Gaming · Wednesday, 9 September 2026

01 Briefing what happened

PowerWash Simulator's studio cut seven people, then asked staff not to say redundancy

FuturLab cancelled a game nobody has seen, let seven developers go without telling their managers, and told the company to call them the leavers. Sweden's Star Stable cut a fifth of its staff the same day.

developers let go at FuturLab, after up to three years on a game that was never announced

their own managers were not told, so that the managers would not feel guilty [2]

20%

of Star Stable Entertainment's staff in Sweden, cut on the same day

the studio is 57% owned by the Danish group Nordisk Games [4]

48%

of European games company founders say they are running at a loss right now

35% say they decided against hiring someone because AI tools could do the work [5]

61% vs 35%

of European developers who fear AI will speed them up, against those who fear it takes the job

AI has already changed how 78% of them work [5]

The lead story — what happened

FuturLab, the British studio that makes PowerWash Simulator, cut seven jobs in July after cancelling a game that had been in pre-production for two to three years. [1][2]
Chief executive Kirsty Rigden said the cancelled game would have cost more to make than it was expected to earn. [2]
Staff on that project were left with no work assigned to them for weeks after it was shelved in late June, sources told the site This Week In Videogames. [1][2]
The managers of the seven were not told their own team members were going. One source said this was so they would not carry any of the guilt. [2]
At a later meeting, staff were reportedly told not to say redundancy and to call the seven the leavers. [2][3]
Rigden would not confirm whether the seven were made redundant, calling it a confidential and legally binding process. [2]
PowerWash Simulator 2 is still being made, and Rigden said the studio is fully committed to it. The cancelled game was a separate project with nothing to do with PowerWash Simulator. [2][3]
On the same day, Sweden's Star Stable Entertainment cut 20% of its staff. Interim chief executive James Watkins said the step was needed to secure the studio's long-term future. [4]
Across Europe, 48% of games company founders say their company is currently operating at a loss, and 60% say they are keeping their teams small on purpose. [5]
Epic Games chief executive Tim Sweeney calls this the industry's worst crash since the 1980s, blaming the cost of big-budget development and a shortage of memory chips. [6]
Sega halted Super Game, its own attempt at building a new always-online series, saying the money and staff needed would have to grow enormously. [7]

Who is involved

Kirsty Rigden

chief executive of FuturLab, the Brighton studio that makes PowerWash Simulator; she confirmed the cuts and the cancelled game
Chris Mehers

FuturLab's chief operating officer; staff say he told an August meeting the studio was restructuring
James Watkins

interim chief executive of Star Stable Entertainment, the Swedish studio behind an online horse-riding game; he announced the 20% cut on LinkedIn
Tanja Loktionova

founder of the games recruitment firm Values Value; she wrote the European employment survey the figures above come from

How it unfolded

Late June FuturLab cancels the unnamed second project; the team is given nothing to do [1][2]
July seven people are let go; their managers are not told in advance [1][2]
August the chief operating officer tells a meeting the studio is restructuring [2]
Tue 8 Sep the cuts become public; Star Stable announces a 20% cut the same day [2][4]

Where this points

Watch whether FuturLab publishes a headcount - it has never given one, before or after the cuts, and PowerWash Simulator 2 is still being made. [2]

What is pushing on the whole day

The bar and the word are our reading of how hard each one is pushing today. The arrow is where it is heading. The evidence is in the stories below.

Studios shrinking High↑

FuturLab cut seven and Star Stable cut 20% on the same day [2][4]; Sega halted its biggest new project [7]; Don't Nod is consulting on up to 90 job losses and says it may run out of money in January [8][9]

Old games doing the selling High↑

a remake and two decade-old Call of Duty ports were among July's biggest earners [18]; Capcom says it will now revive dormant series [17]; Nintendo has dated an Ocarina of Time remake [12]

The disc going away Building↑

GameStop's game sales nearly halved while collectibles rose 57% [10]; four big publishers are refusing Xbox's disc-to-digital swap [11]; GOG is publishing printable box art so players can build their own boxes [27]

AI moving into the work Building↑

35% of European founders decided against a hire because AI could do the job [5]; a commentator says EA played him his own generated voice for NHL 27 [15]; a Saber writer says she was replaced with AI [32]

November filling up Building↑

Ocarina of Time, Escape Academy 2 and Food Devils are all dated for the month Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives [12][29][34]

