GIES Methodology

Why methodology matters

Gaming-market coverage is crowded with news aggregators, fan blogs, and consumer review outlets. GIES occupies a different lane: structured intelligence for senior decision-makers. The methodology below is what makes that lane defensible. Every issue applies the same five-lens lookup, the same source-tier rubric, and the same fact-vs-assumption labeling discipline.

Readers can audit any issue against this page. Where a claim falls short of the published standard, that is a defect, not a stylistic choice.

The five lenses

The video games market is large enough that no single framing captures it. GIES uses five durable lenses. Every issue lands in at least one lens. Most issues touch two or three. The through-line: how design choices shape player behavior shape business outcomes.

Lens 01

Players & audience

The demand side. Who plays, why, and how that translates to revenue.

Total reachable audience and demand patterns
Player segmentation and demographics
Motivations and gameplay preferences
MAU, DAU, playtime, retention, churn, LTV
Engagement metrics by platform and franchise

Lens 02

Markets

Geography. Same product behaves differently across regions.

US, EU, Asia, MEA, LATAM dynamics
Regional supply and demand differences
Asian publisher Western expansion (Krafton, NetEase, NCSoft, miHoYo)
Regulatory geography (EU loot box laws, US antitrust, Asian compliance)

Lens 03

Products

The games and IP themselves. What is shipping and how it performs.

Games, franchises, intellectual property
Gameplay, features, mechanics
Franchise lifecycle: sequels, remakes, DLC, season content
TAM evolution per IP

Lens 04

Supply

The industry side. Studios, publishers, platforms, hardware cycles.

Studios, publishers, platforms
Console hardware cycles and platform relevance
PC vs console market dynamics
Studio operations and labor (layoffs, restructurings)

Lens 05

Business models

How games make money. Monetization, M&A, publishing, regulation.

Free-to-play (F2P) economics
Premium pricing and microtransactions
Game Pass, subscriptions, battle passes, season passes
Live services, player acquisition, marketing
Gaming M&A, corporate development, publishing strategy

Source-tier rubric

Every claim in a GIES issue is sourced. Sources are ranked into four tiers. Tier rank determines the level of scrutiny applied and the language used to present the claim.

Tier	Source type	Example	Treatment
T1	Primary, audited	SEC filings, audited annual reports, court documents, government regulatory filings	Cited directly. Treated as fact.
T2	Primary, unaudited	Company press releases, executive earnings-call statements, official platform dashboards (Steam Charts, Twitch Tracker, App Store rankings)	Cited directly. Treated as fact unless contradicted by T1.
T3	Secondary, attributed	Reuters, Bloomberg, Financial Times, GamesIndustry.biz, Game Developer, Naavik, established analyst firms (Newzoo, Ampere, Niko Partners, IDC, Circana)	Cited with attribution. Treated as well-supported but not definitive.
T4	Secondary, unattributed or speculative	Anonymous-source reporting, leaks, social-media claims, fan-community estimates	Labeled "reported," "claimed," or "estimated." Treated as assumption requiring corroboration before any decision is built on it.

Rule: when sources conflict, GIES presents both, names the tiers, and resolves toward the higher tier. When the higher tier is silent, GIES presents the lower-tier claim with an explicit "unverified" tag rather than dropping it or laundering it as fact.

The fact / assumption / interpretation discipline

Every analytical claim is one of three things. GIES labels them explicitly inside each issue.

FACT. Sourced to T1 or T2, verifiable, and time-stamped. Example: "Microsoft Gaming revenue fell 9% year-on-year in the December 2025 quarter (T1, Microsoft 10-Q)."
ASSUMPTION. A premise that is plausible but not directly observed. Used when forecasting or modeling. Example: "Assumption: Switch 2 attach rate matches Switch 1 attach rate at the same lifecycle quarter (24 month mark)."
INTERPRETATION. A judgment about what the facts and assumptions mean. Example: "Interpretation: Sony's PS5 price hikes are a defensive move on margin, not a confidence signal on demand."

Mixing these is a defect. Readers can challenge any interpretation; they should not have to challenge the underlying facts as well.

Forecasting approach

Where GIES publishes a forecast (audience size, revenue, attach rate, market share), the forecast is constructed from explicit drivers, not extrapolated from a trend line.

Driver decomposition. The headline number is split into 3 to 7 component drivers (e.g. installed base, attach rate, ARPU, churn, geographic mix).
Driver sourcing. Each driver is anchored to a tier-ranked source (preferably T1 or T2).
Scenario range. A central case, an upside case, and a downside case are published with the assumptions that move them.
Sensitivity flag. Any driver where a 10% input change moves the headline by more than 10% is flagged.
Comparator check. The forecast is benchmarked against published numbers from at least one analyst firm (Newzoo, Ampere, Niko, Circana). Where GIES diverges by more than 15%, the divergence is explained, not hidden.

Conflicts of interest and disclosure

GIES contributors carry day jobs and consulting engagements in the gaming industry. The following rules apply.

Where a contributor has a current paid relationship with a company being analyzed, the relationship is disclosed in the issue header.
GIES does not accept paid placements disguised as analysis. Where a piece is sponsored, "Sponsored" appears in the issue header and the analysis is independent of sponsor approval.
GIES does not provide individualized investment advice. Forecasts are intelligence, not recommendations.

Cadence and revision

Weekly issues are written on a single-week cycle. They reflect what was known at publication and are not revised after the fact, except for factual corrections, which are timestamped and called out at the top of the issue.

Monthly Takeaways take a quarter-relevant view. They are written to be useful to a reader 30 to 90 days after publication, not just on the day of release.

Special Reports (deep-dives on a single topic) are versioned. A v1 may be updated to v2 if the underlying market shifts materially. Both versions remain accessible.

Where this methodology came from

The five-lens framework was developed by Emmanuel Rosier across roughly a decade of gaming-industry analysis (Electronic Arts global demand planning and strategic growth roles, then market intelligence at Newzoo). The source-tier rubric is adapted from financial-research practice. The fact / assumption / interpretation labeling is borrowed from forecasting discipline as practiced in macroeconomic and equity research.

The full editorial team applies the methodology to weekly research. Detailed contributor profiles on the authors page.

Audit and feedback

If a published GIES claim falls short of the standard on this page (mis-tiered source, fact-assumption-interpretation conflation, forecast missing scenario range), reach Emmanuel Rosier on LinkedIn. Corrections are published, dated, and credited.