TWIG #398: Gaming's 2026 Reality Check, The GTA 6 Leak Nightmare and Why Jobs Are Still Vanishing

Hello everyone and welcome to Deconstructor Fun. This week in games 398, two to go before the magical 400th episode and we are working very hard on that. I'm Jen Dano. I fill the marketing and publishing role on the podcast today. There's only three of us. First,
air crest strategy and investing.
Phil Black monetization are
all right. Low energy crest. We'll fix that in a second.
Your background's changing though, Eric. Hold on. You're not even talking about the new NBA arcade setup you have in the back.
That way for weeks this Yeah, we addressed this.
All right. All right. All right. All right.
We layer.
Yeah. There's like a Pokemon table and
the bike went away. Yeah.
It's almost like he's in the video game industry.
You got neon lights.
Neon lights. Yeah. that aren't on, but you know. All right. Oh, now he's

turning the neon lights on. All right. This is a great great introduction to a podcast.
Eric Crest says he doesn't like to flex. Goes to turn on the neon lights.
Here's what we have going on on the podcast today. Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks are everywhere and proving impossible to plug so far. In fact, this morning I saw that Rockstar came out with a statement. We'll talk about that. at New ZeU updates the 2026 game industry forecast and we're back to growth, although it's kind of small growth. Makers fund closes a new round to invest in games. Is VC back? I can't wait to get Crest's take. Gamescom is happening as we speak. We're recording the Wednesday of Gamescom, so we don't have a lot to say, but we do have some thoughts on opening night live. The RAM shortage leads Google Play to make memory optimization a store requirement for apps and games. I'll give you a little public service announcement of where to get that information. We're going to check in on

the Hoyverse as they have a really cool announcement from opening night live that we'll want to get into. And then Garina is working on POW World online for mobile, not Craftton's Pow World mobile, which is not confusing at all. If we get to that, maybe not. Phil has a couple other thing games he wanted to get to. So guys, are you seeing pictures from Gamescom? Mishka is sending us pictures of him in a bath with other people that I am really creeped out by, but I guess is part of his culture. Anyone got looks like he's just roided out, man. Like it looks un unnatural.
I know. Did you see his gym pictures?
It's like the whole ridiculous.
Yeah, it's insane. I think back on the TRT.
No, man. Man puts in the work. He's up at like 4 a.m. swimming.
Yeah, but there's a point in which
law of diminishing returns, you know.

Fair enough.
All right, let me do the shills really quick. His podcast, Mishko's podcast with the CEOs from Stillfront and Jagex. Jagex is Runescape. That was really interesting. I actually pulled out a nugget we'll talk about later. And then a few quick hits from our sponsors. Apps Flyer had some news. So they secured a $400 million credit line and will give it will give them some financial flexibility. What I thought was interesting and Crest I probably need your help on this. The company structure is designed to preserve its independence with Google Metunity and Maloco holding minority stakes without control or exclusivity. So that announcement, they got like a like a funding round maybe a couple months ago and then now they're like announcing a $400 million credit line. Do we care about something like this?
I don't know what is going on with this company. It's a little bit strange.
I mean, listen, I think the good thing for the industry is MMP partners that provide measurement and attribution are

crucial and having them have independence also feels important. I don't know if that's what this all means, but let's talk about it next time. So, the other one, Appch charge has published a new analysis. They looked at direct to consumer transactions and across the payment stack, they found out three kind of really interesting things. If you're in DTOC and this is your jam, it was really in the weeds. So, I didn't want to spend too much time on it, but go to the website, check it out. There is some really good and interesting data that they are now publishing. All right, so let's get to the first topic, which is Grand Theft Auto leaks. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know this is web store rumbringer. 70% of top apps are using a web store. And the best ones, they're doing it with Appcharge. Do you want a $20,000 inapp purchase? Yeah, Appch charge does that. Do you want to pretend that subscriptions are still a viable monetization strategy for games? Yeah, Appcharge even lets you do that. They

get what high average revenue per paying customer means. And they're already doing over half a billion dollars in transactions a year. So, are you going to be the first to do a $20,000 AP? Don't accept microtransactions. Embrace macrotransactions. Learn more on appcharge.com.
In sickness and in health, in soft launch and in live through every meta shift and every platform policy change. That's the kind of loyalty vibes built between your game and your players. AI powered targeting, a real meta layer, rorowass optimization that actually compounds. That's what makes Vibes the fastest growing loyalty platform in mobile games. Till churn, do us a part. Vibes vybs.co. Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks. So, a leaker

known as Cyber Leak, L E K, has posted 16 Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay clips just ahead of Rockstar's official Netflix debut on August 27th. So, as we record, it's tomorrow for us, probably today by the time that you hear this. So, Take 2 has filed subpoenas on August 20th against Microsoft, Discord, then Google and Nex to basically figure out who the real person is behind this. The filings site stolen content which point to these clips being somewhat real even if they are an older build which we are not sure. I think there's 14 or 16 leaks by the time we got this today. Uh, no major plot spoilers. So, this is what I saw from the statement this morning. I won't read the whole thing, but it was basically started. It would be an understatement to say that having videos of Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay leak in this way has been heartbreaking for our team and this is obviously not how we

intended for you to see the game after all this time. I thought the announcement was really well done. I actually felt bad for them, right? You've been working on it tyrously for years and years. I mean, how many years now? 13 years. And then some gets a hold of this and starts putting it up there. And the gross part is this Cyber League guy runs a crypto paid polls on his own site to decide what leaks next. It's like like that just feels like a dick dick move. But Chris, talk me through what you're seeing here.
Well, first of all, the reason he's leaking all this is because he's fighting the idea of no CDs for the game or whatever. No, no, only digital only type thing. It's kind of his mantra as to why he's doing this, which is stupid. Frankly, people got to get over themselves on that stuff. But, you know, the crazy thing is that he has a full build of this game. It seems like it's an older build potentially, but like he has actually a full build and you know, he's actually playing the game and just making cuts out of it. They also said