The rest of the day

30 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

02
GameStop's record profit came from toys

GameStop, the biggest game shop chain in the United States, reported its highest second-quarter operating profit since it listed on the stock market in 2002: $160.2 million. Almost none of it came from games. Collectibles - trading cards, figures and the like - grew 57% year on year to $356.3 million and are now 45.1% of everything the chain sells. Its video game sales nearly halved, from $494.6 million to $263.2 million, and used games fell from $250 million to $170.7 million. [10]

Why it matters — GameStop taught a generation to trade games in. Its chief executive Ryan Cohen now says physical game sales are irrelevant to the company, and collectibles bring in more than new games do. [10]
03
Four big publishers block Xbox's disc swap

Microsoft's disc-to-digital feature lets an Xbox owner put a game disc in the console and get a digital copy tied to their account instead. Players testing it report that discs from Sega, Square Enix, Ubisoft and Bandai Namco return a message saying the publisher is not participating in digital licensing. Microsoft says the rollout is gradual. There is no official list of which games work, so players have built one themselves at a site called xct.live. [11]

Why it matters — A disc can be lent, sold or bought second-hand and a digital copy cannot, so a publisher that agrees to the swap gives up a possible future sale. Those four companies hold a large share of the back catalogue people still own on disc. [11]
04
Ocarina of Time is being remade for November

Nintendo held a Zelda anniversary broadcast on Monday, and dated a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for 5 November, only on the Switch 2. IGN calls the original one of the most beloved games ever made. Nintendo is charging $69.99 for the cartridge and $59.99 for the download, and says the whole game is on the cartridge rather than a download code. A wider Nintendo Direct of 45 minutes is coming next. [12][13]

Why it matters — A cartridge holding the whole game can be lent and resold, and Nintendo charges $10 more for it rather than less. That is the opposite direction to the four publishers refusing Xbox's disc swap. [12][11]
05
France's president wants games treated as heritage

France's president Emmanuel Macron announced at the weekend that France will create an international video game festival. He said it at the Lumiere Summit, a meeting about film and moving images, and said video games are part of French culture and should sit beside cinema as heritage. He named no date, no city and no budget. France has reason to notice: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, made in Montpellier, sold millions in 2025 and Macron has praised it publicly twice. [14]

Why it matters — Macron said it at a film summit and asked for games to be treated the way cinema already is. For French studios such as Don't Nod, which says it may run out of cash in January, the question is whether money follows the speech. [14][9]
06
Developers fear being sped up, not replaced

A survey of European game workers found 61% worry that generative AI will push them to work faster and produce more. Only 35% worry it will cost them their job. The report was written by Tanja Loktionova of the recruitment firm Values Value. It also found that 35% of founders decided not to hire someone because AI tools could do the work, 48% are running at a loss, and 60% are keeping teams small on purpose. [5]

Why it matters — The fear that gets reported is losing the job. The fear inside the industry is a new normal speed, which no company has to announce and nobody counts. [5]
07
A hockey commentator heard his own AI voice

John Buccigross, a television commentator who records lines for EA's NHL 27, said on a podcast that the publisher played him back sentences in his own voice, generated by AI. He said it impressed him, and that if it means less work for the same fee he will take it. He also said the software gets things wrong - it once had a crowd getting out of its chairs rather than its seats - and that someone has to listen back and correct it. The account comes from him, not from EA. [15]

Why it matters — This is the first named person to describe hearing his own generated voice in a big sports game. Less work for the same money is exactly the trade the European survey above says developers do not expect to be offered. [15][5]
08
Sega halted its biggest new project

Sega's president Shuji Utsumi said the company stopped Super Game, its codename for building a brand-new always-online series from scratch. An always-online game sells things to the same players for years instead of once, which is why publishers chase them. Utsumi said Sega believed it had the technology, but found the money and staff needed would have to grow enormously to run a service at that scale, and judged it too risky now. Sega had already cancelled a live-service shooter, Hyenas, in 2023. [7]

Why it matters — Sega says it still believes in the business, pointing to Phantasy Star Online 2 and a Total War: Warhammer 40,000 game in closed testing. Tencent, the Chinese giant, calls always-online its holy grail and keeps spending. [7]
09
Sega counts fans who never play

Sega's president told the Japanese business paper Nikkei that the company now has more fans who have never played its games. He gave Yakuza as the example: between 60% and 70% of people buying Yakuza merchandise are women, many of whom found the series through Sega's YouTube channel and streamers rather than a controller. Sega counts them as fans and as gamers. The company has spent several years pushing Sonic, Persona and Yakuza into film and television. [16]

