Should PlayStation and Xbox change their plans on exclusive games?

This week we ask, should PlayStation and Xbox stop releasing games on other platforms? And we dive into the world of video game influencers with our special guest, Jake Kowski. Hello and welcome to the Game Business Show. We've got a proper chunky episode for you this week with all sorts of data around video game exclusivity. We have a fantastic guest in Jake Kowski. He comes from Guillotine, which is an influencer agency that has really made a name for itself. and we're going to talk take our first dive into that world and what's changing in terms of influencer PR and marketing. Plus, we have a little bonus interview treat for you with Night Dive. That's the retro developer behind the remasters and remakes of games such as System Shark, Quake, Doom, Star Wars, Dark Forces, Turoko, and countless others. But before we get to that, let's do the news. And our first story is, yes, the game Business Live. This is our event on June 8th in Los Angeles. We're doing live on stage interviews with EA's Laura Mle Naughty Dog co-founder Jason Rubing and leading analyst

extraordinaire Matthew B. We currently have an early bird offer going on where you can get two tickets for the price of one, but the offers ends on Monday. So, if you want to get that deal, you've only got a few days. There will be networking too. I'll be there. Jeff will be there. Come and join us. If you're a paid subscriber, you can get it as part of your subscription. It'll be great to see you in LA. Now, on to actual industry news. And we'll begin with Capcom. The publisher has revised its financial year 25 earnings forecast, citing stronger than expected sales for Resident Evil Recreum. The publisher now expects net sales of $1.22 billion. That's up 2.8% from their previous forecast. Net income is expected to hit $342 million. That's up 6.9% over its previous forecast. Resvil Recrim has done very well. It's sold 7 million copies worldwide now. It's the fastest selling game in the series to date. Um, and they've just had another hit as well in Pragmata. So, lots of success coming out of Capcom. They do not seem to be able to put any do anything wrong at this point in time. Another small story that's come out in the last couple of days is Val's new Steam Controller will

release on May 4th, priced at $99. The controller was supposed to release alongside the Steam machine and the Steam Frame VR headset, but both have been delayed due to the RAM crisis shortage crisis that's going on, which is impacting hardware costs. So, we're waiting on those, but the controller will be out next week. Warner Brothers shareholders have overwhelmingly approved Paramount's $ 1111 billion acquisition offer. The transaction still needs to go through the US Department of Justice and the European Competition Authorities before moving ahead. The companies anticipate the deal closing in September 2026. Both Paramount and Warner Brothers have video games teams. And it would be I'll be interested to see how these two merge together. Maybe we can get that Mortal Kombat Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle crossover that everyone has been clamoring for. I'm sure everyone's been clamoring for it. Couple of other small stories. Atari has acquired emulation studio Implicit Conversions for an undisclosed amount. Implicit Conversions specializes in porting older games to modern consoles using its technology. That means if they don't have the game source code, they can still do it. It has worked for Atari over the last year on the ports of

Mortal Kombat and Rayman games. Atari's really really pushing into this retro sphere. Um, and it's become basically the market leader in this space by through acquisitions, but also through its recognizable brand name. Uh we talk a little bit about that later on in our night dive interview who which are another studio owned by Atari. Meanwhile, Clare Obscure Exhibition 33 celebrates its first birthday with the news it has now sold 8 million copies worldwide. What a success that game has been. And games done quick to to to friends. It's coming to Europe for the first time. The speedrunning event is taking place at Gamescom between 28th and the 30th of August 2026. Uh not a huge amount of new stories. We had talked a lot about the Xbox memo and stuff in previous episodes, but regardless, I'm glad there wasn't too many stories because I've got a lot of other stuff to talk about. If you did enjoy, by the way, that recap, we do do a deeper version of it every Monday. It's called the Game Business Micro. It's a podcast and a newsletter and it's exclusive to paid subscribers of the game business. So, if you liked that and you'd like to get more or or if you just love the show and like to support it, like us to keep going, please do

consider becoming a paid subscriber. Anyway, enough of that. Before we welcome our guest, let's chat some market data, shall we? And specifically data related to the conversation around video game exclusives. And what conversation am I talking about? Well, PlayStation and Xbox are reportedly reconsidering their multiplatform strategies. Now, to recap where we are, AAA video games have become more and more expensive to make, and the console space is showing signs of slowing down. That's why third party companies have been aggressively pursuing a multiplatform strategy. They're increasingly focused on PC, on Steam, on streaming platforms as well, Nintendo consoles, even mobile. And even the console makers have been doing it. Xbox has been releasing its games on PC for quite some time now, and has started publishing more and more of its titles on PlayStation and Nintendo. Sony has been releasing its multiplayer games across platforms, games like Hell Divers 2 and Marathon, and has been releasing its well-known singleplayer games, including God of War: Spider-Man Horizon on PC, albeit a few years later. Now,