that he may have made these cuts a long time ago and that he doesn't have access now, but unclear, right? So, he could be an insider or someone that worked there previously. Who knows? Some are speculating this is a marketing stunt. That is just not the case. I don't see that making any sense. You don't, you know, do a deal with Netflix and then like leak it intentionally.
I still think it's absolutely despicable for the Cyber League guy to like, you know, under the guise of trying to protect, you know, gamers rights with non-digital Like, doesn't make any sense. And on top of that, he's taking Bitcoin, right, in order to like he's trying to extract money from this situation. The irony is that he's fighting a pure digital product with a digital currency, you know, like like collecting digital currency. It's just the irony is pretty thick there.
Look, we'll get the announcement next week and then it'll be tomorrow, right? And then, you know, then the leaks are not that interesting. And I will tell you that these guys will be f he will be found and he will be arrested. He will

be prosecuted. I mean, the Rockstar does not around about this type of thing. I I would have to imagine. I watch all these geek shows, all the Marvel shows, and I'm in all these Discords that talk about the shows, and everyone is so protective of spoilers, and there's all these rules about spoiler, spoiler, and then this dude is out spoilering everything about this game, and then all of the gaming press is covering it, and many of them now are not putting the leaks inside of their articles. Thank god, at least. I haven't gone to watch them. I mean, I also I don't I just don't want to get in trouble, but yeah, I I don't think this is marketing a stunt in any way, and they don't need it. And with legal involved, like, you know, this isn't a marketing stunt. I'm curious to see if this helps or hurts the already bad buzz that the Netflix trailer had. The thing is that everyone is saying in their post is that, oh, well, this is this what's it going to do to the trailer release on the 27th? I'm like, well, that's the good news is everyone knows exactly when this thing is dropping because you keep

mentioning it. And that thing had a lot of bad buzz cuz it was behind a payw wall. And yes, 6 hours later it goes out for free. But, you know, I think Crest when, like you said, when we were in Seattle, someone who kind of like just knows how Rockstar works is like, listen, that it's not really a lot about the game anyway. It's more of a marketing stunt. It's going to give a flavor. It's but it's not going to give anything away for real. But Phil, what did you pull? You guys skipped over crucial details of the monetization aspect. So Cyber League, by the way, we don't know if it's a he, Eric. We don't know if it's a group of people. So that remains a mystery as far as I would say the evidence at least I saw. And the way he's doing it or the group or she, whatever it may be, is that they have a online platform where you spend this token they've issued to vote on which of the things that you want to be released. And so the the disappointing aspect is that they should have put a no release option that Rockstar could have bid on. Like this would have been a great way to

extract more from Rockstar and the hostage situation. And so far the market cap of the again the token you get to use to vote on which thing gets leaked next is sitting at $10 million.
Uh so I don't know if this is the future of ransoms.
Okay, just to be just to be clear that does not mean that someone has made $10 million. That means that the value of this thing is at $10 million. You can't extract that value without
crippling the price, right?
Correct. Correct. Correct. At these at these scales.
What an Yes. Uh we we left uh And by the way, there's no way this is a she could do this
Jen. Jen. Wow. That's
I don't judge thing to say.
Jen, women can be hackers, too.
Did you not say hacker with Angelina Jolie?
Oh, yes.
Is that what you want to say to Angelina? You can't be a hacker.
I'm in shock. I'm in absolute shock right now.
Yeah. Oh,
okay. Well, let's let's let's bet some memecoin on the fact that there in no

way that this is a woman I'm a lot of prominent female characters.
Oh jeez. Yeah. In in media cuz Okay. Anyway. All right. Let's go to the next one. So, New Zoo sent an update for their 2026 predictions. And so I I would say just in general here, there's not a lot that we didn't already know. The Global Games forecast is going to hit around 214 billion in 26. It's up around 6% year-over-year. I do think that growth went up a little bit since the last time they did it, but not that much. the growth across every major region and all three platforms. I'm not sure we see any major news except for the decline of the North America growth engine on revenue and players. So, North America is still growing, but it is the lowest growth of all of the regions for revenue and players. GTA 6 is expected to help drive a 17 and a half% increase in console

full game spending, the strongest growth of any business model. No I mean, I think we we knew that mobile remains the largest and fastest growing platform, reaching 121 billion even as downloads fall and growth increasingly comes from deeper spending per player. Asia is almost half of revenue and North America is just over a quarter showing the lowest growth. As I said before in June, Censor Tower had their like stack of all of the different revenues and so the keer for the long-term projection is still at around 5%. And that's 25 to 28 and that still looks relatively on track. I think Crest, you know, you'll notice it's still pretty, you know, we're we're you know, we're not in the high growth hockey stick up and to the right anymore, right? Like it's kind of leveled out. Yeah, this is the sign of things to come.
And then they did have some player data. So the global player base will reach 3.7

billion in 26, but the future player growth is increasingly concentrated in emerging markets. You know, again, as I mentioned, the North America, I mean, I guess we don't have kids growing up. It just seems like our growth was the the smallest there. My take on all of this was I don't know like there wasn't much to say that we don't already say the game industry is mature. We're not in growth mode. In fact, it's kind slowed down. And I think if you're looking for what you should do about this, especially if you're a western developer, is you know all your efforts should be going on engaging, retaining, and monetizing by the way monetization for good and not for evil like Phil will teach you. I'm just kidding. your existing audience or in like retargeting, you know, or win back strategy. You know, once you have that, like how do you fatoule the out of your funnel? How do you optimize that funnel? How do you be mindful about overly aggressive monetization because

you don't want to lose your audience? And and I thought if you want to hear a little bit more because these companies are doing it, Mishka CEO podcast with Runescape and Jagex talk about this point. And so the Jagex CEO had this really interesting pillar that they put in place for Runescape, which they have three experts that have the these three pillars. The first one obsesses over games. You know, they're really focused on the core. The second one is make games as easy as possible to get into and enjoy. So that's the second pillar. And the third is like a growth or marketing. Drive as many players into that onboarding funnel as possible for new and lapsed. And what I was impressed to see that second pillar is make games as easy as possible to get into and enjoy. You don't often hear such a focus on on early funnel and onboarding and fatoule. I I just think in a world where we have to batten down the hatches and