Why it matters — If more people know a series than play it, merchandise and television can earn more than the games. Sega says those buyers are often more engaged than the people holding a controller. [16]
10
Capcom will dig through its old catalogue

Onimusha: Way of the Sword, the first new game in that series for twenty years, sold more than a million copies on its first day. Capcom, the Japanese publisher behind Resident Evil and Street Fighter, said it will now focus on reviving dormant series - ones it stopped making. Capcom said it is working to get more out of its existing library. The day-one sales took the Onimusha series to 10 million lifetime sales, and the last main game came out twenty years ago. [17]

Why it matters — A revival starts with an audience that already exists, so it costs less to sell than something new. That is the same reasoning behind Nintendo's Ocarina of Time remake and Atlus's remake plans. [17][12][26]
11
July's charts were a remake and two old shooters

Newzoo, a firm that tracks game spending, published its July charts. Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, a remake of a 2013 pirate game, entered at second on PC and fourth on console. Ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2, both more than a decade old, took first and sixth on console after being put on PlayStation 4 and 5 with no announcement. Newzoo's analyst Mert Sahin said the results show how much value is still sitting in an old catalogue. [18]

Why it matters — Three of the month's biggest earners are games people could already have played. Studios cutting staff this week are being measured against titles whose development was paid for years ago. [18]
12
Peak's studio becomes a publisher

Aggro Crab, the small studio behind Another Crab's Treasure and last year's surprise hit Peak, has set up a publishing arm called Aggro Crab Presents. Its first signing is Rebounder, a hand-drawn platformer about a contract worker running deliveries across a hazardous moon. Aggro Crab joins Innersloth, which made Among Us, and PocketPair, which made Palworld, in using one hit to fund other people's games. These developer-run labels usually offer terms that leave the studio a bigger share of what its game earns. [22][23]

Why it matters — Publisher money got much harder to raise this year - it is the reason Don't Nod gave for its own trouble. Studios that got lucky are becoming the replacement source. [22][9]
13
Stronghold's studio starts a strategy label

Firefly Studios, the British team behind the castle-building series Stronghold, has launched a publishing label called Wuselfaktory. Its first game is Fool King, by a first-time developer, in which players position an army and then watch the battle play out. Firefly is funding it and handling marketing, and its owner Devolver has lent a producer for translation and testing. Studio head Nick Tannahill said strategy is not fashionable but is one of the most successful categories on Steam. [24]

Why it matters — Two developer-run publishers launched in the same week, both aimed at games too small for a large publisher to bother with. [24][22]
14
Valheim finished after nearly six years

Valheim, the Viking survival game that people could not stop playing in early 2021, has left early access with a 1.0 update. Early access means a game is sold unfinished on the promise it will be completed; a great many never are. Its Swedish developer Iron Gate kept adding to it for almost six years, and the game has been on Xbox since 2023 through a similar unfinished-games programme. Reviewers say the finished version is recognisably the same game with more in it. [20]

Why it matters — An early-access game that actually finishes is unusual enough to be news. Valheim's shape has since turned up in later hits such as Enshrouded. [20]
15
Jackbox splits out a ten-year-old mode

Jackbox Games, whose party packs are played by a group together in one room or online, is turning Fakin' It into a game of its own. Fakin' It first appeared in Jackbox Party Pack 3 in 2016: one player secretly does not know the question everyone else is answering, and the group has to spot them. Fakin' It XL is dated 12 November. Jackbox did the same recently with Trivia Murder Party. [19]

Why it matters — The studio is unbundling its own back catalogue rather than making new games, which is the cheaper half of the trade Capcom and Nintendo are making. [19][17][12]
16
A Club Penguin replacement gets funded

Stephen MacDonald, a senior manager at Disney between 2012 and 2015, has founded Magic Potion Games to build a successor to Club Penguin. Club Penguin was a Disney-owned online world for children that ran from 2005 to 2017 and had over 300 million registered accounts; it died with Adobe Flash. MacDonald argues children now go straight from preschool shows to Roblox, which he says is not safe for that age. His game, Imagine, is backed by Square Enix and three venture funds. [21]

Why it matters — The gap he describes is between a child's first screen and the adult internet, and right now it has one occupant. [21]
17
GOG is printing box art for home assembly

GOG, a shop that sells old PC games as downloads with no copy protection, has released printable versions of 1990s big-box packaging, made from 3D scans by a fan group called Big Box Collection. Players can print, cut and glue their own boxes for games in GOG's preservation programme, including Descent, Myst and Star Trek: 25th Anniversary. The idea follows Sony's decision to stop making physical PlayStation games. Polygon's guide to the series this week found the earliest Grand Theft Auto games are not on sale anywhere now. [27][41]

