tweet.

Yeah,
I uh so I was always more COD for sure. I dip my toes into Battlefield. I was actually at the reveal event for Battlefield uh a couple weeks ago and I did speak to Vince Zampella and Byron bead about it. though I actually came away from Battlefield 6 very very impressed and it's very interesting to kind of loop things around to Gamescom is that Battlefield instead I'm not sure if they have a presence at Gamescom but they are opting instead for people at home which is the most important thing is for people at home to be able to play it and then hey that will convert into wish lists because what their wish listing now is almost what it's well over a million.
Yeah. Yeah. I saw Simon Carlos's um latest issue.
There's loads of stats. Somebody's got 2.7 million and it's like I don't know which number to agree, but yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot.
They got over half a million wish lists uh from the reveal event alone, I think, was another thing that I saw. Whereas

COD is what are they doing? They're going to be they'll be on stage at opening night live. I'm not sure if they'll be hands-on at the show floor. Probably not. But then they'll be COD next, I assume.
Is this the glorified DLC year? I'm a bit concerned cuz Modern Warfare 2 was followed by Modern Warfare 3. in Modern Warfare 3 was just
this is the one I don't know why 9ish Nails has become like weird connected. Well, I do know because they did the music for Black Ops 2, but as soon as I heard Nishinish Nails in that trailer, I was like, "Oh, we're Black Ops again." And then they've got Milo Ventimelia. They've got some weird I don't know. I thought it was a remedy game at first with that like the weird broken glass.
Oh, yeah.
I was like, they're bringing back Quantum Break. Uh but no, they're not. Yeah, it's it's very very interesting and I'm sto I mean a lot of the people that I know who love who love Battlefield are very very happy with the direction that six is going. I did have a really interesting chat with a friend of mine who is a streamer and he said that um he

really he was really enjoying Battlefield. gameplay felt great, but as a game to stream, Call of Duty War Zone is still better for streamers because in a War Zone match, there is a story in it, you know, and so I thought that was a really interesting approach that I wouldn't necessarily think of when it comes to judging a game based on based on what I'm playing. Um, but yeah, for streamers it's yeah, I thought that was a very
like a very different way of looking at it. But yeah, War Zone, I guess it's, you know, you start at the bottom with nothing and then hopefully you come out at the end winning. Whereas
Battlefield multiplayer, everyone starts out with variations of the same kit. You're working together. I mean, there is a mode where you have that kind of big uh you kind of v for zones and then at the end the music swells up and you're pushing up a hill and it gets really really intense as you're all going for one uh one point. I thought that was really cool. But in Yeah, in terms of storytelling, it's not
it's interesting. We had Twitch on the

show a little while ago and they talked about GTA online being hugely popular because of roleplay. It's not my world, but that's what was interesting.
It's storytelling. To be fair, I love the Zanella story arc of him sort of being, you know, Medal of Honor, you know, the whole um being shouted by EA, going back going to Activision, you know, and then running back to EA, go running back ending back at EA, but all you know, basically making the best Medal of Honor game, launching Call of Duty, um and then uh and then Titanfall and then Apex Legends now, um sort of leading leading the resurgence of Battlefield. But that's the thing as well because I mean Byron bead who's like general manager of Battlefield he was on Call of Duty he was on Destiny and then Marcus Leato when they had Marcus Leato on Battlefield was the Halo guy and so it's very funny that they kind of had the Infinity Gauntlet of people who worked on these huge FPS franchises and brought them all to Battlefield for six.
Yeah. Well, there were two challenges when it comes to watching a game which

is these are live service titles. There's always two challenges. The first challenge is something that Battlefield 6, I'm pretty sure, is going to overcome, which is getting people to play it. That is actually, believe it or not, that's the easiest challenge, and it's really hard. Um, the hardest challenge is to keep them playing it. Um,
if we The last game to try and unseat Call of Duty was Extifiant, um, which is Ubisoft's game.
Um, and
it's a name I haven't heard in a while.
And it succeeded initially. Had a huge surge of people going, "Oh, give this a go. This looks interesting. This looks different. we're a bit, you know, we're tired of Call of Duty. We'll try something else. But ultimately, Call of Duty is where they've got their friends. It's where they've invested all of their money. It's where they've got all their experience, hundreds of thousands of hours of leveling up and stuff.
So eventually they just went back and that happens a lot. You know, we see that a lot of people going giving something a go
and then going back. Um, so Battlefield, you know, people talking about it boots up in Call of Duty.
It's got it's it's on a it's on the back foot. It's on the back foot. not because a smaller franchise on the back foot

because um even if it's a really really good game um it has to really convince people to stay and keep playing. I mean I but I one thing I do agree with him on competition is really important but not because folks are lazy. I think I think that's a bit of a I think people I think it's a competition is it forces you to to go out of your comfort zone and try stuff and do things you hadn't done before. Um, I look at everything that sort of declines and I do think when things start declining and things start getting smaller and things start disappearing from the competition. People don't feel the need, they don't feel, why would they, why, you know, why would it even occur to them to let's break all the rules and change everything that we know is working. Um, because you're trying to undermine or come up with something new to try and beat your competitor. You wouldn't do that. Isn't natural. And you know, Call of Duty being the main shooter in town, the World War shooter in town, it hasn't needed to it it tries to innovate. It tries to do cool things, but it it's it doesn't try and break anything because what because it's working. And this might force whether it's Call of Duty or Battlefield

or anyone to try and do things. I look at the games media with the drops in the number of people um websites. I always think that when CVG went Eurogamer, it got worse. Not because Eurogamer's team was in remotely lazy. They were they worked super hard. they they didn't have anything to have. They had to try and, you know, work past or get over or, you know, if somebody else is over spending loads and you can't spend that amount of money, you've got to think of a way of competing. Um, and um, so I do agree with them. Competition is good and I hope both of them succeed and as a result they both go even further um, than they they were hoped to before. But that's a that's a big one and well done for EA for great numbers and hopefully
it delivers. Um, finally, this is your favorite bit, Lucy, financial results. You love financial results, don't you?
I love them.
We had a load of positive ones last week, not so much this week, or more of a mixed bag this week. Square Enix revenues down 25% due to a weaker sales of new titles. Sega sales are also down nearly 23%. due to a lack of new games, but Sega actually is quite happy about that. They were they said it exceeded their expectations. Um, in better news,

