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The U.S. Video Game Market: July 2026
U.S. consumer spending on video games fell 10% year over year in July 2026 to $4.5 billion, according to Circana data, with mobile figures supplied by Sensor Tower.
- U.S. video game spending fell 10% year-over-year in July 2026 to $4.5 billion, with the market currently tracking 2% behind 2025 levels through the first seven months of the year.
- Hardware spending dropped 29% year-over-year to $282 million, marking the worst July performance for the sector since 2020.
- Hardware unit sales declined 39% compared to July 2025, while the average price of a new system rose 16% to $542, contributing to the sales slump.
Five Video Game Journalists You Should Be Following: 20 August 2026
This edition of the Video Games Industry Memo, written by George E. Osborn, profiles five video game journalists worth following, prompted by Joost van Dreunen's recent analysis of the state of games media and its argument that journalism works best when independent of the institutions it covers.
- Apple has proposed a 15% fee for digital purchases made outside the App Store, with a reduced 5% rate for small businesses, as part of its ongoing legal dispute with Epic Games.
- France’s constitutional council has blocked a proposed law that would have banned social media access for individuals under 15, citing infringements on freedom of expression.
- Twitch is facing backlash after announcing that user content is being used for AI training, with reports indicating that data harvesting may have occurred prior to the official opt-out announcement.
A New Look at Gaming: The New Video Game Insights Interface
Sensor Tower announced a redesigned Video Game Insights (VGI) interface in August 2026, aligning the gaming market intelligence product with the core Sensor Tower frontend.
- Sensor Tower is migrating all users to a modernized Video Game Insights (VGI) interface, with the legacy platform being fully retired between December 2026 and January 2027.
- The new interface becomes the default for new users on September 15, 2026, and the standard experience for all users on October 15, 2026.
- New platform capabilities include granular wishlist tracking (additions, deletions, and purchases), dynamic cross-title comparison reports, and consolidated market-level data merging Market Data and Genre Analytics.
Cyprus Video Game Industry Report 2025
The document is the inaugural Cyprus Video Game Industry Report 2025, published by CYGMA (Cyprus Game Makers Association).
- Cyprus-based game companies grew from 169 in 2019 to 393 in 2024, while employment rose from 1,438 to 4,320 people.
- Titles released before 2025 account for about 96% of Cyprus's 2025 mobile revenue, with only about 4% from 2025 launches.
- Cyprus ranks third in the world for mobile game downloads and eleventh for mobile in-app grossing in AppMagic's 2025 rankings.
This New Video Game’s Dirt Sounds Amazing
Stars Reach, an MMO from veteran designer Raph Koster and developer Playable Worlds, is presented as an ambitious attempt to shake up the genre, backed by roughly $45 million in funding.
- The upcoming MMO Stars Reach, developed by Playable Worlds, has secured $45 million in funding.
- The game features a highly detailed terraforming system that simulates over 200 types of materials and minerals with physically accurate behaviors.
- Players can manipulate the environment using a 'chronophaser' tool to accelerate or reverse geological time, allowing for processes like eroding marble into sand or melting sand into glass.
Slovak Video Game Industry Statistics 2025
The Slovak video game industry returned to turnover growth in 2025 after three years of decline, though the recovery has not yet reached the workforce.
- The Slovak video game industry returned to growth in 2025, with total turnover increasing to €75.16 million from €67.8 million in the previous year.
- Economic performance remains highly concentrated, as the top 10% of companies generated €63.6 million, accounting for 84.6% of the industry's total turnover.
- Despite the rise in turnover and an increase in active companies from 77 to 80, industry employment declined for the third consecutive year, falling to 840 people in 2025 from 982 in 2024.
The Video Game Publisher That Lost Its Entire Staff Overnight
The video game industry experienced a significant organizational collapse in 2024 when the entire staff of Annapurna Interactive resigned simultaneously.
