The Game Business
Games industry business news and analysis by Christopher Dring (ex-GamesIndustry.biz).
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Interview with Nex CEO David Lee: “We want a Nex Playground in every living room”
Nex, a technology company founded by former Apple developer David Lee, has successfully entered the home console market with the Nex Playground, a camera-based, motion-controlled gaming system.
- Nex has scaled the Nex Playground from an initial 5,000 units in 2023 to over 600,000 units sold by late 2025.
- The platform utilizes computer vision for controller-free, motion-controlled gaming, positioning itself as a modern successor to the Nintendo Wii.
- Nex employs a subscription-based revenue model to ensure recurring income and continuous content updates, moving away from the traditional cycle of individual game sales.
Who REALLY won The Game Awards? Plus, we review 2025
The 2025 gaming landscape reflects a period of robust recovery and structural evolution, marked by a 7.5% revenue increase to $190.9 billion, finally eclipsing the previous peak established during the 2021 pandemic era.
- The global gaming industry reached $190.9 billion in revenue in 2025, a 7.5% increase that finally surpassed the previous 2021 pandemic-era peak.
- The Game Awards achieved a 12.5% increase in peak viewership to 4.5 million, with winners like Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 seeing a 60% surge in sales following the event.
- Strategic consolidation is accelerating through potential high-profile deals, including a Netflix-Warner Bros. alignment and ongoing acquisition discussions involving EA.
Sucker Punch Co-founder Brian Fleming Steps Down from Ghost of Yotei Studio
Sucker Punch Productions, the developer behind the Ghost of Tsushima and Infamous franchises, is undergoing a significant leadership transition.
- Brian Fleming, co-founder of Sucker Punch Productions, is stepping down from his role as head of the studio.
- Effective January 1, 2026, the studio will be led by Jason Connell and Adrian Bentley, with Nate Fox continuing in his role as co-creative director.
- Sucker Punch’s latest title, Ghost of Yotei, launched in October 2025 and sold 3.3 million copies within its first month.
Fallout Season 2 Interview: How Todd Howard and Bethesda are capitalising on the TV show
The success of the Fallout television series on Amazon Prime has catalyzed a strategic shift in how Bethesda Game Studios manages its intellectual property, moving toward a model where linear media and interactive gaming experiences are tightly integrated.
- The Fallout television series reached over 100 million viewers, triggering a five-to-sixfold increase in player engagement across Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and Fallout Shelter.
- Bethesda is shifting to a strategy of tightly integrating linear media with interactive gaming, treating the television show as a new, canonical entry in the franchise timeline rather than a simple adaptation.
- To lower barriers for non-traditional gamers, Bethesda is leveraging cloud streaming platforms like Samsung Gaming Hub, Xbox Game Pass, and Amazon Luna to allow immediate gameplay without dedicated hardware or downloads.
Meet the developer behind Bradley The Badger, The Game Awards’ most bonkers reveal
Day for Night, a game development studio founded by industry veterans Davide Soliani and Christian Cantamessa, recently debuted their upcoming title, Bradley the Badger, at The Game Awards.
- Day for Night, a studio founded by Mario + Rabbids and Red Dead Redemption veterans Davide Soliani and Christian Cantamessa, has debuted its first title, Bradley the Badger.
- The studio operates with a lean team of approximately 24 employees, prioritizing an agile, collaborative structure over the fragmented models typical of AAA development.
- The project has successfully secured funding from 1Up Ventures and Krafton, despite the current challenging global economic climate for game development investment.
Interview: Geoff Keighley on the impossible balancing act of running The Game Awards
The Game Awards functions as a complex, year-long production designed to bridge the gap between formal industry recognition and the high-energy marketing of new game announcements.
- The Game Awards operates as a year-long production designed to bridge the gap between formal industry recognition and high-energy marketing for new game reveals.
- The event utilizes a platform-agnostic strategy to remain relevant to the rapidly evolving gaming industry and its shift toward multiplatform releases.
