Gies Archives

2026

20 issues

W24Xbox plans major layoffs under new CEO | Fortnite players pay real money for sprite creatures | EA launches in-game ad service2026-06-19

W23Xbox Showcase brings back exclusives | Taskbar Hero hits #2 on Steam | Destiny 2's send-off breaks player records2026-06-12

W22GTA VI release date is causing gaming industry chaos | Sony's June State of Play | Nobody's making games for the retired people2026-06-05

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | The Golden Years | Looking for an Edge2026-06-02

W21Bungie ends Destiny 2 | Call of Duty launches on Switch 2 | Star Citizen hits $1B2026-05-29

W20PlayStation walks back PC single-player ports | Steam decrees ‘bullet heaven’ | Hasbro cancels Giant Skull D&D2026-05-22

W19Subnautica 2 + Forza 6 + LEGO Batman leak | Switch 2 bundles ahead of price hike | Uncharted 4 turns 102026-05-15

W18Steam Controller breaks Steam | Roblox unveils Hybrid Architecture | CoD ditches last-gen2026-05-08

W17Microsoft Brings Xbox Back, Scraps Microsoft Gaming | Denuvo May Have Reached the End | South Korean PM Calls Crimson Desert Turning Point for K-Gaming2026-05-01

W16Xbox Game Pass Drops to $22.99 and Loses Day-One Call of Duty | Ubisoft Cancels Alterra | Roblox Releases Agentic AI Tools for Creators2026-04-24

W15GTA Online Hack Reveals $1.3M Daily Revenue | Xbox CEO Says Game Pass 'Too Expensive' | Amazon Luna Cuts Third-Party Games2026-04-17

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | The Harder They Come! | The Great Decentralization - Tectonic shifts of 20262026-04-16

W14Take-Two Lays Off AI Team | Mario Galaxy Movie Hits $370M | Hazelight Studio celebrates 50 million games2026-04-10

W13Sony Hikes PS5 Prices Again | Eidos Montreal Cancels Wildlands | Ninth Circuit Rules Against Apple in Epic Case2026-04-03

W12Epic Games Cuts 1,000 Jobs | Savvy Acquires Moonton for $6B | Crimson Desert AI Apology2026-03-27

W11Loot Boxes Get PEGI 16 | Meta Kills Horizon Worlds VR | Subnautica 2 CEO Reinstated by Court2026-03-20

W10Valve Fights Loot Box Lawsuit | Epic Raises V-Bucks Prices | Xbox Unveils Project Helix2026-03-13

W09Sony Ends PC Exclusives | Highguard Shuts Down After 31 Days | Resident Evil Requiem Hits 5M2026-03-06

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | Will Xbox Survive the Xbox One? | Brand Integration in Games: Visibility vs Value2026-03-03

W08Phil Spencer Exits Microsoft | New York Sues Valve Over Loot Boxes | Resident Evil Requiem Sells Out2026-02-27

2025

61 issues

W51The Game Awards 2025: All the game announcements and trailers | FIFA’s Gaming Comeback Is A New Netflix-Exclusive Game2025-12-19

W50Netflix Officially Buying Warner Bros. Discovery In $82.7B Deal | Netflix Considers Warner Bros. Games To Be Worthless | Paramount Launches Hostile Bid for Warner Bros | The AI Tech Crunch: Are We...2025-12-12

W49EA claims 98% of Battlefield 6 matches were cheater-free during launch week | Paradox blames self for poor Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 sales2025-12-05

W48Nearly half of US kids want in-game currency this Christmas | Ubisoft boss believes generative AI is as big a revolution for games as the shift to 3D, as tech is embraced company-wide2025-11-28

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | Life in the Margins | GTA VI: Here We Go Again2025-11-25

W47The New Rules Of Fashion Are Being Written In Code Not Fabric | Epic announces partnership to bring Unity games into Fortnite2025-11-21

W46Valve Announces New Steam Machine, VR Headset, and Steam Controller2025-11-14

W45Minecraft surprise drops a full-blown Dragon Ball Z fighting game with 1v1, 5v5, and co-op modes, voxelized Goku and buff Bulma, and skins for the main game2025-11-07

W44Latest CS2 patch has skin collectors in meltdown over a supposed $2bn in losses, with others saying ‘this is the best update ever’, but maybe Valve is just doing some course-correction and doesn’t...2025-10-31

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | How Live Service Killed Game Pass | Why Skate felt like the wrong idea2025-10-28