Xbox is openly re-evaluating its plans around this, and according to reports, PlayStation is also looking to keep its single player games exclusive to its consoles going forward. So, not putting them on PC. So, what's changed? Well, first of all, it's worth talking about the impact exclusives have on consoles. According to Sakana's Q1 2026 consumer survey, the number one reason why US gamers play on a console is because of exclusive games. 41% of respondents cited that as the biggest reason as to why they play on a console. That is actually a drop of 8 percentage points on Q1 last year, but it's still the number one reason. The number two reason, by the way, is because friends and family use the same console. 38% of respondents say that. But regardless, number one reason people play on consoles is because of exclusives. If you look at sales and player data, we can see that exclusives do drive sales. This is most not to be true of Nintendo, but it's also the case with PlayStation as well. In November 2022, which saw the release of God of War Ragnarok, PS5 saw a significant spike in sales in Japan

and UK during the week of release. PS5 sales jumped 116% in Japan on the week of God of War's release. Meanwhile, in the UK, 38% of all PS5s sold that month were of the God of War Ragnarok bundle. Now, the reason why I picked on God of War is because games that were released earlier than that, the PS5 had severe stock shortages, so everything was really spiky and it was it's it's almost impossible to judge. Now, there is diminishing returns to these exclusives over time. Last year's Ghost of Yoai and 2023's Spider-Man 2 did have an impact on PS5 hardware sales, but it wasn't as significant as God of War. Perhaps there's a strong crossover of God of War players, Spider-Man 2 players. So, by that point, a lot of those players are already players of PS5. Now, what's key with PlayStation though is that non-exclusive third party games also have a huge impact on console sales. In the same month Spider-Man 2 was released, the number one selling PS5 bundle was actually the FIFA 24 pack, which accounted for over half of all PS5 sold that month. Call of GT, FIFA, NBA, Madden. They dominate the PlayStation

charts and are key drivers of PlayStation hardware. By contrast, Nintendo hardware is primarily driven by Nintendo exclusives. So yes, exclusives are a key differentiator on PlayStation, but it isn't really isn't all about those exclusive games. Now, the next question is, does releasing games on PC potentially harm the console? Is PC actually arrival to consoles? So, PlayStation has been releasing many of its big single player games on PC a year or two after the console release. This might appear to undermine the appeal of a console, but actually data shows that PC and console players do behave differently even though both platforms can play similar games. According to Newsy, 50% of console spend is on full game premium purchases with just 27% of spend coming via microtransactions. Those figures are almost exactly reversed on PC. 48% of revenue comes from microtransactions and 29% from premium games. Over 75% of console revenue comes from games that cost $50 or more. Whereas cheaper games perform

better on PC, the sub $30 category accounts for 30% of PC games revenue where it's just single digits on console. Console players concentrate more on AAA games and annual sports titles and live service shooters, whereas PC players are more active at lower price points than with indie games. News data also shows that console players are more focused on a smaller set of major franchises whereas PC players spread their time across more titles. Now, there is clearly some overlap, right? Particularly at the AAA end. It might not dominate PC like consoles, but AAA games do sell on PC. Resident Evil Recreum perform really well on Steam, but overall player behavior on PC and console is different, which suggests there's a player base on PC that console makers are not speaking to. Therefore, releasing PlayStation games on PC after a window of console exclusivity makes strategic sense. The audiences do differ a little bit, so it's unlikely to have a major impact on console sales and should potentially unlock more revenue and players for Sony's big franchises. But the results

have been mixed. When it comes to live service games, PlayStation has seen huge success by releasing games on PC and even Xbox for that matter. Hell Divers 2's peak monthly active users happened in March 2024. It had 7.9 million active players according to Ampair. The majority of those players, 4.6 6 million were on PC. It's similar with last month's Marathon. According to Ampair, Marathon attracted well over 2.2 million players during its launch month. 1.1 million of them were on PC, 660,000 on PS5, and 525,000 on Xbox. But the single player results are far less impressive. God of War Ragnarok attracted just 300,000 players on PC in its launch month. By comparison, the PS5 PS4 launch bought in 6.9 million players. The PC release for Spider-Man 2 saw just 260,000 players at launch compared with 6.2 million on PS5. Horizon Forbidden West also launched with 230,000 players on PC. One single

player that did sort of okay, did did pretty well was Ghost of Sushima Director's Cut, which saw 710,000 monthly players when it launched. Of course, it's worth noting that these games have missed the marketing window. They've released several years after the PlayStation 5 version or the PlayStation 4 version. Nevertheless, they're not big figures. Let's talk about Xbox for a little bit. Um, PC is central to the Xbox strategy. So, any talk of rethinking its approach to exclusivity is unlikely to involve PC. Xbox does release games on PC at the same time as the console version, and it's had some positive results with this. Starfield sold over 2 million games on Steam back in September 2023 according to Ampair, but it does vary by the game. And there's a few games last year that didn't do great. Avowed only attracted 140,000 players on Steam at launch. The Outer Wars 2 peaked 170,000 monthly Steam players. Indiana Jones and The Great Circle only managed 240,000. So, not all Xbox games are doing well on PC. But considering Xbox's push around Windows, I cannot imagine the company