- Operational success requires balancing rigid runtime constraints against the volatile, unpredictable development timelines of game studios.
PS5, EA Sports FC 26 and Hogwarts Legacy Top Europe’s Black Friday Sales
The European video game market experienced a significant surge in activity during the 2025 Black Friday sales week, characterized by strong hardware performance and consistent software demand despite a lack of new releases.
- During the Black Friday week in the UK, console revenue increased by 14% and unit sales by 7% compared to the previous year.
- The PS5 was the primary market driver with a 62% market share, achieving a 16% year-over-year increase in unit sales.
- Aggressive discounting fueled PS5 performance, with the PS5 Pro reaching an all-time low price of £586 and the average price of all PS5 models dropping to £340.
GoldenEye and TimeSplitters creators return: “Maybe this isn’t what we should be doing”
The modern gaming industry is currently defined by a fundamental tension between the instability of large-scale production and the enduring dominance of legacy content.
- Over 50% of all current gaming activity is dedicated to titles that are at least six years old, highlighting the market's heavy reliance on legacy content.
- New game releases, excluding annualized sports franchises, are struggling to capture even 1% of the active player base.
- Major publishers are increasingly pivoting toward remakes and established live-service ecosystems to secure revenue as consumers prioritize massive backlogs over new, full-priced titles.
GoldenEye and TimeSplitters Developers Reunite: Market Outlook and Regional Trends
This analysis examines current trends in the video game industry, focusing on the shifting market dynamics between legacy titles and new releases, as well as growth projections for the Asia and MENA regions.
- The Asia and MENA gaming markets are projected to reach $88.97 billion in 2025, representing a 2.7% year-over-year growth and a total of 1.7 billion players.
- Newzoo data indicates that 57% of total gaming playtime in 2024 was spent on titles released at least six years ago, largely driven by the dominance of live-service games like Fortnite, Roblox, and GTA Online.
- Only 12% of total gaming playtime in 2024 was dedicated to games released within that same year, highlighting the increasing challenge new releases face in capturing player attention.
We interview the man who signed Arc Raiders: "The AAA industry is at its end"
The traditional AAA game industry has reached a structural dead end, characterized by unsustainable development costs, industrial-scale managerial complexity, and a reliance on legacy intellectual property that stifles genuine innovation.
- The traditional AAA industry model is structurally failing due to unsustainable development costs, excessive managerial complexity, and an over-reliance on legacy intellectual property.
- Artificial intelligence is projected to redefine the gaming industry over the next five to seven years by enabling smaller, agile teams to bypass traditional dis-economies of scale.
- The integration of AI tools is expected to catalyze a significant expansion of the gaming sector, potentially tripling its overall size by increasing operational efficiency.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Market Performance: Europe
The market performance of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 in Europe indicates a challenging launch period, as the title fell to the number two position in unit sales during its second week on the market.
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 dropped to No. 2 in European unit sales during its second week, signaling a disappointing launch performance.
- EA Sports FC 26 reclaimed the No. 1 spot in the European market for the week ending November 23, 2025.
- Battlefield 6 moved up to No. 3 in unit sales, contributing to a strong showing for Electronic Arts in the top three.
Tekken’s Katsuhiro Harada: As a Producer, Maybe I’m a Failure
The leadership team behind the Tekken franchise, including executive game director Katsuhiro Harada, chief producer Kouhei Ikeda, and producer Michael Murray, highlights the evolving challenges of modern AAA game development.
- Rising AAA development costs have significantly outpaced salary growth in Japan, leading Katsuhiro Harada to question his effectiveness as a producer regarding budget management.
- Developing a new character for Tekken 8 now requires 12 to 18 months of work, while adding an existing character from previous titles takes six to eight months.
- The development cycle for the Tekken series has slowed, with a nine-year gap between the releases of Tekken 7 and Tekken 8.