W43I Didn’t Believe in Skate. Then My Kids Proved Me Wrong. | FIFA finds its way back to video games through a “multi-year partnership” with Football Manager2025-10-24

W42Pokémon budget leaks have everyone talking | Battlefield boss Vince Zampella tells locked-out Battlefield 6 owners to ditch the EA App and just buy it on Steam2025-10-17

W41Skate 4 surpasses 15m players | Xbox’s Game-Pass Hike Shows Cost of Lost ‘Call of Duty’ Sales2025-10-10

W40The End of the Publisher Wars? | Microsoft revamps Xbox Game Pass plans and hikes Ultimate to $29.99 a month2025-10-03

W39Epic Games to allow Fortnite developers to sell in-game items | U.S. tariffs bite Xbox — here's how much an Xbox Series X|S will cost now2025-09-26

W38Steal A Brainrot reaches 24 million players across Roblox and Fortnite in single day2025-09-19

W37Global games market forecast to reach $188.8bn in 2025 | Maybe release a game in May sometimes? 'Fixation on the holiday window' is hurting game publishers, says industry analyst Newzoo2025-09-12

W36No Man’s Sky sees its highest Steam player count since launch following latest update2025-09-05

W35Demonschool Delayed Due to Hollow Knight: Silksong Release — The GTA of Indie Games | Fall 2025 New Video Games Release Calendar Crowded2025-08-29

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | Gamescom Rising2025-08-26

W34Every Gamescom Announcement from Opening Night Live 2025 | Steam reviews are getting a big change that could combat review bombing2025-08-22

W33"CoD won't be lazy anymore": Ex Blizzard boss predicts a beating for Call of Duty at the hands of Battlefield 6, says Activision's FPS "has gone downhill for years"2025-08-15

W32Peak developers would rather you pirate its game than play a Roblox rip-off2025-08-08

W31War Thunder studio Gaijin just bought a ‘multi-million-dollar’ player-built island in Fortnite | Krafton Reports Record Revenue, Driven by PUBG and Inzoi2025-08-01

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | AI Content Disclosed2025-07-29

W30Shadow of the Colossus Creator Says "The Age of Game Mechanics Is Over" as AAA Is Focused Purely on Iteration2025-07-25

W29Candy Crush Developers Were Laid Off and Replaced by the Very AI Tools They Built | The New Surprising Number of Steam Games that Use GenAI2025-07-18

W28Capcom's financials show that embracing Steam has paid off handsomely: It now accounts for a third of all the publisher's revenue2025-07-11

W27EA Sports Announces Return Of College Basketball | Xbox layoffs: Phil Spencer addresses cuts in internal memo to staff | Everwild has been cancelled as Xbox layoffs hit Rare2025-07-04

W26Peak Pitched in a Swedish Hot Tub, Developed in a 4-Week Korean Game Jam | Microsoft Adds Steam Games to Its Xbox PC App on Windows2025-06-27

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | On the Grind2025-06-24

W25Roblox's Grow a Garden Surpasses Fortnite With Record-Breaking 16 Million Concurrent Players2025-06-20

W24Xbox Games Showcase 2025: All The Biggest Announcements | Microsoft x ASUS ROG Xbox Ally Handheld PC Signals New Era of Portable Gaming | Switch 2 sales top 3.5 million in first four days2025-06-13

W23This week, we celebrate 1 year of GIES Newsletter! | EA Cancels Black Panther Game, Closes Cliffhanger Games2025-06-06

W22Apple just bought its first game studio, and its new gaming app will reportedly be revealed at June WWDC 2025 | A Roblox game ( Grow A Garden ) played by 9M CCU, pushing Roblox to its highest CCU...2025-05-30

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | Cultural Clarity | Why Modding Matters: Building a Rust Server from Scratch2025-05-27

W21Marathon Alpha Draws New Plagiarism Accusations Against Bungie | As GTA 6 Hype Builds, GTA 5 Continues to Sell 5M Copies Every 3 Months2025-05-23

W20Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 devs give modders the game’s internal editor to create anything they can dream of, including custom campaigns2025-05-16

W19GTA 6's Delay Doesn't Mean the Games Industry's in Trouble, It's Already Dead | Microsoft Raises the Price of All Xbox Series Consoles, Xbox Games Confirmed to Hit $80 This Holiday2025-05-09

W18Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 May Be The Highest User-Scored Game Ever | Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld Premieres in Fortnite 2 Days Before Disney+ Debut2025-05-02

