Game Publishing & Business Models
How games make money and reach players: publishing, sales, ports, pricing, subscriptions, free-to-play and distribution. Stories here track results and the strategies behind them.
Atari Names Crossy Road Creator Matt Hall EVP of Mobile
On Oct. 27, Atari named Matt Hall, co-founder of Hipster Whale and creator of Crossy Road, to the new role of EVP, Atari Mobile, reporting to chairman and CEO Wade Rosen. The move follows Atari's 2026 purchases of Hipster Whale and Early Morning Studios, and Hall will lead the company's push to release its games on mobile and web alongside PC and console.
Capcom's back catalog is doing the heavy lifting
Capcom reported on Oct 27 that of the 36.86M games they sold from April to September, 32.18M were older titles. A big piece of that: Devil May Cry 5 (a 2019 game) passed 14M lifetime after hitting Switch 2 in June, and…
Valve lets the market decide on AI
At Steam Indie Connect in South Korea (also Oct 27), indie developers told Valve's Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson they're worried about AI "slop" and people threatening to clone their games. Valve said it won't tell…
PUBG is heading to Netflix
On Oct 29, Krafton (the publisher behind PUBG: Battlegrounds) confirmed Netflix is developing a live-action PUBG series, with Donald Glover set to write, direct and star. Krafton's own entertainment unit is…
Roblox Q3: 138M Daily Users as AI-Made Games Crack the Top 20
Roblox reported 138 million daily active users and about $1.7 billion in third-quarter bookings, down 12% from a year earlier. Two games made almost entirely with AI reached the platform's top 20 by concurrent players during the quarter.
Anthropic Steers Claude Code Away From Recreating Existing Games
Anthropic confirmed it added guidance telling Claude Code not to rebuild a specific existing game, citing its usage policy on intellectual property. Original games, genre games and games built from a user's own designs and assets remain allowed.
Phantom Blade Zero Passes 700,000 Concurrent Steam Players in Launch Week
Chinese action game Phantom Blade Zero launched October 29 on PS5 and PC and passed 700,000 concurrent players on Steam in its first week.