really survive until there's some sort of distribution change, making sure you're optimizing your game and and getting players through that funnel so you're not you don't have a leaky bucket is the right way to go. So, Phil, I don't know. What did you see? I think the question I imagine someone could have coming out of this is like, you're showing me steady year-on-year growth in both players and monetization. Why is the industry still contracting when it comes to layoffs, which I think is the big question. I I don't think we again have empirical measures of this. ARM had a really interesting slide that I'll try to bring at least for next week suggesting that employment might be flatter than first suggested. Like again, whenever you see layoff announcements, it's always minus. You don't see the pluses as much. And I don't think we've done a good job tracking job openings. Of course, if you talk to people, they'll talk about how brutal it is right now. But again, it has to be relative and over time. And so if there is demand like this, and again, if you're talking about 5 6%, okay, let's chop 2 to 3% to inflation. That's

still 2 to 3% real growth. That's fine. That's not amazing. That's still kind of stagflation in my view. It's like the growth of everything else in the economy. But employment employment should it it it has to bottom out at some point. This can't go on forever. And I I I wish we had more labor evidence. Like that's the stuff I usually don't see in a lot of these reports. Uh and I I wish we had better better numbers on it.
I just want to reiterate this point because I've been battling Yoast out there on the internet on the interweb about this on LinkedIn, but like the reality of it is we are in a flat stable huge market. This is a market share gain type thing. Yep.
And the established players are taking more and more share of that. So all the jobs that were created during the nonsense in 21 and 22 are now getting destroyed. And then even the bigger companies are consolidating against teams that are driving most of their revenue. And 95% of the revenue is being driven by known IPs and recurring franchises. And this is for both mobile

and console. And that's what this is what happens, right? It's just consolidation at the top. And so the only safe place to be is in with the big at this point. And trying to build a A and double A games in this market is going to be impossible, right? It's going to be very very very very challenging. So I don't know. That's the business that we're in right now. So people have to just live with it.
Yeah. Phil, I you know give you an anecdotal. So, you know, a few months ago, my LinkedIn, especially when the Microsoft layoffs happened, my LinkedIn was just filled with layoffs. My LinkedIn the last few weeks is filled with job offers, right? Like, yeah, I get calls from all of my friends, Chris, at the big companies that are looking to fill roles for very like great positions like PlayStation, Minecraft, you know, like all of these great places you would

want to be. Lego,
Lego, Lego digital play. Aaron Loe,
he's putting out like videos for recruiting out there with all our friends, right? It's like, okay, there we go. I mean that, you know, they got money.
Yeah. Yeah. They're based in London, which you know, it serves a certain market and behavior in like all of these like people are reaching out to me like, Jen, help me find talented people. So, I don't want to say that I'm not sensitive to those that have lost their jobs and people losing their jobs, but you know, Phil, I think you bring up a really great point is people aren't covering, you know, what is coming up. What are the opportunities that are still coming up out there and and there is some sort of leveling off coming out of the great, you know, COVID hype of our industry.
Just don't go work for the tech bros. All right? I mean, buyer beware. You want to go work for Netflix, fine. you know, two years you're out, right? Like, or you want to go work for Google, same thing, right? Microsoft, you know, those

guys too, right? You know, they're not real game people.
All right, I'm going to move on from that. I'm not going to touch that one. All right, so Makers Fund.
Yeah, I remember this part of the podcast we used to have called Investments and M&A, and it feels like it just kind of withered away and died, which was probably appropriate given what was happening. And so Makers Fund just announced they have a $250 million fund that they've closed pushing their assets under management to 1.5 billion. I think this is really exciting. I don't think we've had news of large amounts of capital being flown into games. We want to see that. That means people are speculating that they can take that money and when they take it out in a couple years that it's going to return more than they put in at some multiple. If people stop putting in money and thinking that they're going to get more coming out of the game industry, that means less capital flows in and that really does affect our employment. There's a complicated picture of what's going on in the industry, which is that to your point, Eric, we're also deflating all of this VC capital that

was never backed by real demand, right? It was overstretching what the fundamental demand for for video games was. And so seeing a little bit more cash, again, this is to me bottoming out and trying to figure out where a real equilibrium is. So congratulations to makers and like I hope I hope the capital gets deployed quickly. Is that what you say at these events? Uh
get to check this out.
Okay. Yeah. Look, I think this is great. I think this is another sign of the times to some degree, right? But I will point out very clearly that this is no longer a gaming venture capital fund. Right? I want to be clear on this. Not only are they investing outside of gaming, which all venture capitalists are doing at this point, but they're doing project financing and UA financing with these funds, which is a completely different thing. Like I just I can't even begin to tell you how different that is from the typical venture capital model. Again, they're acting more like a a publisher you
or a credit card in case of, you know,

like UA financing and they're taking profit sharing. So it's like you know frankly this model made a lot more sense honestly for gaming in general like this does make sense but this is not venture capital right this is a completely different thing and so let me let me let me actually put it another way you know their first bullet point on their press release was saying that they return 3.6x 6x the capital invested in their fund one. Right? Of course, they didn't mention fund two and three either. So, I don't think those are doing quite as well. Sorry, makers. And that is like a top 1% VC fund type performance. Like that is remarkable for fund one. But depending on the mix of the investments for fund four, which we just don't know which is being allocated to what, there is no effing way they can even get close to that, right? they will not even achieve even close to that kind of return on investments that are mixed between UA financing, project financing and others. So again, this is not a VC fund, right? But I think it's overall

great for the industry. I think it makes sense for where we're at right now to do more project financing and more publisher style financing. And we're seeing that from other funds as well, not just these guys, right? Griffin has a similar fund that they're they put together, right? But this is a bit bit of a capitulation from the OG gaming fund. You know, makers is OG, right? That the VC model does not work for games right now and that they have to change it up and mix it up in order to be relevant in this space.
There's one other angle I wanted to touch on and and Phil, if you could bring up this this chart. It's from Yoshin's he has a newsletter called Super Yoso's playlist. The other angle of all of this is the numbers look great. And so on the chart we show that uh 2026 is bounced back in terms of the amount of VC deal value. This is actually from I think it's from Pitchbook the data that he pulled showing like hey we have 7 billion in half one 2026 you know which is up