Why it matters — Preservation has become partly a hobby. When a shop stops selling a game and no disc exists, whether it survives depends on people who kept a copy. [27][41]
18
BlizzCon returns after two years away

Blizzard, the American studio behind World of Warcraft, Diablo and StarCraft, holds BlizzCon on 12 September, its first since 2023. Blizzard president Johanna Faries has called 2026 the studio's biggest year and says its teams are working on large changes across all its series. She says the show will deliver what fans want while bringing new things too. GameSpot expects a new World of Warcraft expansion and the first StarCraft news in years. [28]

Why it matters — Blizzard has not held the show since 2023, and it returns in a year when other studios are cancelling projects and cutting staff. [28][7]
19
A November release walks into GTA 6's month

Coin Crew Games has dated Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School for November, the month Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives. Publishers have largely cleared that month: almost no major game is scheduled beside Rockstar's, apart from a joke release from Devolver and a batch of Atari re-releases. Coin Crew's co-founder Mike Salyh said a co-operative escape-room game is not competing for the same evening. Coin Crew Games was founded by real escape-room designers and made its debut with Escape Academy in 2022. [29]

Why it matters — One unreleased game has emptied a month of the calendar. That is what the industry means when it says the money has concentrated. [29]
20
GTA 6 will not unlock everywhere at once

PlayStation Store listings suggest Grand Theft Auto 6 will unlock at midnight local time in each region rather than at one moment worldwide. New Zealand would go first and parts of Central America last, a gap of about 19 hours. Rockstar has not confirmed it. The game is due on 19 November and is expected to be the biggest entertainment launch ever measured. [30]

Why it matters — A staggered unlock means 19 hours in which some players have seen the story and others have not, which is a problem for anyone trying to avoid spoilers. [30]
21
Sony earns 59% more per player than on PS4

Daniel Ahmad, an analyst at the research firm Niko Partners, calculated that Sony now takes 59% more money per active PlayStation player than in 2018 - roughly $230 more each per year. He put the rise down to more expensive PlayStation Plus tiers, more spending on downloadable extras, and higher hardware prices, and said growth has been flat for the last year or two. He was answering Sony chief executive Hiroki Totoki, who had explained why the company advertises the PS5 less than it used to. [33]

Why it matters — Sony does not need more players if each one spends more, which is how a console generation can feel quiet and still be its most profitable. [33]
22
Someone is trying to make a MOBA anyway

A small developer called Nirvanana has announced Project Zeta, a new MOBA - two teams of five fighting over one map, the shape of League of Legends and Dota 2. PC Gamer calls the category near-impenetrable: the games take months to learn, and pulling a League or Dota player away from the game they already know is very hard. Its writer describes the wider always-online market as a sea of failures. [36]

Why it matters — Sega walked away from this exact business last week, and Nirvanana has a tiny fraction of Sega's money. [36][7]
23
Free Stars ships a demo after five years

Pistol Shrimp Games has released a free combat demo of Free Stars: Children of Infinity, the official sequel to the 1992 space game The Ur-Quan Masters, made by that game's original creators. The demo covers only the one-on-one ship battles, with a roster of nearly 40 ships, and is on Steam and GOG for Windows, Mac and Linux. It has been in development for five years, and part of the writing was done by volunteers - including the Ars Technica writer who reported it, who declared it. [31]

Why it matters — The 1992 original was released free by its own creators, which is why people could keep playing it for thirty years and why there is an audience for a sequel now. [31]
24
Saber will not change how it talks after an AI row

Tim Willits, chief creative officer of Saber Interactive, said the studio will not change how it speaks publicly after recent rows. A former Saber writer, Stella Sacco, said she was fired and replaced with AI during work on Rideshare Stimulator. Saber's press team disputed the details, and then chief executive Matt Karch issued a statement that was strongly pro-AI and personally insulting to Sacco; he apologised to her privately afterwards. Willits said the games will speak for themselves. [32]

Why it matters — A studio arguing in public about replacing a writer with AI is the same argument the European survey measures, with names attached to it. [32][5]
25
Atlus says Persona 1 and 2 will probably be remade