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | Well Shit2025-04-29

W17Escape from Tarkov 1.0 Due in 2025, Steam Version Confirmed2025-04-25

W16PlayStation 5 Price Rises in Europe, Australia and New Zealand | Bungie's Marathon Is a Polished Extraction Shooter But That Might Not Be Enough2025-04-18

W15Blue Prince is currently the best-reviewed game of 2025 | Box Office:'A Minecraft Movie' Opening Beats'Barbie' With $163 Millio n2025-04-11

SpecialGIES | Special Report - PC/Console Gaming 2025 Summary2025-04-09

W14Switch 2 is one of Nintendo’s most expensive consoles, with inflation | Mario Kart World will cost $80, but not every Nintendo Switch 2 game will be quite so expensive2025-04-04

W13' Schedule I' is the #1 seller on Steam, blowing past AC Shadows | Microsoft’s Xbox UI ‘Leak’ Hints at Steam Integration – And PlayStation Games on Xbox?2025-03-28

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | The Center Cannot Hold2025-03-25

W12PC gamers spend 92% of their time on older games, oh and there are apparently 908 million of us now | Assassin’s Creed Creator Ubisoft Said to Seek Gaming Backers2025-03-21

W11Pokémon Go maker Niantic is selling its games division to Scopely for $3.5B | Steam saw Chinese users spike and exceed 50% of worldwide playerbase in February 20252025-03-14

W10Monster Hunter Wilds slays the 8 million units sold milestone in just three days, making it the fastest selling Capcom game, ever | EA hand Command & Conquer modders the source code for Tiberian...2025-03-07

W09Three years later, the Steam Deck has dominated handheld PC gaming shipments | Wonder Woman Game Has Been Cancelled And Monolith Shut Down2025-02-28

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | The Strokes | WHAM!2025-02-25

W08Marvel Rivals US support studio hit with layoffs | Rockstar Games talks with top metaverse creators, with an eye on making ‘Grand Theft Auto’ the next creator platform2025-02-21

W07Squad Busters disappoints but Brawl Stars soars in record year for Supercell | In for the Forever Game | The PlayStation outage was a reminder of how few games I actually own | The biggest...2025-02-14

W06Chinese publishers set a new record! Six games dominate the TOP10 Steam best-selling list | The Console Wars Are Over And Nobody Really Won2025-02-07

W05Hogwarts Legacy will officially support mods with new update | New in-game content incentives coming to PlayStation games on PC2025-01-31

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | A Slight Switch | 2024 - A year in review2025-01-28

W04Sony Interactive Entertainment cancels live service games from Bluepoint Games and Bend Studio | EA lowers Q3 guidance as soccer and other games'underperformed'2025-01-24

W03Nintendo Switch 2 officially revealed | 2024, a year in review2025-01-17

W02Nvidia announces GeForce RTX 50-series Blackwell GPUs, starting at $549 | Overwatch 2 Twitch viewership halved as Marvel Rivals takes over2025-01-10

2024

Inaugural year · 37 issues

W51China’s video gaming revenue hits new high in 2024 on back of blockbuster releases | The Game Awards 2024-Winners, Announcements, Trailers, More2024-12-20

W50Path of Exile II Sets New Peak with Over 500,000 Concurrent Steam Players During Early Access | Epic Games Launches Fortnite's Exciting 5v5 Ballistic Mode2024-12-13

W49As the games industry continues to crumble around us, Fortnite proves it's still doing just fine as it hits a new player count record | New report claims gamers spend more time watching videos...2024-12-06

W48Hasbro’s Gamer CEO Focuses on Play After Film Business Sale | Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Had the Biggest Launch Month in Call of Duty History2024-11-29

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | A Rebuilding Year | 2025, the year of sustainable studios2024-11-26

W47Farming Simulator 25 has sold 2m copies in a week | Epic Games is expanding the Fortnite Crew subscription in December 2024 without hiking up the price | Fortnite's permanent OG Mode will have its...2024-11-22

W46Around 21% of European games professionals have been laid off in the past year | Blizzard is relaunching WoW: Classic with'all-new, fresh realms,' giving players another chance to experience WoW's...2024-11-15

W45Nintendo confirms backwards compatibility for its technically yet-to-be-announced Switch 2 console | Alan Wake 2 still hasn't quite made its money back, according to Remedy's latest financials2024-11-08

W44Sony closes Concord studio and permanently shuts down the game | The Sims 4 gained more than 15m new players in the past year, despite being over a decade old2024-11-01

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | When Risky Is All That’s Left | The future is gray2024-10-29

