Half-Life 3

The best way to avoid clones of your game?

List Feature

Nathan Brown's Hit Points newsletter (issue #388, July 24, 2026) uses Valve's latest Steam update as a springboard for a critique of Sony's digital storefront.

• Valve has introduced significant improvements to Steam's wishlist functionality, including better organization, filtering, and the ability to gift wishlisted games, addressing a critical tool for game discoverability and funding, especially for indie developers.
• Sony's PlayStation Store is criticized for its poor functionality, particularly its wishlist feature which lacks essential notifications for sales or releases, and its overall inability to categorize games effectively, raising concerns as Sony plans to fully transition to digital-only game sales within 18 months.
• Xbox's VP of Engineering, Jared Palmer, left after three months to join an AI company, while Xbox also announced a 'Backwards Compatibility' initiative bringing four original Xbox games to PC, with plans for more over time.

Back in Your Box

This document, published on February 6, 2026, argues that the current economic climate, particularly escalating component costs driven by the generative AI industry, makes it an exceptionally poor time to launch new gaming console hardware.

• Valve has delayed the release of its Steam Machine, Steam Frame VR headset, and redesigned Steam Controller due to rising component costs driven by AI industry demand.
• AMD CEO Lisa Su confirmed that development for the next-generation Xbox is progressing toward a 2027 launch, despite industry-wide concerns regarding high hardware costs and consumer spending power.
• The Nintendo Switch has become the company's best-selling console of all time, reaching 155.37 million lifetime units sold by the end of 2025 and surpassing the Nintendo DS.

The Hardware Nobody Asked For… That Might Change Everything

Valve is preparing to launch a new Steam Machine console in early 2026, marking a significant shift from its failed 2015 hardware experiment.

• Valve plans to launch an internally developed Steam Machine console in early 2026, priced between $550 and $700 with performance targets comparable to the PlayStation 5.
• The console will run SteamOS and utilize Proton to provide couch-based access to the existing Steam library, positioning the device as a strategic play to capture market share from Xbox.
• A major technical limitation is the inability to run competitive multiplayer titles that rely on kernel-level anti-cheat software, excluding many popular games from the platform.

Call of Duty under Attack

The document analyzes the competitive landscape of the shooter genre in late 2025, focusing on the challenges faced by Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 amidst strong launches from Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders.

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 launched with 100,000 peak concurrent players on Steam, significantly underperforming compared to Black Ops 6 (300,000) and Modern Warfare 3 (190,000).
• Competing shooters Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders achieved strong launch figures, peaking at 747,000 and 482,000 concurrent Steam users respectively.
• Arc Raiders shows low player crossover with Call of Duty, with only 11% on PS5 and 13% on Xbox, while 5 million Call of Duty console players were drawn from Fortnite last weekend.

Randomness in Video Games | Compilation | Extra Credits Gaming

Randomness serves as a fundamental tool in game design, functioning as a mechanism to evoke specific emotional responses, heighten suspense, and challenge player intuition.

• Designers should use clarity when they want players to think through a problem, but use obfuscation when they want to evoke specific emotional responses like nervousness, hope, or power.
• The frustration level of RNG in games can be estimated using the formula: Frustration = Time Lost × Percentage Chance of Losing, which helps designers identify if a game's randomness is unfairly punishing.
• To maintain consistent player engagement, designers should reduce the impact of randomness as the game progresses; for example, a game might allow a 35% chance of RNG-based loss at 20 minutes, but only an 11.7% chance at the one-hour mark.

Digital Toys at Play: Top 10 Toy and Entertainment Licensors in Gaming

The document, "Digital Toys at Play: Top 10 Toy and Entertainment Licensors in Gaming," analyzes the evolving landscape of interactive entertainment and its impact on traditional toy and media companies.

• The top 10 non-gaming licensors generated $9.9 billion in consumer spending for the twelve months ending in June 2024.
• Third-party developers drive the vast majority of revenue, accounting for $7.9 billion of the total spending compared to $1.8 billion from in-house efforts.
• Hasbro leads the sector, fueled by the success of Monopoly Go—projected to exceed $3 billion in lifetime revenue—and Baldur’s Gate III.

Session: Cyber Security Trends in Gaming MAX SCHUMACHER

Cybersecurity in the gaming industry faces two primary, persistent threats: phishing and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

• Phishing is the primary attack vector for the gaming industry, accounting for approximately 91% of all cyber incidents.
• Gaming is the most targeted sector globally for DDoS attacks, with some incidents reaching peak volumes of 200 million requests per second in early 2024.
• Intellectual property theft and source code leaks are frequently caused by human error and credential theft rather than sophisticated external breaches.

Games You Might Not Have Tried - ep 20 - April 1st Edition! - Extra Credits

This presentation serves as a satirical April Fools' Day commentary on the gaming industry, framing well-known, mainstream titles as obscure "hidden gems."

• Modern game design frequently prioritizes player retention, microtransactions, and repetitive loops over traditional innovation.
• Mainstream titles like Madden NFL, World of Warcraft, Fortnite, and Apex Legends are often structured around cynical monetization strategies rather than novel gameplay experiences.
• The 'hidden gem' genre of gaming journalism is often used to recontextualize ubiquitous, commercially successful titles, highlighting the industry's reliance on established tropes.