will stop putting its games on that platform. The question is whether it will keep supporting PlayStation devices with all of its first party games. But the data here is actually broadly quite positive. The company released Force of Horizon 5 on PlayStation last year and it was a smash hit. Millions of people came in and played that game on PlayStation. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle also did reasonably well on PS5, at least comparatively well. 400,000 people played the game on PS5 during its launch in April 2025, which meant the PS5 launch for Indiana Jones is bigger than the PC launch. But the challenge for Xbox, the reason why this is even a conversation is the collapse of its consoles. Sales of Xbox Series S and X have fallen sharply, as has the number of active Xbox machines. In a memo to staff, Xbox leaders Asha Sharma and Matt Bouty said that it wanted to stabilize the console as a healthy and high quality base. And as the Sakana statistics I mentioned earlier highlights, exclusive games is the main reason people play on console. So could

a return to some form of exclusivity or perhaps temporary exclusivity help achieve the goal of stabilizing the generation for Xbox? I wouldn't be surprised to see Xbox at least experiment with one of its upcoming titles by not releasing it on PlayStation 5 and to see the results. Maybe Gears of War, something like that. So, are we seeing the return of exclusives? I think the conversation is more nuanced and it is likely platform holders will just be even more strategic with where it places its games. Releasing single player PS5 games on PC appears relatively low risk now, but it will have some negative impact on how PS5 is perceived by some players. And with the rise of PCbased handhelds and consoles, including the next Xbox and the upcoming Steam Machine, that impact could be greater in the future. So the question becomes, is it worth it? And the data suggests for a lot of games, it isn't. PS5 games on Steam outside of those live service shooters simply aren't selling in high numbers. There may be games in the future where it is worth it. Perhaps Sony might have a game

that would appeal to Chinese players, for instance. If they have one of those, a PC version would be sensible. But for now, the opportunity size doesn't seem to be worth the investment, particularly if it harms how the consoles are perceived. Now, it's a little different for Xbox. Series SNX is in last place and languishing. What's more, the profit margins on Xbox's first party games are impacted by their inclusion into the Game Pass subscription service. So, putting it games on PlayStation not only widens the audience considerably, it's also an audience that will buy the games at full price. Xbox says its northstar is daily active players and releasing games on PlayStation will help it grow that number. But it will come at the expense of its platform and services. Whether that is the console, whether that's Windows or the Game Pass subscription service. In the memo that I mentioned earlier, Xbox says it wants to build a global platform that connects players and creators everywhere. And the best way to get players to use that global platform is by putting games on it that you can't get anywhere else. It's certainly a fascinating topic and one we're surely going to come back to.

Um, but you've probably had enough of me talking now, so let's invite our guest on, shall we? This year, we've done some interviews with game developers. And two of them, the developers behind Mugenics and Dispatch, have referenced a company called Guillotine. Guillotine is an influencer agency run by Jake Kulowski. And seeing as we've not really covered this area of the industry yet, I thought, well, I wonder if Jake would come on and tell us what's going on in this space. And here he is. Hello, Jake. Welcome to the show. Hey Chris, long time listener, first- time caller. Thank you for having me.
So Jake, give me a bit of your background. So this has been going for two years, you said. So yeah, so guillotine's been going for for two years, right? But I've been in the industry for seven years. Um, and I started off like as a YouTuber, actually. I grew a channel from like naugh to 300,000 followers in about a year and a half, doing about 18 million views a month. Uh, and then um I I uh reviewed a game called Divinity Original Sin and I think um Larry and we're using like Bandai Namco to like um publish like the physical edition of the Definitive Edition. So they invited me to like the um like the press preview

event in Bath in England or wherever that was. Uh and so I said no. And then they said we'll we'll pay for your train. So I said yeah. And I went there and I was kind of among a lot of journalists and you know the rock paper shotguns of the world. as a YouTuber, by the way, back in like 2017, the kind of um argument about legitimacy, I suppose, and credibility as a content creator was still out there, right? I think as a creator, you're a bit more relatable to the the sort of like the everyman, but are you as credible as as sort of journalist? And that kind of conversation was still a big topic of discussion. So, I spoke to um guy called Matt Pellet who was working the PR for the event and I asked him, he's great guy by the way.
Yeah, I know Matt very well. I I asked him like, "Mate, this sounds so stupid, but I said, "What what are you actually doing here? Like, what what what is PR?" And he told me what it is. And I was asking him about influencers because I got a lot of like Mailchimp emails from people I'd never heard of sending me invites to like Raikovic to go to the Eve FanFest. I've never played Eve and so I I thought it was all like bit unusual. And I just said, "How come

there's not a guy that works like a PR agency in the UK that just focuses on influencers?" He was just like, "It's just not something that's just really done." And so um I asked a bit more about it and yeah I got I got hired to do that for like a small PR firm called Deadg Good PR back in 2019.
Ah
from what I understand that we were the first
Stu.
Yeah that's right. So, so Stu hired me and from what I understand we were the first agency in Europe, PR firm that worked in gaming specifically that had a an influencer specialist really a department but it was just it was just me and then it yeah it kind of went upwards from there because we well worked really hard on a game called Discoium and from that point on and we ended up doing some stuff on on Boulders Gate 3. So um I got to go to packs to to see that game get revealed to the world and and since then like I've worked on quite a lot. I've worked on um six of the last seven game of the year winners. I was very lucky cuz when I started gating day one um Sega uh were with us and and now we work yeah with all sorts of clients and quite a quite a long-term