- In September 2024, the entire 25-to-26-person staff of Annapurna Interactive resigned simultaneously following a breakdown in negotiations between leadership and owner Megan Ellison regarding the company's strategic direction.
- The mass resignation was triggered by a power struggle involving the return of Hector Sanchez, a former executive who had previously left the company following allegations of inappropriate behavior, whom Ellison rehired as president of interactive and new media.
- The former Annapurna Interactive team formed a new publishing entity called Fictions, which subsequently secured the rights to manage and release the remaining game portfolio from Take-Two Interactive's shuttered indie label, Private Division.
The U.S. Video Game Market: June 2026
U.S. consumer spending on video games reached $4.5 billion in June 2026, a 21% year-over-year decline that largely reflects a very high comparison base.
- U.S. video game consumer spending fell 21% year-over-year to $4.5 billion in June 2026, primarily due to a high base effect from the Nintendo Switch 2 launch in June 2025.
- Hardware spending dropped 62% year-over-year to $383 million, with Nintendo Switch 2 revenue declining 79% and PlayStation 5 revenue slipping 19%.
- The Xbox Series S|X bucked the hardware trend with unit sales up 86% year-over-year, marking Microsoft's best console unit performance of 2026.
How Video Game Publishers Actually Work
The relationship between video game developers and publishers is a complex, multifaceted business dynamic that defies the simplistic narrative of creative developers versus profit-driven publishers.
- Publisher-developer agreements typically include recoupment clauses that require publishers to fully recover their initial investment before developers receive any royalty payments.
- Independent developers must secure funding through a rigorous pitching process at industry events like DICE and GDC, which requires a functional prototype to demonstrate project viability.
- Publisher financing is distributed in tranches tied to specific development milestones, such as vertical slices or alpha builds, rather than as a single lump sum.
How Should I Add Gaming to My Media Buying Plan?
Overwolf's blog post argues that media planners should treat gaming as a permanent, recurring media line rather than an experimental test, and it positions Overwolf Ads as the vehicle for doing so.
- Gaming currently receives less than 5% of worldwide media investment despite consumers spending over one hour per day on digital gaming, creating a significant gap between attention and ad spend.
- In-game advertising is projected to account for only 2.3% of total US digital ad spend in 2026, even though 59.2% of the US population is expected to be digital gamers.
- Media planners are encouraged to shift gaming from an experimental budget allocation to a permanent, core media line to capture incremental reach beyond CTV and social channels.
Games Growth Package: UK Video Games Industry Growth Analysis
Ukie marks the first anniversary of the £30m Games Growth Package, launched on 23 June 2025 under the Government's Industrial Strategy and Creative Industries Sector Plan, and argues it is already reshaping the funding landscape for UK studios.
- The £30 million Games Growth Package has completed its first year, providing significant capital to UK studios through the UK Games Fund and the expanded UK Global Screen Fund.
- The UK Games Fund is supporting studios across three tiers: £20k grants for startups, up to £100k for prototype development, and up to £250k for content scaling.
- The UK Global Screen Fund’s budget has been increased from £7 million to over £18 million per year for 2026–2029, with 32 companies already receiving £3.2 million for international business development.
The Video Game Executive Playbook: Part One
Sebastian Cardoso, a games-industry writer and fractional COO and executive producer with twenty years across AAA studios (Riot, Crytek, EA), indie and founding roles, presents part one of a two-part guide to executive work in game studios, published July 19, 2026 on his Game Studio Unlocked Substack.
- Cardoso argues that executive output is measured by the studio as a whole, not by the individual's own production, so the founder's craft stops being the thing that gets measured once they lead the studio.
- He reports that ghSMART's assessment of seventeen thousand executives found charisma, confidence and pedigree barely predicted performance, while deciding fast and engaging people well did.
- Citing Tasha Eurich's research, he notes that about 95 percent of people believe they are self-aware, while only 10 to 15 percent actually are.