pretty dramatically from last year. But when you kind of get into the the weeds of like what's going into that investment, you know, it's mostly say like AI plumbing and tools. Um it's not necessarily in the content. So Crest, you know, what do you think about that element that like yes, there's money coming back in, but what is the money actually going to? It's like tools, not games or tools, not content. Is that another way to think about kind of what you're saying which is you're highlighting that there's different models for the content like a publisher type kind of models and the money that is coming in in in traditional VC isn't is going to the tools. Is that the right way to think about it? The VC model never made sense for traditional like double AAA console PC, right? Mobile it made sense, right? Because mobile scales over time, right? That makes more sense from a venture capital perspective. I still think that some of those investments make sense, particularly in Turkey,
you know, maybe there's some stuff in

Vietnam that happens. I don't know. Um, India, no way. I would not even touch India with a 10-meter cattle broad, but like whatever. Some people are more riskaverse than others. But anyway, but these this investment boost in 2026 is just AI. It's not has anything to do with gaming necessarily. I mean, even general intuition, which is gaming adjacent, I would say their bet is that they can, you know, feed their, you know, data into a model or create a model for 3D whatever they're thinking.
Yeah. general in intuition. They have Metal and that's like a clips platform that if you're sharing you can clip your game and share it on social and then we have the hypothesis that they're using that to feed their AI model. They're
that's not a hypothesis. That's what they're doing and they're going to
they're going to leverage that to build a model that caning do 3D drones and start killing people on the battlefield. I don't know what the they're going to use it for.
We don't know.
We don't know. But we have no idea. But it's certainly not anything to do with

gaming, right? It's going to be like some like, you know, dystopian bots. Terminator stuff.
Terminator bots moving through 3D space. Thank god we have general intuition for that. Alex is going to love that one.
Yeah.
Thanks, Alex.
So, new platforms, new opportunities, as we like to say. Yes, the investment is going towards AI. That's the thing that I mean, if you were to place a dollar, I mean, I'd take AI over gaming right now. I mean, just I think anyone would. I mean I like a piece of
the thing is you don't see anything in the current cohort or crop of investments that you think is like a new platform that AI unlocks for us.
Like I mean we've talked about like it has to be AI, right? You don't see any Luke Skywalkers. Like there's nothing out there.
Okay. I mean look I I don't want to like contradict my own thesis is that yeah the only thing that can really get us out of the doldrums is new platforms that inspire new audiences, inspire new monetization models. I've said this a million times. And so some of these

investments will likely end up in new platforms for gaming, which will actually be good. You know, maybe a replacement for the uh the death spiral of Roblox right now. Um so yes, there are potentials there and some of these investments are probably in that realm, but I I don't think General Intuition is going to get the valuation from being a platform for gaming. I think that's the great mystery is how you monetize this, right? I mean, like, you can't put Epic and Unity in your your VC deck. It's embarrassing. It's it it's a strike against you
because of the engine or the cuz they're not platform doesn't make money.
Like an AI native engine like how do you sell that
like you you got to own more the distribution.
No, it has to be distribution. It has to be
a consumer forward. It has to be B TOC. It can't be, you know, B2B is not the way to make money in the game industry. I mean, that's what you just said. B TOC, which is what Roblox did, although

I would, you know, probably say they're having a hard time making money. I think targeting my other learning is targeting kids with with products and services is very difficult, especially in a world where regulation's about to come down any day now. I don't know. All right, let's keep going. This is a little quick public service announcement. Google has a blog post out that talks about the RAM apocalypse or the RAM shortage is leading Google Play to make memory optimization a store requirement for both apps and games. The new memory requirements go into effect in February of 27. So you got 6 months to prepare for it. With all the RAM issues, everyone's trying to improve performance and reduce behindthe-scenes memory overhead. So I I think I as I read into this, it looks a little bit more like an app issue than a game issue, but it's worth checking into as if you fail to hit these requirements come February, you will obviously the penalties are decreased visibility, decrease featuring

opportunities. Google's already rolled out tools on Android vitals to help you see if you're on the naughty list. And so send your tech director a note right now and say, "Hey, go check Google Play's latest blog post and help article for this. It's it's one of these like blocking and tackling things. I think we all need, you know, from a business of games, you know, we aren't as mindful until it starts hitting our organics and our featuring opportunities at the technical side of things. Okay, let's talk about Jeff. Jeff Keelley like owns all things game industry, especially for like news, you know, award shows. So, he's got Summer GameFest that just happened a couple months ago in June. Now, opening night live happens in Gamescom and then come December, it's the the Game Awards. All of these are, you know, brought to us by Jeff Keelley. Kind of crazy. So, uh, opening night live was last night for us. That was on Tuesday, August 20, whatever was 25th. There were a lot of

reveals. I don't think anything was too crazy. I think if you're into Final Fantasy, there was an extended preview. The Witcher 3. I'm a huge Gears of War fan, so that was fun to see a full campaign trailer. And then, you know, I think there was a few other announcements that came out. The one I wanted to talk about, and I'm not this player. I am not a tactics player, but I think we are surrounded by tactics right now, Chris. I wanted to, you know, all I hear is mice nuts in my head when when I when I when I when I see these things. So, Star Wars Zero Company comes out tomorrow, August 27th. So basically all these developers out there that grew up with XCOM are like, "Okay, here's my pitch. It's insert famous IP with XCOM, and wouldn't that be great?" I think Marvel did one. I think Star Wars is coming out tomorrow. Rainbow 6 was announced. Gears of War had a tactics. Uh Final Fantasy had tactics.