Kazuhisa Wada, who produces the Persona series for the Japanese studio Atlus, told Rock Paper Shotgun that remakes of Persona 1 and 2 are something the studio will probably eventually do. Persona Revelations came out on the original PlayStation in 1996 and Persona 2 in 1999; neither has the social-links system the later games are known for. Wada described remaking a game as a kind of cultural preservation and a creator's duty. [26]

Why it matters — Every remake announced this week was described by the company making it as preservation. The other description is that it is the cheapest game to get approved. [26][17]
26
Autumn has more big games than there is room for

Publishers have stacked autumn 2026. Insomniac's Wolverine, Silent Hill: Townfall, Star Wars Galactic Racer, The Blood of Dawnwalker and Orbitals all arrive before Grand Theft Auto 6 in November. Polygon separately counted fifteen smaller games with confirmed dates in the same window that most players have not heard of. Games launching days apart split the same attention and the same money. [38][39]

Why it matters — A crowded season is how a good game becomes a commercial failure without anything going wrong with the game. That arithmetic is behind several of the cuts above. [38][2]
27
Dawnwalker's studio started the sequel in launch week

Rebel Wolves, the Polish studio founded by former Witcher developers, began work on a sequel to The Blood of Dawnwalker less than a week after the first game shipped. The vampire role-playing game came out at the start of September. Starting the next project immediately keeps a team of that size in work, because a studio between funded projects is a payroll with no income coming in. [25]

Why it matters — That gap between projects is where studios die. FuturLab cut seven people when the project meant to follow PowerWash Simulator was cancelled in pre-production. [25][2]
28
Hot Wheels racer leaves early access

Hot Wheels Infinite Rush, an arcade racing game by the Italian studio Milestone, leaves early access and launches in full on 10 September for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, Switch 2 and PC. Players race across a set of Hot Wheels tracks, build new ones and explore an open world. It has been on sale in early access, which means it was sold unfinished first. [35]

Why it matters — It is the second early-access game to reach a proper finish this week, after Valheim. [35][20]
29
Castlevania turns forty this month

Castlevania was first released in Japan on 26 September 1986, on a Famicom disk. Konami's game about the Belmont family fighting Dracula produced more than thirty sequels and spin-offs. One of them, Symphony of the Night, is half the basis of the word metroidvania. That word names games about exploring one large connected map. Polygon marked the anniversary this week. [37]

Why it matters — Two of the week's other stories - Capcom reviving dormant series and Atlus planning Persona remakes - are about catalogues of roughly the same age. [37][17][26]
30
A small studio's immersive sim demo lands

Deficit, by the studio Item42, has released a demo. It is an immersive sim: a game where one level can be solved by sneaking, hacking, talking or fighting, in the tradition of Deus Ex. PC Gamer's reviewer praised how it feels to move and shoot and criticised the stealth. Immersive sims are among the most expensive games to build, because every route through a level has to work. [40]

Why it matters — Small teams keep attempting the kind of game big publishers dropped, and a demo is how they find out whether anyone wants it before spending more. [40]
31
Food Devils dated for Ocarina's day

Studio Daimon has dated Food Devils for 5 November. It mixes grid-based tactical battles in the style of Fire Emblem with running a restaurant and a dating sim, in a world where a chef recruits demons by cooking for them. It arrives the same day as Nintendo's Ocarina of Time remake. [34]

Why it matters — A small game choosing a Nintendo release day is a bet that the two audiences do not overlap much. [34][12]

02 Lesson why it matters

Protecting people from a decision removes the ones who would object

FuturLab kept managers out of the choice so they would not feel guilty, and those managers were the only people who might have spoken up for their teams.

The twist

The people kept out of a decision to spare their feelings are usually the only people who would have argued against it.

How it works

A project is cancelled and some people are no longer needed
The company decides who goes
It leaves those people's managers out of the choice, to spare them the guilt
But those managers are the only ones who know the work in detail
So nobody in the room has a reason to argue for keeping anyone
The decision is made, and then the company sets the word everyone uses for it

The same force, elsewhere today

Where this chain is also running, in today's other stories.

Four publishers blocking Xbox's disc swap

the same step - the people who lose are not in the decision. Sega, Square Enix, Ubisoft and Bandai Namco never announced a refusal, so there is nothing for a player to argue with, only an error message on the television
Founders who decided not to hire because AI could do it

the same step one stage earlier - the person who would have had that job is never in the room, so nobody makes the case for hiring them, and no job loss is recorded anywhere
Star Stable's 20% cut

staff and players met the choice as a finished statement about securing the long-term future, which is the last step: the wording arrives after the decision and there is nothing left to answer

Where you've seen this

Hospitals

a ward's own nurses are left off the rota review that cuts their shifts, and they were the only people who knew which nights were busy

Schools

a subject is dropped by a leadership team without the teachers who taught it in the room

Elderly parents

adult children are kept out of a care decision to spare them the worry, so nobody asks the question they would have asked

The catch

Including the managers would not always change the answer. The money was the reason, and no manager can make a cancelled game earn more than it costs.