Band Dynamo's Q1 was strong with sales up 7%. This is on the back of a huge boost in sales for Mobile Suit Gondam the franchise. I was I was going to say Night Rain, but no.
So, Night Rain is also that they're very happy with 5 million shipments to Night Rain. That seems to have done pretty well for them as well. And the one that I probably got most to say about is Take Two. Um, they delivered at 1.42 billion in net bookings. That's up from their guidance. Their top guidance was 1.3 billion. Big jump on that. And that was because NBA did well, GG online did well, Civilization sales are picking up. Uh the big one though is the performance of Zinger which has had a very strong quarter on the back of match factory tomb blast and color block jam. Um I spoke to Strauss last week. We all get to do that most of us uh in the in the business press around the numbers. Um we had an interesting chat about how he doesn't really worry too much about the financial quarter or even the financial year and likes the plan for years and years and years ahead the long.
I also wouldn't worry if I had GTA.

Well, yeah. But it's it's like the reason why that came up is I was talking to him about the fact that they're investing in new countries and I was like do these do these India and the Middle East and and and sort of places like that. And I was saying you know does that generate good revenue for you? And he's like no it's but that's where that's where the next group of you know and that's where things are in 18 years time. But having said that despite the fact that they they look to the future it's finest financial year they've got Borderlands 4 which is their biggest game that isn't called GTA and or NBA. Um, Mafia the Old Country. They got all those Switch ports plus the usual WWE and NBA. That's this this financial year. The next two financial years, there are 17 Take 2 games coming. Um, sorry, 25 Take 2 games coming, including 17 what they call core games. That includes GTA 6 and five sports titles. Four mobile games and four new versions of older titles. Um, well, I know that we've obviously got Ken Lavine's game that's been in development for I think I think one to 105 years now. Um, called Judas.

Yeah, I'm I'm I played that one last year. It's It's really intriguing. I want to see more of it. I think a lot of people It's so funny because you can tell whenever anything happens about Judas, I get a bunch of tweets being like, "Hey, have you heard anything? Hey, have you heard anything?" The Judah the Judith subreddit is I want them to have an a crumb of news because I feel very bad for the people of the Judas subreddit. They are desperate for anything to do with this game.
Bioshock Infinite was what March 2013.
Yeah.
Older than GTA 5.
Then there was uh the DLC
burial burial at sea which was
the year later.
14. Yeah. And then Yeah. the studio shut down and then Judas was properly revealed what game awards 2023.
Yeah, I I remember writing the time about the launches at Ghost Stories in the studio and the whole thing was so we could make shorter games faster and I'm

making fun. I love Ken Lavine. I love Bioshock. I am very excited about his his return. I'm being mean.
Judas has a is a really cool concept. I just want to see it. It is again very very ambitious and I yeah I wonder when it's going to come out.
Um yes but that's that's on the schedule supposed to be coming out soonish at some point in the next it'll be the next couple of financial years and there's project uh uh e from 31st union which is that extraction shooter
um um that um
cl well I assume cloud chambers.
Yeah.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There there's a few things that been long in gestation that s at some point. Um, but yeah, I anything jump out there for you? I mean, take two. I just think they I just um particularly the 2K side. I know that Ghost Story is not 2K. It's technically an independent set standalone thing to it, but um it's it's been a bit they had a really quiet generation during the PS4 era.
They really did.
It's it's a little noisy this time, but they've had a few misses that Midnight Suns didn't do very well. Um

which is such a shame because Midnight Suns is great.
That's amazing. Yeah. Um and um that Lego game, that Lego racing game didn't do great for them either, but um I forgot about that one.
But they've got um I think it's an interesting slate for them and it's just but the thing is it isn't any of that stuff that's doing it. I mean that stuff's doing fine, but it is it's it's the mobile games and it's the um the D it's the NBA stuff and it's it's all that kind of stuff. W Supercard, that kind of thing.
Um
but um but yeah, we are we a lot of these companies are reporting slightly better margins because they've laid off loads of stuff. Um
yeah. Um,
line line must go up.
Yeah, on that cheery note, that's I've run out of time. That's it for today's episode of the Game Business Show. Thank you, Lucy, for joining us again. Um, it's always a joy having you on.
Thank you for having me.
And I'll see you in a few days.
I know. That's so exciting.
Yeah. Or Kulch or whatever. Whatever it is.
Oh, yes. Please. Oh, I'm not a beer drinker unless I'm in Germany.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just the rules. You got to sausages and beer is the uh is the whole is the whole Gamescom experience. Richard will be joining us. Our producer will be out there as well.
We have three shows next week as part of our big Gamescom week. We also have a live show which we are recording and we'll put out the week after Gamescom. Thank you again to Lucy. All of our Gamescom coverage is sponsored by Kiwware Studios and Green Man Gaming. So, thanks to those folks as well. Until next week, thank you for tuning in.