Honestly, who are you if you don't have one?
I Yes. But you're like, do these things really sell? I guess like I I I just have to wonder if there's a strategy and forecasting person sitting next to these developers saying, "Listen, I love your idea. They all look the same, but do these things even make money?" So, Rainbow 6 announced theirs, and anytime you look at the screenshots for these games, and I pulled a couple, Phil's been cycling through them. They all look like the same exact game. I just feel so bad. Plus, it's a Ubisoft, so I don't know. I just hear mice nuts in my head, and I I I have to agree, you know? Like listen, if you could do this and you can do it really efficiently and cheaply and not spend a lot of money on it, there are nerds that cannot wait for the next XCOM meets IP to come out. But oh my friend Eric, like I like how bad is the mice nuts on this? Look the look

I think first of all I think these will be probably really well regarded amazing games. I think all of them look amazing. Actually, the Star Wars game looks really cool. Frankly,
I I've been hearing nothing but like lovely amazing things because Star Wars has been struggling a little bit.
The problem is that this is like such a niche audience. You can't possibly hope to make any serious money and perhaps the cost of development is low is probably the push back you will get that they can be profitable. But the last tactic game we saw was just as a reminder by the way, this was not that long ago, was Marvel Midnight Suns from Faraxis, which is like the godfather of these tactics games, right? Came out from Take Two with obviously the biggest, you know, license on the planet. The game was super well regarded. It was runner up for game of the year from PC Gamer. It was nominated for strategy simulation game of the year at DICE. It had 83 Metacritic and it bombed, right? Yeah, it did
an estimate of like 560,000

units on Steam and not not much. We didn't have get an estimate for console, but let's say maybe $2 million and 2 million units is certainly not at full price, right? So,
and take two styles down confirmed to Bloomberg on a sales on a earnings call that this the sales flopped despite positive critics reception. uh calling it a commercial failure alongside other AAA games in December,
December of 22. And that was even like still in the hype of
Yeah.
Co-ish, wasn't it?
There's no reason to make these games. Like there's no market for them. I don't know why you would do it. And I don't want to go on a huge Ubisoft rant, but this is exactly why Ubisoft keeps failing over and over again is because they're making these stupiding games, right, that can't possibly be successful. And on top of that, they're building this in Paris. This Rainbow Series game is being built in Paris, the most expensive studio they have. That's absolute garbage that they should shut down almost immediately. Are they out of their goddamn minds? It's

It's Look, I'm not saying they're dedicating a gajillion resources against this and they're spending all it's just distraction, right? It's distraction. Get rid of these people. Hire more people in in in Canada. You know, this is insane. It's a just an absolute waste of resource to be building this stuff out. It's not expanding the demographics for your franchise. It's not expanding, you know, the feels for Rainbow Six. It's just distraction, you know, and I don't know. Doesn't make sense in this day and age to be making these kind of games. Full stop.
Phil, I got another uh as we look at the 400, Phil's trying to find our the things that each of us say. I think we just found one. They're out of their goddamn minds. I want that on uh like some button we can hit and keep playing. And anyway, so Crest, did you see anything else that you liked? Let's go to the positive.
Let's see.
CD Project Witcher 4 maybe.
So yeah, I mean there wasn't that much

coverage that was that all that interesting at Gamescon this year that I saw so far, but we're early, I guess. Um, you know, CD Project did confirm that The Witcher 4 will not be out until 2028, which is what I was hearing. Uh, they are having serious issues with that game evidently with their 500 people that are working on it. But I'm actually really excited to see what that game will be because they're supposedly redoing their fighting kind of engine, which is one of the biggest criticisms of the game itself. So, that's likely what they're having issues with, but we'll see what they can pull out um in 2028. The other one of the narratives that's coming out of Gamescom is this Chinese Games Con takeover, which I think it's a little bit overstated. You know, this the whole idea that there's a shift from like Chinese funded studios in the West that now that they've all pulled out like Netis, etc. Now they're all basing on, you know, Chinese studios that are building games for the West type thing. So that's interesting. Um,

but we did see Hoyverse with Noticefall, Netis with a not Ananta, and Tencent with Sea of Remnants. Except for the Sea of Remnants, they got to work on some names that are interesting to the West. If they want to sell games in the West, look, they had a pretty solid showing. They had three big games. However, however, not to be a total hater here, but I don't know if these games have that western appeal that they're hoping for to make big sales, but you know, I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I could be narrow in my thinking. And I'm listening to my in my head to Robert Win basically saying screaming at me that I have no idea what the I'm talking about. But nonetheless, they don't seem as relevant to the Western audiences. They may have some challenges scaling out here, but we shall see. They are making big bets. So, three big games that were out during Gamescom that that got some attention, but we'll see. We'll see what happens.
I think Phil's gonna dive into one of them because you were actually pulled this before uh opening night live and

then they happened to be have a reveal trailer. So, take it away, Phil.
So, Roco Kingdom was announced as a game that will be going global. This is already something that has been live in China. It had, I believe the report was around 60 million pre-registrations and it came out earlier this year. I'm very excited for it. It's a creature collector from 10 cents, one of 10 cents studios. It has over they're reporting around 13 million DAU so far. So, the game already has a following behind it. We've been following remember Anemo from Fun Plus, which also, by the way, coming out next month, wallto-wall coverage. obviously whole dedicated episode deep dive and so this is in that vein and the other thing that we shouldn't forget is we had an announcement that Pow World is getting picked up by Garina. I don't know did anyone did anyone also follow this?
It's super confusing because it's a it's

on mobile but there's already another Craftton's already making a mobile game and so is it just like like a battle royale like see who makes it to the end? I don't know. What did you see?
I think you got to think of it more along the lines of PUBG having HD skew that's enormously successful for the HQ and then them licensing out and not understanding mobile. Remember, it's a Japanese studio. I think it's under 100 headcount, at least when they initially launched it. They're not ready for something like this. They don't monetize like this. Let's give it to Garina and see what they can do. That's perfectly reasonable. I mean, we do this all the time with with Western IP, right? We've been covering Destiny. I think it's super exciting. I think it's great for Poworld, which by the way is also appears to be winning their lawsuit against Nintendo. I don't know if you guys have been following that either, but that's also been I would say a W in their favor for a lot of these creature collectors. They can get pretty close to those designs. Go Team East. I I Eric, I think you're I think you're underestimating how well these can do in the Western audience.
I think there's an army of women who is