W43Netflix shuts down AAA “Team Blue” SoCal gaming studio | DayZ and Factorio break their CCU records, returning to top 10 highest-grossing premium games on Steam2024-10-25

W42Metaphor: ReFantazio sells 1 million copies in less than a day | Silent Hill 2 Remake Sells Over 1 Million Copies | Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Sales Reach 3 Million In First Day2024-10-18

W41Microsoft's 343 Industries Rebrands as Halo Studios, Adopts Unreal Engine | Google Must Crack Open Android for Third-Party Stores, Rules Epic Judge2024-10-11

W40Epic lowers Unreal Engine royalty fee for games released simultaneously on Epic Games Store2024-10-04

W39'Assassin's Creed Shadows' Launch Delayed to February 2025 | Ubisoft's Board is Launching an Investigation Into the Company Struggles2024-09-27

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | The Death of Consoles, I Suppose | Black Myth: Wukong and the impact on the Chinese game market2024-09-24

W38Palworld dev says the indie scene is going to see more Palworld-level hits as small creators learn to meet player needs that big companies are neglecting | Nintendo is suing Palworld developer...2024-09-20

W37Astro Bot: Has PlayStation Finally Found Its Mascot Character? | It's Really Nice That Astro Bot Just Has One Release Date | PlayStation’s'Astro Bot' Is a Model for the Video-Game Industry | The...2024-09-13

W36Sony is taking Concord offline, ceasing sales, and offering refunds | Tencent and NetEase are reportedly reconsidering and scaling back investments in Japanese game studios due to the resurgence...2024-09-06

W35Ubisoft Gives Annoyed Star Wars Outlaws Players Who Paid to Play Early but Lost All Progress a Trinket and Some Loyalty Points No-One Wants2024-08-30

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | Looking for a Spark | More Money, Fewer Players2024-08-27

W34Black Myth: Wukong Has Massive Launch, Overtakes Cyberpunk 2077 to Become Most-Played Single-Player Game Ever on Steam | Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024: All The Biggest Announcements2024-08-23

W33Borderlands Might Be 2024's Biggest Box Office Flop | In response to complaints of' free demos are stomping on paid games in the New & Trending charts', Steam splits out a new'Trending Free' tab2024-08-16

W32Fortnite Ends Exclusivity For Future Battle Passes | Game Informer Editor-In-Chief Says Goodbye After GameStop Deletes Previous Message2024-08-09

W31Activision Blizzard again boosted Xbox’s earning results, while hardware declined | Bungie eliminating 17% of its Workforce2024-08-02

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | July Summary: One Small Step | A Question of Value2024-07-30

W30Touchdown for EA Sports: College Football 25 Shatters Launch Expectations with Explosive Sales | Disney Has a Problem: Kids Are Watching YouTube Instead of Disney+2024-07-26

W29Vision Pro: As Apple headsets reach Europe, will VR ever hit the mainstream? | Leaked Valve data reveals it's smaller than most AAA developers, let alone publishers – and The Witcher 4 seemingly...2024-07-19

W28Xbox Game Pass Restructures Tiers and Hikes Prices, Day-One Now Premium-Only | The First Descendant's Playercount Shows Why People Are Still Making Live Looters2024-07-12

W27Fortnite and Epic Games Store Submitted to Apple for iOS Launch in EU | Nintendo says AI "can be more creative", but also recognizes it has issues2024-07-05

W26Elden Ring Jumps to Over 700,000 Concurrent Players on Steam Following Shadow of the Erdtree Launch | Sony Cuts Investment in VR Development, Only Two First-Party VR Games Currently in Development2024-06-28

MonthlyMonthly Takeaway | June Summary: That Old Time Feeling | Shadow of the Erdtree: A Live Service Strategy, Actually2024-06-27

W25Paradox shutters Tectonic Studio and cancels Life by You | Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree Is The Highest Rated DLC Of All Time2024-06-21

W24Microsoft clearly still cares about Game Pass. Exclusives? Not so much | Lego Horizon Adventures Shows Even Sony Knows Growth Lies Beyond Your Own Platform2024-06-14

W237 Things We Just Learned About Sony’s Big PlayStation 5 Plans | Linux user share on Steam breaks 2% thanks to Steam Deck2024-06-07

W22Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Confirmed to Launch Day One on Xbox Game Pass | Rainbow Six Siege fans roundly boo the announcement of a new monthly subscription service2024-05-31

W21Welcome to GIES!2024-05-27