Borderlands 3

Stellar Blade Is a Steam Hit as Discounted Legacy Games Return to the Fold

The recent Steam launch of Stellar Blade serves as a primary case study for the commercial viability of PlayStation-published titles on PC.

• Stellar Blade has become the fastest-selling PlayStation-published single-player game on Steam to date, outperforming the launch-aligned performance of titles like God of War, The Last of Us, and Spider-Man.
• The Steam launch of Stellar Blade triggered a secondary sales boost on PS5, resulting in an additional 50,000 copies sold at full price, the platform's highest weekly increase since November 2024.
• Shift Up successfully drove Stellar Blade's performance in China through targeted strategies, including full lip-sync dubbing, localized pricing of approximately $37, and extensive marketing on platforms like Bilibili.

Last Week's Biggest Games on Steam: Week 24

The Steam market performance for week 24 of 2025 highlights a dual-track landscape defined by high-profile new releases and the strategic use of aggressive discounting to revitalize legacy titles.

• Stellar Blade dominated Steam in week 24 with 527,000 copies sold, driven heavily by the Chinese market which accounts for 56% of its total Steam audience.
• Dune: Awakening secured the second spot with 271,000 copies sold and maintains strong player retention with over 300,000 daily active users.
• Deep discounting remains a primary driver for legacy title performance, as seen with Mortal Shell selling 121,000 copies after a price drop to $1.50 and This War of Mine selling 86,000 copies at a $1 price point.

Looter Shooters like Borderlands See Over 19M Hours Watched on Live Streaming

The live-streaming performance of the Borderlands franchise serves as a case study for the necessity of consistent content updates in maintaining audience engagement.

• The looter shooter genre remains highly popular on live streaming, with titles like 'The First Descendant' generating 9.7 million hours watched in its first month following a July 2, 2024, release.
• Borderlands 3 previously achieved a peak monthly viewership of 18 million hours watched upon its release in September 2019, aided by the innovative 'ECHOcast' Twitch extension that allowed viewers to interact directly with gameplay.
• Despite the recent Borderlands film release, viewership for the franchise remains low compared to active titles, with the film failing to drive significant long-term engagement despite doubling Twitch chat mentions to 35,000 during its debut week.

Embracer Group Q1 2023 Financial Results

Embracer Group’s financial results for the first fiscal quarter of 2023, ending June 30, demonstrate significant year-over-year growth alongside the implementation of a major corporate restructuring program.

• Embracer Group reported Q1 2023 net sales of SEK 10.45 billion, a 47% year-over-year increase, and a net profit of SEK 2.25 billion compared to a net loss of SEK 182 million in the prior-year period.
• The company is executing a restructuring program to reduce net debt from SEK 16.75 billion to at least SEK 8 billion by March 31, 2024, involving studio closures and workforce reductions.
• PC and console revenue grew 74% to $365.5 million, bolstered by the releases of Dead Island 2 and Remnant II, with back catalog titles like Borderlands 3 contributing nearly 40% of that segment's revenue.

Embracer Group Q1 Interim Report: FY21/22

Embracer Group achieved significant financial growth during the first quarter of the 2021/2022 fiscal year, characterized by a 66 percent year-over-year increase in net sales to SEK 3,427 million and a 79 percent rise in operational EBIT to SEK 1,271 million.

• Embracer Group reported strong Q1 FY21/22 growth with net sales rising 66% year-over-year to SEK 3,427 million and operational EBIT increasing 79% to SEK 1,271 million.
• The company maintains a strong financial position with approximately SEK 17 billion in cash and credit facilities to support a development pipeline of 180 active projects.
• Growth is driven by a dual-strategy of organic investment and aggressive acquisitions, including the recent integration of studios such as Easy Trigger, Ghost Ship Games, CrazyLabs, Demiurge Studios, SmartPhone Labs, and Fractured Byte.

1Q22 Quarterly Results: Management Prepared Remarks

Take-Two Interactive’s first-quarter fiscal year 2022 results demonstrate a strong start to the year, characterized by net bookings of $711 million, which exceeded management’s initial expectations.