ready for this. I think there's an army of millennial women.
Well, I don't even know if it's women, though. I mean, I think the point is that it broadens the gaming audience to include more women. I think these games are still going to be 6040 men. You're just But now you're moving from 20% women to 40% women. I I think is what the opportunity is. And I I don't even know if these are super cozy cuz they're still battling, right? Like there's still a lot of, you know, elements in there that are not just Yeah,
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All right. So, so let's let's let's go back to Hoyverse. Let's let's set the stage for Hoyverse. They had a big announcement. this game called Notice Fall World premiere trailer. They are

going after Monster Hunter. It looks like they're gonna do a live service monster hunter. I am so down with this thesis. If you remember, we've been covering Petite Planet. This game looks dramatically different than anything I think I've seen before, certainly from Hoyoverse. We've been talking about cannibalization being a potential issue. The the thesis of the company was always like doing the things Nintendo wouldn't. And I think you could say the same thing for Monster Hunter. I can't this be a live service. It seems like they've started to spice in some like Shadow of the Colossus type elements. I'm very excited for them. I think they need to find their next hat-tick because when we look at where the portfolio has been, we've been covering like the cannibalization being a potential issue for them. The ultimate reality though is the portfolio is down across the board and I don't know if any of these projects are going to be the ones to get them out. Uh it's actually been far worse than I expected. So, the portfolio is down 24% year-to date, year-over-year from 2025

to 2026. Genchin has actually been the stablest product in the portfolio. It's really Hawkeye Star Rail that really has failed to retain much of its revenue. And Zenless Zone Zero has been having a little bit of a revival. It actually is mostly focused on PlayStation. This is just mobile, by the way, that we're looking at. But when you look at Zeno Zone Zero on like PlayStation, it's doing far better. They need to find their next hit. Like this is not a cheap company to run. I mean, I think the last count of employees was what, 3, 3,000, 5,000? God knows how many people they have under their watch.
I mean, I know that you just pulled mobile numbers, but I mean, their thesis seems to be crossplatform, especially as they, you know, they're moving to Unreal Engine 5 on a number of their games, showing that. To me that signal is hey we see a lot of value on on HD on PC console you know mobile's there and lovely but it does seem like a cross-platform play is where they are looking to do because this game I think

is on noticefall I think is Unreal UE5 I think they're moving some of the other games to UE5 yeah
I can't confirm or deny that
first of all I think Philip is obsessed with Mioho for some reason like this thing up
this is like This this and Lilith are this Lilith and Sentry to me are like the Chinese three-headed dragon that I'm like most interested to see how they perform.
It's the new way to approach Squad RPG or gotcha RPG games, right Chris? I mean the old era was Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, Marvel Strike 4, Summoner War, Raid: Shadow Legends, and then comes along all of these, you know, in a sense the Ginchin Zoyos from Mihoyoverse. Is this the newest version of RPG that players are interested in,
right? And but see, the fundamental problem is what we talked about years ago when when they released Hawkeye Star Rail is that they're just cannibalizing

themselves. They're not building a growing business and and and layering on new games. They're basically just cannibalizing themselves. And this data suggests that I mean they are literally down I think more than 50% on a run rate basis. Like so I hate using run rate because that usually used for positive things generally speaking but um they were doing 500 million a quarter right when Hongai Starell came out and when they were worth 24 billion they were worth at that time they are doing less than 200 billion a quarter now in the latest quarter according to sensor tower. Of course, there has been some DTOC transfer here. So, I'm not suggesting that it's probably a bit higher than that, but not significantly higher, you know. So, they're really struggling to grow, but they do have a big pipeline as you suggested. Petite Panet Barura, they got to work on these names. My god. And Hankai Nexus Anima or something like that. I don't know. There it seems like they they do have a pipeline and they

are working on HD games, which is another potential vector of growth there. that is is a completely different business. You know, it's a hit-driven business that comes and goes. It's not like it's going to maintain the way these other games have. And you're right, the positive news is that Genshin started to stabilize, right, which I think they probably realized that they should be focusing more on keeping Genchin moving than than than creating the same game over and over again. You know,
I I but I think Jen Jen has a a deeper question which is like this fourth generation RPG thesis, this 3D RPG. remember Azra Games talked about this too out of San Francisco was that this 3D immersion I've come to see this pivot this is the saving grace for squad RPG I actually think is dual platform because I think you get to amortize your costs across a wider base again I think it works for the east because the amorization benefits are the greatest because they have far more cross linkage like there's far more probability of picking up a player on mobile and on PC

I think for the given eastern player Whereas the the platform differences in the west are just far stronger. The the expectations are far different. Those player bases are far different. I mean, we know that Call of Duty War Zone didn't work out, right? That was a single dual skew. Like a lot of these dual SKs are not working out the way you would expect in the West. Like true day and date dual SKS. Fortnite, I don't know. Is that really a success on mobile? It's such a complicated story. Roblox sits on one corner.
I think it's working in the east. There's no doubt that it's working in the east, but I just don't think it's going to be as successful in the west. I've had this debate with amongst numerous people, and there's tons of games that are being made right now, including the one that you're just talking about from uh in Sacramento. But I just don't think the western audience has that appetite to play these games on mobile, right, the way they do in the east. Genchin Impact is an exception. It does reasonably well in the west, but it's primarily running out of the east, right? But the fact that they are actually trying to bring all their new games to the west, you know, they're developing games for the west is kind of seems to we where their growth is or their hope for growth is on PC console,

right? Again, making another Genchin Impact on mobile doesn't make sense. I think at this point,
well, this new game, Nordisfall, I hope I'm saying that right. When I did the I I watched the trailer and then it's a it's a co-op action RPG. are are they going after maybe not Diablo Immortal, but like you said Monster Hunter and like is this and so in the west this genre of mobile game doesn't seem to be one of our bigger ones. Although I think we continually argue that Diablo Immortal is a success. It's just not the success that maybe Blizzard wanted it to be. I I think it goes back again crest to like there are different levels of success and then there's the breakout hit that was Ginchin. Does this have a role in the portfolio for once that is differentiated and can be its own growth factor that doesn't cannibalize the other ones? So, are they finally doing kind of what we suggested is like stop making the same game and reskinning it
and doing something a little bit