basis which is quite rare for influencers. A lot of influencer agencies and stuff. It's kind of hired gun stuff last minute but we're kind of agencies of record for like quite a lot of the you know the big Japanese publishers like um Bandai, Capcom and Sega. we do a lot of work with those and um but essentially what had ended up happening and why I started gearing myself is that over time I realized that I'd gone from being like the individual that was doing influences specifically to kind of just one dude at a PR firm that did everybody does influencers now you know it's like being nachos on like a weather spoon's menu you're just one item on a big service menu and so guillotine was kind of um designed to just be like maybe like to take this terrible analogy a bit further a food truck that only sells nachos with the thought that for that to be in business they must be damn good nachos. You know
what is how do you define the difference between influencer and press? I mean in some cases is obvious but there is there is increasingly this big crossover right?
I think so. Absolutely. And it

constantly is changing but I think the difference between influencers and and press in gaming I suppose is well typically they're they're on the platforms right? that are on YouTube uh exclusively or Twitch or or Tik Tok and there's no sort of editorial content I suppose it's more like let's plays reactive stuff but then of course we do have this sort of hybrid like we've got um like people like Skillup right who's like quite well respected in the industry quite quite legitimized and
he's been on the show
yeah absolutely fantastic guy by the way known him for best part of eight years I think and you know he's a great example actually of of this line being blurred because I think just more generally and and and maybe sorry to take this like on a psychological level with with every brand ever, but people definitely personify businesses. I think that's super um common. We see it like, you know, there's a there's a very famous article that was written by a publication in the games media that gave a middling score to a video game for having too much water. And that's quite

a famous thing. And uh the person who wrote that then I think moved to another outlet entirely uh and and that score that review that that kind of tagline has stuck with the original outlet for many many years and it's because people kind of just treat IGN like one big person. So shouts out to IGN by the way
but the same and it's and it's the same with like you know I you must have heard this before but a lot of people value the delivery couriers around the world with how much they enjoy like their postman right? So if if you have like uh you know you have all these different delivery companies but one of them knows not to knock at this time because you're on the school run and they leave it by your back. You love that company, right? So it speaks to that and I think with influencers that's that's the kind of thing it's it's really simplified that relationship in people's heads, right? I really appreciate this guy. I know what his opinion is on stuff and I can follow that through. Whereas like with an outlet there's like 36 staff writers. maybe not anymore, but there certainly was a lot of staff writers. Um, it kind of blurred lines. So, I think that Yeah. So, the definition really is normally

like it's typically an individual on a a platform who may or may not be doing editorial content, but you know, there's normally a face to the name. By the way, like that this like the conversation's kind of over at this point in 2026 about if influencers are like legitimate enough and they're going to get included in in review stage, preview stage. But um certainly when I was um an influencer and even up until the pandemic really I think their influencers were
kind of uh definitely not seen on on and and and you know the industry's kind of caught up now I'd say but there certainly was there were people who were very cautious about whether to invite an influencer uh and stuff. So yeah it's it's been interesting. So that line will continue to blur and especially with all unfortunately the the layoffs in games media. We're seeing a lot of really great journalists start their own stuff, you know, we when we we got Second Wind, like some people put them as influencers, some people put them as media, and we got like, you know, Waypoint Radio and whatever. So, you've got all these different like exjournalists doing or still

journalists, but now they're they've got a YouTube channel. So, it just continues to to become this hybrid, isn't it? So, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, let's dive into a little bit deeper. I mean, you linked me to a report that he said rising costs and inflation are pushing companies towards smaller, more targeted partnerships. I mean, um, that sounds like potentially good news for smaller influencers. Is that have I read that right?
I suppose so. Yeah. I I I think intention is really important in the world at the moment. There's so much like stuff that you can do. So, you kind of want to make sure that the time that you're spending is a bit more intentional, right? So like we're seeing a huge, you know, resurgence of people reading again and like on Substack and and whatnot and long form and people want to be um entertained and stuff. But I think there's a word that's kind of a it's a really played out word in the games industry, right? And it's authenticity. Yeah. And and what I mean by that is it's played out in the sense that influencers are considered

relatable and authentic. So, a lot of companies will hire influencers to to kind of do stuff that's authentic, but then send them like seven pages of rules or whatever, right? And um but but but where where influencers tend to be succeeding at the moment is yeah, like companies spending smart and spending on influencers that are already really relevant to to the niche. And if your game isn't niche, try and find a niche that it exists in. So trying to create couple of circles so you can find an influencer within that ven diagram and spending it on that because you know I think maybe to really distill it down like if influencers 5 years ago was about like eyeballs I think now it's about what's happening behind the eyeballs. So people are way more inclined to secure coverage day one from influencers that probably would have picked it up organically anyway, but there's so many games that they could play, existing games, games of patches that like that that's typically where um people are seeing a lot of good stuff. And so naturally, like creators of that