Post Punk

The primary focus of this analysis is the financial and operational fallout surrounding the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, specifically examining the impact of its removal from the PlayStation Store on CD Projekt Red’s fiscal performance.

• CD Projekt Red reported a 65% drop in profits, a decline attributed to the fallout from the troubled launch of Cyberpunk 2077 and its subsequent delisting from the PlayStation Store.
• EA’s Ultimate Team modes generated $1.62 billion in revenue last year, accounting for approximately 29% of the company's total business.
• Sony has blocked cross-platform multiplayer for Borderlands 3 on PlayStation, reinforcing a corporate stance that cross-console play does not provide a clear benefit to the PlayStation business model.

Three Key Discoverability Takeaways From the Epic/Apple Lawsuit

This analysis examines internal data from Epic Games revealed during legal discovery to identify trends in platform revenue and discoverability.

• For major free-to-play titles like Fortnite, console platforms significantly outperform PC, with the PlayStation 4 generating 46.8% of total revenue compared to 18.7% from PC between early 2019 and mid-2020.
• The Epic Games Store (EGS) relies heavily on paid exclusives to drive revenue, evidenced by Borderlands 3 generating $100 million in recoupable revenue within two weeks of its launch.
• EGS struggles with long-term user retention, as only 7% of users who joined the platform specifically to claim free game giveaways eventually purchased a paid title.

Scumbag Randy Pitchford Keeps Borderlands 3 Bonuses | Games ReCAP

Gearbox Software, a Texas-based game developer, has faced significant internal backlash following a decision to drastically reduce royalty bonuses for employees who worked on the commercially successful title Borderlands 3.

• Gearbox Software significantly reduced royalty bonuses for Borderlands 3 employees, despite the game achieving billion-dollar status as a global brand.
• The studio historically utilizes a compensation model featuring below-average base salaries supplemented by quarterly revenue-sharing bonuses.
• Leadership attributed the reduced payouts to increased development costs and an expanded headcount, specifically citing a mid-development transition from Unreal Engine 3 to Unreal Engine 4 that necessitated restarting production work.

Baked in Accessibility: How Features Were Approached in Borderlands 3

This analysis examines the integration of accessibility features into the development of Borderlands 3 at Gearbox Software.

• Integrate accessibility into the development culture by maintaining dedicated communication channels, such as internal chat rooms, to keep the topic in the foreground throughout the entire production cycle.
• Empower cross-functional teams to experiment with accessibility solutions; for example, Gearbox’s effects director independently developed a tiered loot beam system that used varying heights, bloom intensities, and particle densities to convey rarity information.
• Prioritize direct user testing with the target audience, as the lack of thorough focus testing was identified as the primary flaw in the Borderlands 3 accessibility implementation.

Real Data: Inside Epic's Plans for Epic Games Publishing

This analysis examines internal strategic shifts at Epic Games based on court documents surfaced during the Apple vs. Epic legal proceedings.

• Epic Games is shifting away from aggressive minimum guarantee (MG) payments for store exclusivity after finding that titles with MGs under $10 million recouped only 20% of their lifetime forecasts.
• The Epic Games Store struggled with organic discovery for indie and mid-tier titles, leading to significant unrecouped costs for many exclusive releases.
• Epic Games Publishing (EGP) was established to move toward a multi-platform co-publishing model rather than relying on PC-only store exclusivity.

Take-Two Revenue Reaches $857.8 Million in FQ2 2019

Take-Two Interactive experienced significant financial growth during the second fiscal quarter of 2019, which concluded on September 30.

• Take-Two reported $857.8 million in net revenue for the second fiscal quarter of 2019, representing a 74% increase compared to the same period in 2018.
• Net bookings reached $950 million for the quarter, a 63% year-on-year increase driven primarily by the launches of Borderlands 3 and NBA 2K20.
• Digital sales generated $695.3 million, accounting for 73% of total net revenue and marking a 63% increase over the prior year.