different?
That's what I was trying to say, but I said it very in a hamfisted way, right? like they are divers diversifying their portfolio by creating games outside of mobileing, you know, action RPGs withing insane mechanics u monetization mechanics. Um I also just looked into their what their company's all about, right? Like cuz if if if they're a publicly traded company and they need to continue to grow and and do well on the stock exchange, then that's completely different mindset from a strategy perspective. But they are very closely held company that has only like 15% ownership of a outside investor. The rest is completely internally owned. So they can do whatever the hell they want to do, right? And what their clear strategy is is to stay in that core genre development and build the games that they want to build, right? Because if they were a publicly traded company, this would be like more of a zinga situation which they cannot build outside of their core competency. So if they want to grow on mobile, they should be doing acquisitions and they should be have like AON on speed dial and start

acquiring all the Turkish companies, right? But they're not doing that, right? They're they're clearly focused on AAA type content for both mobile and console on more core games. Um and they obviously have the casual one, the petite pan planet game, which is another another shot on goal there. That's the kind of company that they are. I don't think they have any desire to go public. I think they're just basically going to keep doing what they're doing, which is great. I mean, we need companies like that building cool You know,
what you said was really I wanted to touch on that is like, listen, you don't have the opening trailer at opening night live for predominantly a PC console audience. If you're not putting the signal in, which is, hey, we know that we're good at that mobile stuff, but we also want to show you PC console people that we're legit, we're here, and we want to make things that are right for you. They just happen to be crossplatform. So, and I think I'm just trying to guess. It seemed like their strategy before was we're an eastern company. We're making games mobile first that happened to go on PC console for

crossplay. And this to me was the first time there that they it looks like they're going opposite of that. It's like we want to be a PC console le either company or product that happens to have crossplay on mobile. So, it seems like a different signal at least from a strategy and a positioning standpoint. And then you watch that trailer and you know, by the way, it looks like a lot of other games that are coming out with the dark fantasy kind of evil creature thing. I don't know, Phil, did you want to talk at all about like that element of what you saw? I think you said you were really excited for the darker versions
like the art style.
Yeah, like the art style, the theme, you know, what what did you see that really draw that kind of drew your eye to this one?
The thesis from Hoyiverse. I mean, yeah, someone should go after Monster Hunter. Are you kidding me? People are leaving fat fat dollar G's on the table. Someone someone got to clean up that You talked about Capcom doubling down on key franchises, and I think they've certainly shown that with Monster

Hunter. They have a DLC business. They're too afraid and archaic to do a live service. I mean, this is exactly why Nintendo's fresh meat for Hoyverse, right? They're just like, why has no one done Tears of the Kingdom live service? Someone should do that. All right, let's combine that with gotcha RPG mechanics. Go. And then it's become like a life of its own. They are very good at picking thesises that are proven. Like this is the Blizzard playbook, right? Choose something that the an Apple playbook. Choose something that is proven. Refine it a little bit. This is a proven mechanic. People want to slay creatures. I think this appeals this appeals to the the West if they can they can change the UI.
What's wrong with the UI?
I just I think this is a problem that a lot of Eastern developers are having when they sell their products to the West is that they do very little localization. you know, dunk on Amazon games all you want. Lost Arc underwent a very extensive localization process. And when you see games like Genchin or some of like these Japanese games, they do very little localization and they give themselves very little chance to succeed. I mean, Eggy Party is actually one that comes to mind. They did jack

Jack squat to make Eddie Party more palatable to Western audiences. And I think they missed translating this franchise over. And so this is where I think I'd love to see Chinese companies spend more time is localizing their products in the west rather than just slapping them out there.
The culturalization, not just the localization, right? Is that what you Okay.
Like trying to
uh is it in the monetization or is it just in like the presentation of like literally
UI elements? Literally the UI elements. And you see this in reverse too. Like I worked with a developer that was doing dual skew. We took it to a major Chinese publisher. Their first recommendation was to add more buttons. Uh I thought that was interesting.
By the way, like there's no it's not clear whether or not notice fall is even coming to mobile, right? They haven't really announced platforms per se. It's also not a live service as far as I can see right now.
We don't know that for sure either.
They wouldn't do that. I I mean,
well, the problem is that they're also doing Unreal, which is, you know, on mobile would be horrific, right? Like it'd be like 20 gigabyte download it'd

be crazy, right? So, I don't know. Yeah, I think there's a lot of TBD on this as to what this actually is.
On your Unreal point, I mean, we talked about I went to Unreal Fest and TFT is moving to Unreal. TFT is crossplatform. Um, Hoyoverse, they were there. They were and they were showing that they were, you know, doing this right this announcement that they are on Unreal Engine 5 and they are a crossplatform company. So, what is it that UEE5 and upcoming to UEE6 is doing to make it more palatable to have mobile crossplatform play? I don't know. I haven't talked to Kyle in a while. Uh, we should probably give our friends at uh on the engine side a call and see like, hey, how do we make sure that like what do you guys do? I mean, Fortnite is back live in the stores and they're marketing it. I haven't checked in on it lately to see how it's doing. Maybe what that's what we should do next time is look at Fortnite in mobile, but it's

back. So, I don't know. I don't know, Chris, if it's as egregious as it used to be. I think this is a signal we should be mindful of it.
Unreal on mobile is still a disaster. What are we talking about here? Like
I I I I all I'm saying is like we're we're seeing big companies start to use UE5 that are crossplatform
on mobile.
I just
Isn't Genchin Isn't Genchin unreal?
Genchin TFT is moving over. I don't think they're they're live yet, but they're moving over.
What about what is PUBG PUBG Mobile on? What is that built on?
I think PUBG has its own engine.
Uh I I
No, the answer to your question is no. It's a pure no.
Exceptions. If we start talking about HD on mobile again, I'm going to lose my goddamn mind. Okay? Because HD on mobile does not work. Period. End of sentence. With the exceptions of three or four games. So,
well, this Nordis Fall looks like it's