size are finding a lot more success. And you know, these big partnerships because they cost a lot of money, right? Like $38,000 an hour for some of the big guys. and then you're just another you're just a game that they're playing in between like doing slot machines on kick or whatever and that's like a genuine reality. So yeah, I for sort of smaller influencers and by the way when I mean smaller I don't mean like nano influencers. I mean maybe like if you were a Twitch streamer somebody with between 50 and 400 viewers or if you're a YouTuber maybe somebody with between 5 and 40,000 average views. people of that size are really that sort of that range are doing getting a lot more money than than maybe uh in that exploratory phrase a few years ago the really big vanity influencers were getting budgets. So yeah, it's been quite an interesting to watch that shift. You said to me in an email that and you talked about it a little bit really is that the industry is moving from relatability to credibility. Um which I thought was interesting. You also talk that consumers are becoming more screen time conscious and looking for is it I'm

guessing is it more depth
the risk of sort of disparaging the the general populace the bar was very low with short form content the view time was very low the click-through rate was very low it was very mindless and I think for whatever reason people especially Gen Z they're kind of moving away from that the big trends this year are kind of like watching people you know talking about like it's like watching people rehabilitate they're saying like a de influencing you. Here are five products that you don't need. This is all the kind of organic content that's doing very well on these platforms. And so it's not necessarily that people um are wanting to spend less time. They just want to make sure that they they're feeling like they've left with something. And so actually that's one thing that Tik Tok was very good for when it started to to move away from just like dancing and lip-syncing was that it was kind of people telling you little tips and tricks or did you know this or let me put you on was the kind of term, right? relatability will always sort of end up going and similar to that sort of celebrity endorsement thing right once the they're just like me has gone then you might feel like well why

am I watching so um we had this kind of who needs experts kind of era which I think is kind of you know everything's a pendulum I guess but but we're getting we're getting back to people wanting to to get information and learn but maybe not learn from you know stuffy lecture hall type stuff and I'm not really sure if it's because Jen Z just left school so they're sick of it but they want to learn about things especially especially in niches like you're seeing like a huge rise in like foraging, bird watching and and stuff like that. And like even these brand accounts are kind of doing it in this really chaotic way. If you look at the RSPB's like Tik Tok and Instagram account, it's crazy. It's like it's crazy. Um but it works. Similarly, like we're seeing this kind of um because short form can't necessarily always give you what you need like and long form can feel like a little bit disrespectful of people's time. Like if you're watching a five hour let's play of someone playing say cyberpunk on a Tuesday and a Wednesday and a Thursday and you miss Thursday then on Friday do you then go back and watch Thursday instead or do

you just like try and skip it and because four hours of stuff is a lot. If you're watching a TV show and you miss like four episodes you'd kind of be screwed, right? So the kind of 10-minute version is kind of like that that sweet spot is really seeing like a big uptick. People really want the 10-minute version of stuff. They want short form to be episodic. So or part two, you know, where's the part two of this is one of the most commented things at the moment worldwide on on short form content, right? Like that need for like extensive explanations of short form stuff. And then yeah, things like podcast and streams being edited down to like 10 minutes really. So stuff like that we're seeing a massive increase in really. And I think that's probably going to be helpful more generally because um one thing that you must have seen is that with Google and with how Gemini and and how they're integrating that more into their general search, they're now able to scan the same way like that their algorithm will scan to see if people are swearing or breaking terms of service. They're using that to find um things that people have said. So this goes out on YouTube and I'm talking about this

now and we Google it. it and if even if I mean you have this incredible system where you have your transcripts but if you didn't have that um Google would still be able to find this and and it would come up as a search result which is really good because you know YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world Google's the first and so now now that the fact that that can be quoted means that you're able to get box quotes and almost like written quotes from stuff that influencers have said in a 5 hour stream. So, um, I think that's what YouTube are kind of doing to to make everything feel like that, too. So, it's it's interesting. Really interesting time.
For games, what are the big platforms that do best? Is it still YouTube and Twitch and or is it Instagram?
Honestly, I get asked this the most and it's like my favorite question because like the truth is, yeah, Twitch has become very very prominent and there's a there's a reason, right? Right. And not many people talk about the reason and it's because influencer relations is quite like a junior aspect of of the industry, right? It's not been around for like 50 years, 100 years. Okay. And

so as such, like there's people like me who got hired as an influencer first and then we have to learn what PR is and and learn the industry. Okay. And so and this happens everywhere. This happens internally. It happens a lot places. So, lots of influencer roles even now internally they're social and influencer or community and influencer, PR and influencer and it's not a very it wasn't a very trusted um field and and and people are still figuring this out now. Okay. Um and so when a junior member of staff or a junior sort of uh in the industry is having to try and explain stuff, the best way to get that across is obviously with data. Yeah. And so Twitch has a very friendly API and a lot of free discovery tools. Stuff like Sullynome, right? That's like probably like the the global standard. Yeah. So sullyome.com, you can go on there, you could type in GTA 6 in the last uh not GTA 6, but GTA 5, right? Um and you can

look at uh people who have played it in Poland uh in January and you can find that like that. Like those free discovery tools for like YouTube are a lot harder to to come by. they don't really work very well. They're a paid solution. And for that reason and the fact that a lot of people kind of colloially call influencers streamers, it meant that Twitch just because it was because of it was easier to justify ease of use for discovery. Um it kind of rose to the top. But it's very um ephemeral because when obviously a streamer's offline, so is their content. if they're not broadcasting like nobody's going on Twitch and looking for streamers um content when they're not online because the way that the discovery is the way that the the pages it's all fed about what's live right now
they're about actually being a social media where people interact rather than the passive which is the
right and and instantaneous and and exactly broadcasting platform but by the way it's and it's losing quite a lot of market share um I think the prediction is that it'll be about 48% by the end of