And the whole of it

Most of us do this in small ways. We keep a decision from someone to spare them the worry, and other people do it to us, and we only find out when it is already done.

03 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

The games industry is not short of money. GameStop just posted its best second-quarter profit since 2002, and a remake plus two decade-old Call of Duty ports were among July's biggest earners. [10][18] What is short is anyone willing to pay for a game that does not exist yet, which is why FuturLab, Star Stable and Sega all cut or cancelled in the same week. [2][4][7]

Why it works on us — Every one of these announcements is written in the language of care - securing the long-term future, the leavers, supporting the colleagues who are leaving us - and a kind sentence is much harder to argue with than a number. [3][4]

Who gains

GameStop — Its collectibles business grew 57% to $356.3 million and is now 45.1% of sales, lifting operating income to a record $160.2 million even as total sales fell. [10]
Capcom — Onimusha sold over a million copies on day one, and the company can now put its money into series it already owns rather than into new ones. [17]
Sega, Square Enix, Ubisoft and Bandai Namco — By staying out of Xbox's disc swap they keep the chance that a player who wants a digital copy buys one, instead of converting a disc already on the shelf. [11]
Nordisk Games — The Danish group owns 57% of Star Stable, and cutting a fifth of the staff lowers the running cost of a studio it holds. [4]
Aggro Crab and Firefly Studios — Both launched publishing labels with their own money this week, so small studios that would have queued at a publisher now come to them instead. [22][24]

Who pays

Seven developers at FuturLab — Their project was shelved in June and they were given no work for weeks, they were let go in July, and their own managers were not told it was happening. [1][2]
A fifth of Star Stable's staff in Sweden — The cut was announced on LinkedIn by an interim chief executive as a step to secure the studio's long-term future. [4]
Xbox owners holding discs from those four publishers — Inserting the disc returns a not-participating message, and Microsoft has published no list of which games do work. [11]
People who would have been hired into European games jobs — 35% of founders decided against a hire because AI tools could do the work, and 60% say they are keeping teams small on purpose. [5]
Stella Sacco — The former Saber writer says she was fired and replaced with AI. The studio's chief executive answered her publicly with a statement he later apologised for privately. [32]

What nobody knows yet

Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.

01

How many people work at FuturLab now.

The studio has never published a headcount, before or after the cuts, and would not confirm whether the seven were made redundant. [2]
02

What the cancelled FuturLab game was.

It was in pre-production for two to three years and has never been named or shown. All that is public is that it had nothing to do with PowerWash Simulator. [1][2]
03

How many people Star Stable cut.

The company gave a percentage rather than a number and has not published its staff count. [4]
04

Whether Sega, Square Enix, Ubisoft or Bandai Namco will ever join Xbox's disc swap.

Microsoft calls the rollout gradual; none of the four has said anything at all, and the only list of which games work is fan-made. [11]
05

How much of GameStop's record profit can be repeated.

Its total sales fell 19% year on year, and last year's higher figure was lifted by the Switch 2 launch. [10]
06

What France's international games festival actually is.

Macron named no date, no city and no budget, and said nothing about money for studios. [14]
07

How widely EA is using generated voices in NHL 27.

The claim comes from one commentator describing on a podcast a demonstration he was shown. Nothing in the reporting comes from EA. [15]
08

How many games jobs in Europe have quietly not been created.

35% of founders say they decided against a hire because AI tools could do the work, but a job that never existed is counted nowhere. [5]

04 Hope carry this

Valheim left early access this week, almost six years after it arrived. Its Swedish developer Iron Gate kept adding to the game for all of those years, and the version out now is the finished one.

Also true today

Aggro Crab, which made last year's surprise hit Peak, is using the money to publish other people's games. Its first signing is a hand-drawn platformer by a different studio.
Pistol Shrimp Games released a free demo of Free Stars: Children of Infinity, a sequel to a 1992 space game, made by that game's original creators and written partly by volunteers.
GOG has published printable versions of 1990s big-box game packaging, scanned by a fan group, so anyone can cut and glue their own box for Descent or Myst at home.