an HD game. It does not look
I don't think this is coming to mobile. I honestly I don't I don't even know if this is a live service. I think this is just literally a Monster Hunter comp competitor
directionally. I think you're right, Eric, but at the end of the day, the Roblox audience is going to grow up at some point. They are going to expect these type of these experiences on mobile. Guar has to be the case, right?
Well, you'd be crazy not to assume that, right?
You don't think so? You think they'll age? They're never going to want deeper.
They age out, not age
more fidel.
What do we call Ginchin then? What do we call the Hoyverse games? Are they HD? Because these are those definitely fifth.
Yeah. These are
crossplatform.
Yeah. But he's saying that's the
again it's exceptions. That's like less than 5% of the revenue on the on the app stores are based upon HD gaming that you're just as defined by you which is basically Call of Duty, Genchin and Karina, right? Those are the three games that that are less than 5% of the revenue.
PUBG Mobile actually does

PUBG Mobile. PUBG
actually does fairly well
relative to its eastern success, but it's still more surprisingly successful than I thought.
Yeah, I think that's fair. But you you don't think they're going to age up and demand those experiences? I mean, first of all, Roblox, by the way, you can do it in reverse. You can say
it's mobile that works on HD, but no,
you don't think they're going to want this? No.
No. I I I I'm more and more convinced that people age out. Like that's it. The one discussion I had recently about this which I'm I'm not going to do justice right now because I hadn't really put it put it in writing but like at the end of the day it's not a on an anecdotal basis as you your kids grow up their desires and interests change dramatically right what hits those pleasure centers completely change. You know the dopamine rush of doing what's cool in Roblox when you're eight is different. That dopamine rush does not exist when you're like 13. You know, like you want to do other things like gamble and like play FIFA and play Madden. You want to like

do adult right? Like playing those chachki games on Roblox is not part of your lexicon at that age. You actually think that's babyish, you know? And so it's like
I'm talking about the medium. I'm talking about the medium of gaming. You don't think this whole enormous wave of people who are now playing games for the first time on a generation overgeneration basis, more women, more men playing more games than they ever have at any point in human history for this generation. You don't think that's going to have any effect going forward?
We just don't retain any of that. They just they just fizzle out. But I'm saying these people retain
these people retain and they're going to want more highfidelity experiences and mobile is their point of introduction to gaming. That's the whole problem is that the platform itself is not geared towards HD gaming. You don't have the right controls. You don't have the right screen.
What are you talking about? Roblox experiences have far more sophistication when it comes to virtual buttons. The audience is getting more sophisticated for touch controls, which are more common in, let's say, eastern MMOs. They're going to be more comfortable

with this style of input method on highfidelity experiences as they start to age up.
Okay? In the West, there is absolutely no evidence that that is true. Period. End of sentence. There are four games, fouring HD games that matter in the West. Five maybe, right? And that hasn't changed for a decade. We've been I've been discussing this since I was at Kabam. Like this is 12 years ago. Nothing has changed. Nothing has evolved. Like the expectations, the quality of what these phones can do has not changed anything on this on this this point. And you could say what people play potentially. All right, fine. But like what what people actually what makes money on mobile
no
is like you said maybe it's an exception to the rule and Hoyoverse is the exception to the rule
and I guess I wouldn't describe it so much it it felt like it was mobile first you know higher fidelity 3D world RPGs I'm just trying to like process like

where where do RPGs go in the future we start to see some of these new new games come out where does crossplatform go in the future Sure. Like I want us to like I don't know.
Look, but even even Genchin is is only like 14% US, right? I mean it's still like China to Japan 70% of the revenue.
That's over time. If you if you look at it if you look at on a launch aligned basis, I believe it had a higher share in North America. It was it was very successful in North America.
Yeah.
It defines the action RPG category for us.
But you No, your point was is that because people have played these types of games that that their expectations change. What I'm saying is that people do play these type of games. They try these games. They may have spent on these games, but they don't retain because the experience sucks on mobile and it's much better on HD, right, on on PC console, right? Like like you evolve beyond that, right? And you and you realize that like playing on a 65 in panel in your living room with HD sound is far better than playing on a piece of mobile device.
And and yet, Eric, people watch Netflix

on their phones. And I know you can bring your Nolan Chris Nolan is in the room with us. You need a theater experience. It's premium. I get it. But convenience wins at the end of the day, Eric. Convenience wins. And I think No, I will argue this to my death. There it is not convenient to play a 3D game on a mobile device with dual analog sticks virtual. It's that sucks. I mean, it just sucks. The only reason you do that is cuz you don't have the option to do something else. One of the biggest shooters in the world is Roblox Rivals, the first person shooter that's on the Roblox platform.
Those are children.
I know, but they're using they're using touch inputs. Like if you look at how people play PUBG 2, they do this claw that doesn't make any money.
Track huge audiences. I think you're underestimating how audience over time will expand and grow input sophistication. Like we've seen it in first-person shooters. I mean, if you go back and play Call of Duty 2, Eric, and

you play Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4, I mean, the level of sophistication we have in that genre, we've evolved with the audience, right? Sprint didn't used to be a thing. Slide, omnidirectional movement. Like, all these things are new first-person shooter mechanics that would be way too much to introduce to a Call of Duty player.
All right. A decade ago,
before he his head explodes, um, I'm going to I'm going to call it. Thank you for doing the musings on I was trying to get us to the future of RPGs and not shooters, but that's fine. That's fine. We can Well, maybe we continue it next week and make us explode. All right, everybody. Uh, Mishka will be back and we'll get a Gamescom update. See when
By the We didn't talk trash about Mishka the whole time. Are we kidding? Wait. Yeah.
What are you talking about? We The entire beginning of this episode was ripping on the guy.
That's fair. I think we covered it. I think we covered it.
All right, everyone. See you next week.
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