the year kick is rising incredibly fast. Now kick, you know, incidentally for gaming maybe isn't the best, but for these kind of live stream constantly streaming yourself eating at a Chinese restaurant or gambling or or going it's it's absolutely incredible with this. It's a different world, but kick is rising like like no other. It's especially like big in the Mena region. Um but uh but YouTube gaming is is rising a lot as well and and it has its benefits because it's got a streaming element but then your stream lives there alongside your video content in a separate tab. It pays a lot more um ad revenue and um and there's a lot of like like forlike comparisons you can see here that's not anecdotal, right? Um but that's that's growing quite fast. Um I think it represents a quarter of all of the streaming um platforms at the moment and that this includes like chick and a lot of the Korean um sort of platforms. So streaming wise like um Twitch was

absolutely the the gold standard. Everybody kind of understood it enough. They didn't care, but they understood it and they could see the numbers, right? So you could give your boss a PDF of just the numbers. Um because it's like hyperormalization with influencers. Oh, we got this influencer to like blow this game up with a tank and then you know you could say like the craziest stuff and like your boss will be like that sounds good. That's what people are doing these days. Okay, but did it do well? But now that sort of the because of the spend going up, the scrutiny has come up and the accountability has increased which is fantastic by the way is really important that the industry does that because we've been in this incredible like last days of Rome phase with influencers where people are just you know sending influencers to like private islands to do escape rooms for games and all of this crazy stuff because influencer people are trying to make a name for themselves and get that promotion show and that happens all the time. And so um now that the uh the accountability is kind of coming into it a lot more. YouTube is really rising in prominence again. It's very it also YouTube is is absolutely the number one

thing that drives sort of wish list is is VOD content and Tik Tok and YouTube. You'll see these big spikes. Been to countless like sort of develops and GDCs. And whenever you see this little random spike on all of these marketing talks, it's cuz some guy like Spotter Cat Gaming has played your indie game and it's got like 120,000 wish lists in a day and and and whatever. So really, I think uh yeah, they're they're the primary two. Tik Tok's obviously kind of in the it's uh it's in limbo at the moment. Obviously this the buyout and this talk about intention and everything like that. And uh the the the reason that Tik Tok did so well is because and I don't know if you know this Christopher but you could essentially pay to boost views on Tik Tok you could you know for a very very small amount of money like 150 quid you can put spark card ad sticks where you can take someone's content uh it still appears as like their content but it gets boosted to millions and millions of views and again as for for a junior member of staff and it who maybe isn't um that

great at explaining the value they can just show their boss millions of views and that looks very good. So, that's been something really interesting that Tik Tok's had. But YouTube has brought that in now. By the way, YouTube has got it where you can boost views on stuff and it's been used a lot by um Chinese publishers um for campaigns. Like you'll see stuff like um where winds meet um they've been spending a lot of money boosting that sort of thing. So, um and YouTube shorts, they're really they're really um trying to trying to eat Tik Tok's lunch, I think. and um you know I think they got a pretty good chance in my opinion. So yeah, I'd say that they they're the big ones.
That's pretty extensive. I was going to ask if there any you've by the way I had a question about scrutiny which you brought up. Um and you I also had a question about future platforms. You mentioned kick. I say future platforms.
Oh sorry man. Yeah.
No no it's very handy. It makes it's it's far more I think organic or earned. I don't know. It's it's useful. I mean what I find really fascinating about um cuz I this is new

to what I'm a print journalist and online journalist and now I do video so I've had to learn Tik Tok. I never used to use it
and Instagram and all these sort of things. And what I found really fascinating is um I was going to give up on Tik Tok.
I just thought you know I'm getting some views. It's fine but I they're not really games industry people are not really what I do.
And I was at the Game Awards in December and I met Devon Pritchard from Nintendo of America. You know boss Nintendo of America. She wasn't at that point. she was about to be and I sort of introduc introduced myself and she said that she watches the show and I was like oh excellent I'm I'm really um excellent and I asked the same question because you can watch it on YouTube you can listen to it you can you can you can read it how do you how do you engage basically he said honestly I mostly watch on Tik Tok and I was thought well I'm putting a bit more effort into my Tik Tok videos I love these stories because you know um when I was talking to Edmund McMillan for the first time and and I was talking to him we were talking about um video games we like and I was talking about I I worked on Expedition 33, right? And he said, "Oh,

I know that game from Tik Tok and I just found that really funny. Ed McMillan found out about Expedition 33 about 6 months after it came out from Tik Tok." That is just like to me that speaks to all. So, you never know who's watching. But, uh yeah, it's it's it really it really it really is something. Um, and I think that but T the one thing that Tik Tok has done though it's it's it's devalued something that's really powerful and it's it's something the biggest struggle at the moment is retention right so a little sound bite for you is that like the forification of Tik Tok means that it was something like 11% of um everything you you see on your uh uh your YouTube uh on your phone is actually stuff that you're subscribed to. uh and it was 81% like three years ago and that is because discovery is really big now. So it's it's the best time ever to be a content creator to be discovered but becau but the value of you as being and and what you're saying

is more important than who you are right like same with like Tik Tok sound bites lip syncing and all of that all of these memes that come up and and and just absolutely disappear. No one even goes to see what the origin of all of this stuff is. sort of, you know, nobody knows the origin of white guy blinking meme. None of my team do, which is a great shame for games journalism. And uh I think that um more generally like retention has become the challenge and everything is fragmented at the moment, right? Discovery is fragmented. everything is going into like you know discords and stuff and so keeping your audience is super super um important and also very challenging because you are still with YouTube and Tik Tok you are at the the mercy of the algorithm and that's the thing if if they are only showing like 20% of your subscribers you on the front page when you put out a video that's that's a quite scary right and so we're seeing views down across the board for channels 10 to 15% year on year for the last two years in a row for

the everybody, the big channels, the small channels, and yet views are going up. So,
it's interesting, Jake. I'm I'm running out of time. Um, I was going to ask you about AI. I don't know if you've got any views on that and the impact that's having on the influencer space, but I suspect that's quite a big topic to talk about in a couple of minutes, but I'll I'll throw it out there anyway.
Yeah. uh to speedrun to speedrun AI's importance in influencer marketing. It's been isn't it's interesting the thing that it's the most used for in in our industry uh area is discovery finding influencers. You know, you can ask Claude the chat, you know, find me influencers at like RPGs and it can spit out a middling list of of people. You maybe won't get their emails for you and stuff, but what it's done is it's created like an incredible amount of contacts for people really fast. Now doing that on mass obviously as you can imagine like if you had like a thousand extra industry contacts in your you know address book in a week you'd understand that that is it's very powerful but with no direction it's very dangerous and

it's not well thought out. So, um, it's, you know, this this industry really is relationship first, as you can probably imagine. Like, finding the the big content creators is becoming easier, but it's now harder to get through to them because they're getting emailed by everybody because AI's been able to like sweep the internet and it can and it can search within some context, too. But it can even, you know, I'm I'm not sure the accuracy if I asked it to find me um content creators who are Geminis and live in Montreal, but certainly some really interesting paid for discovery tools that that offer those services. They're between like 20 and $40,000 a year. But that's what it's really been used for in terms of on on the industry side. I think content creation um side, what influencers are using it for and what um the platforms are offering AI to do for influencers is if you're a streamer um and you're streaming for 5 hours, AI can very quickly find the moments that were the most engaging for the chat. They'll look at, you know, which ones had them the the most chat reactions, what the intention, what the sentiment was, and it can automatically

suggest that you clip that and turn it into a short. They can actually do that for you.
Substack does that,
right? Right. Absolutely. So, so, so YouTube is adding a lot more into that. Twitch too, there's third party tools that have been doing that, but um the first party um sorry, the platforms are just doing first party now rather than use extensions. Um so, stuff like that and just little simple tricks like, you know, nicely cropping um landscape to portrait and things like that. Genai is still very uh it's hit or miss really. It's used a It's used a lot, but we're seeing um we're seeing some good advancements, I suppose, in what AI is doing with like autodubbing. I watched I watched a an Italian uh influencer review in Pragmata and I didn't realize that he was an Italian influencer for like three minutes because I was watching on the second screen and and they autodubbed him for me and he sounded like a I think he sounded like weirdly I think he sounded quite Scottish actually and I could not and I was like what the heck you know but you like when you go like on Netflix and you

watch like it was like a fan dub it was like a fan dub that like um AI had done. So that's AI dev quickly the use cases that we're seeing a lot.
Yeah, I'm more I'm a little concerned about whether slop is going to add to that um discoverability challenge, but I guess that's um I do wonder though if that's going to lead to the rise of this. You talked about this authenticity and this credibility if the more stuff the more rubbish people being forced to watch for short clips or whatever if it might cause just actually benefit the the the longer [snorts] form the deeper stuff that you were talking about earlier.
I think so.
Yeah. And Jake, I've taken up too much of your time. You you're icon. You've got uh you've got um important the keynotes and talks to go to and possibly one of those millions of mugs to drink out of. Um the um I've see I've seen a picture just loads of icon mugs,
right?
I've put my eye on them, mate. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter]
Um so I'll let you go, but thank you so much for your time. And you know, you you were you in the mugenics interview did in February, you're in the dispatch interview did in March. Here you are in on an episode in April. Who knows what

May is going to bring. Um but um but good luck and um thank you for sharing. We've not covered influencers before. So thank you for sharing.
Really appreciate that and I hope I hope I did my um my my influencer uh relations like uh Cohort Justice and there's so much to talk. It's such a big part of the industry. So happy to kind of come on and represent. Thank you for having me, bro.
Thank you, Jake. Now before we leave for the day, we're adding something new. Um, we often get offered interviews that are interesting, but we're not quite sure what to do with them. Perhaps they're a little bit too niche for our big interview show. That led to the creation of this new segment, one more thing, which is a name we might change if we can think of a better one. It might be a story, it might be an interview, it might be an interesting observation, but this week it's actually a short interview with Night Dives Larry Cooperman. Now, Larry, lovely man, has actually just retired from the video game industry. and I managed to sneak in one last interview with him at GDC last month. I love Night Dive. They make

amazing remasters and remakes mostly of shooters from the late 1990s and early 2000s, so my era. They've done System Shock, Tourquake, Doom, Star Wars, Dark Forces, my favorite, Shadowman, and some games you've probably never heard of. They've just reannounced they're doing a new version of Sin, which is out this year. So, here is my chat with Larry about him retiring, about the game, and Night Dive's future. Check it out. Hello, Larry. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Chris. Glad to be here.
I I'm I'm sad. So, this is you're you're retiring the end of this is the end of the month.
So, end of the month, and I like to say that I'm I'm retiring from my role at at Night Dive Studios. I hope to continue on in the industry doing the things that I've I've done on on the side as as now my primary been very active in the IGDA.
I'm working for a group called Voices of the Forgotten. So So I'll be continuing to do the volunteer things that I do and and any any mentorship that I do, but

otherwise I'd like to have some time for me.
Yeah. I Well, I know that the retro sing will miss you. Obviously, you're here to show sin.
Yes. Now you announced this I think about 400 years ago
roughly during the middle ages. Yes. [laughter]
Uh what's taken so long?
So sin is a is a property that um we we acquired and because we acquired it and there was no outside agency. We we didn't have to promise anyone that
it kept on getting pushed back because we had opportunities to do oh I don't know those little games like Doom Quake
Hexon and Heretic um
and of course our our System Shot games. So, while we've been focusing on other games, this is one that that I I I felt like I I really owed our audience. And now that the trailer is out and that the announcement is made and and that we have asserted that the game will be out

in 2026, that it's coming this year, um the audience response has been great, but I've seen over and over again people saying, "We thought you had forgotten about this one." No, no, we we never did. We just needed to find the time for it.
Oh, good. I always interested actually and this is a bit of a general question I guess sometimes when you do these remasters sometimes that the changes are quite big and sometimes the changes a little bit more subtle and sometimes you do full remakes or you have done once in the case of System Shock. Um what goes into those decisions? Do you judge it by its commercial potential or do you look at it as a what it what the game needs? How does it work? a combination of those things. First of all, even when we've done a remake, complete remake as with System Shock, um the original game is is still available to people. We're still part of that preservation. But clearly, as as in the case of of System Shock, the game had aged to the point where where it really needed to be redone to show people the potential of it, to make it make it

accessible today's modern audience. When the original game came out, it didn't have mouse look. Nobody's gonna play the game with, you know, using the arrow keys anymore. I mean, that's just not something that that's in players vernacular. That being said, our rule has always been that the end product from Night Dive should always play the way you remember the original game playing. It should bring back those same feelings, that same true nostalgia for the original title. If we can do that with a remaster, we do. If that's not possible, then we'll do a remake. Let me also say that there have been some cases, some some examples come up. I have no mouth and I must scream is a recent one where we simply lacked the source code. I the the availability for it was was just not there. And we did what what I like to refer to as a restoration. It is the original game. It has not been enhanced. It has not been improved, but it's out there. So, you now have kind of three classes. a

remake, a remaster, and a restoration.
I called the work you did on the Shadow Man game where you put in loads of extra stuff that was on the cutting room floor of that game and rem made some stuff, extra put stuff. I call that a director's cut. Um, so I think there's a fourth like layer on that.
I think that's fair. The other one that I would point out kind of similar to that is when we redid the thing, one of the games that I am I am most proud of. Um, we brought in Rod Ashiante and Mark Atkinson who were parts of the original computer artworks team on that game. So, we're really able to fulfill the potential of that game. The biggest thing was to work on the infection system which they knew was flawed, but it was the best that they could do at the time and and and this was an opportunity to take a second bite of the apple.
Are you finding licenses easier or harder to secure these days? I guess on the one hand, you might have more people more open to sharing, but perhaps the competition is a bit fiercer. So, you know, actually my time of of doing remasters even predates when I when I joined Night Dive and and the first time back in in my Stardock era that I was

talking about bringing back some of the classic games. Um, the the IP owner of a series of titles said, "But why? Who would want these old games?" And yet,
yeah, GG go was on the show end of last year and we talked about the fact that they had to convince Capcom to let them have the very original Resident Evil one, two, and three. And Capcom were quite legit going, we've done remasters, we've done remakes, why would anyone want the originals? And they do. [laughter]
So, you didn't ask the question, are you finding it easier or harder to get licensed?
Easier. And it's certainly been easier um post the acquisition from from Atari. Joining Atari gave us a certain amount of gravitas. While there may be some people living in obscure corners of the world who haven't heard of Night Dive Studios, they've all heard of Atari.
Phew. We're finally done. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Please let me know what you thought. You can find me on all the social media platforms and of course via the business.com. If you're not yet a subscriber, do head to the gamebus.com

and sign up. We do have a paid tier, but the vast vast vast majority of the things that we do are completely free. So come and join us and you'll receive an email every time we do a new episode. We will be back of course with more news, analysis, interviews, and insight in the days and weeks ahead, including next week where we are speaking to Hitman and 007 First Light developer IO Interactive. And on Friday this week, we're going to be releasing our monthly marketing report for paid subscribers. Until those, thank you for tuning in.