Game Industry Weekly — July 15, 2026
Hey hey, game developers!
Two data points landed this week that, together, describe the state of the industry more clearly than anything a CEO has said in months. Steam recorded its best first half in history. Revenue from January through June came in at $11.1 billion, up 14.5% year-over-year. At the same time, analysts project that global console shipments will fall 19.5% this year to 33.9 million units, the lowest level in years. These two lines are moving in opposite directions, and developers need to understand what that gap means.
Back catalogue is running the show
The Alinea Analytics data behind Steam's record contains one detail worth sitting with. 79% of H1 revenue came from catalogue sales, up from 71% in 2024. The platform's growth isn't coming from new releases. It's coming from older games being rediscovered, bought during sales, picked up because a new sequel or franchise entry arrived. Capcom executed this deliberately. Resident Evil Requiem generated $194.5 million on Steam, with Capcom driving catalogue purchases through targeted promotions on earlier franchise entries ahead of and around the launch.
Among new 2026 releases, Forza Horizon 6 led with $197.7 million, followed by Crimson Desert at $190 million, Slay the Spire 2 at $141.7 million, and Subnautica 2 at $133.6 million. The indie hit Meccha Chameleon reached $73.1 million and topped the platform in copies sold. Every one of these titles got there through a recognisable route. An existing franchise audience, a price low enough for an impulse buy, or a viral mechanical hook strong enough to generate organic reach. Without at least one of those, the window of attention available to a new release has narrowed considerably. You're not just competing with other launches this month. You're competing with a library spanning decades of discounted classics.
On the console side, Q2 data from Aream & Co sharpens the picture. PC gaming grew 13% in revenue during the quarter, while PlayStation fell 5% and Xbox declined 7%. Nintendo was the clear exception, up 90% year-on-year on the back of Switch 2. Gaming M&A reached $2.3 billion in Q2, the highest level since 2022, driven by mid-market acquisitions in PC and mobile. Private investment grew sixfold year-on-year to $3.1 billion, with significant activity in AdTech and AI tooling. The industry is contracting in some areas and expanding in others, and where capital is moving says a lot about which areas those are.
Ubisoft made it official
In its annual report published this week, Ubisoft announced a formal strategic pivot. The company will reduce its reliance on individual game launches in favour of a "more selective model" built around live service offerings and its legacy portfolio. CEO Yves Guillemot described the past fiscal year as "one of decisive action" and said Ubisoft needed to build a "more focused, efficient and resilient organisation" capable of "restoring sustainable performance over time."
The risks the annual report identifies are worth reading directly. Launching a game before it's ready, releasing against strong competition with little notice, or mispricing content can substantially limit commercial impact. The document also flags the tension between the restructuring the company is currently executing and the long-term stability of its development teams, a contradiction the report names without resolving.
Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, which launched on July 9, crossed 2 million sales on its first day. An established IP carrying its own momentum is doing what a large launch marketing budget used to do.
EA reversed course, and the reason matters
EA launched College Football 27 with paid progression inside its offline single-player modes, Road to Glory and Dynasty. The transactions ranged from $9.99 to $149.99 and were not disclosed before launch, absent from review previews. The backlash was immediate and vocal. EA removed the microtransactions within days, acknowledged it had "missed the mark," and committed to greater transparency in future live service planning.
The episode clarifies something for anyone thinking about monetisation. Player tolerance for microtransactions inside offline single-player modes is at the lowest point I can recall. EA applied live service logic to a context where players had no expectation of it, and the response was swift. The speed and completeness of the reversal suggests EA read the cost of a sustained bad news cycle and decided it outweighed the projected revenue. That calculation, in itself, tells you something about where the leverage currently sits.
Slay the Spire 2 and the decision the numbers validated
A short one, but worth noting: in an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, the developers of Slay the Spire 2 explained why they used their own slightly rough placeholder art rather than AI-generated alternatives. "They would feel a kind of sadness, right?" was how they described what the team would experience if their work were replaced by generated output. The game generated $141.7 million in revenue, which adds some weight to the decision. On July 4, I covered Godot Foundation formalising a policy against AI contributions. Slay the Spire 2 is the commercial counterpart, a small team arriving at the same conclusion independently, for their own reasons, and seeing it reflected in the result.
If the PC market data, Ubisoft's strategic shift, or the EA story connects to something you're working through in your own project, I'd genuinely like to hear it in the comments. And if someone in your network should be following along, pass this along.
Take care and see you next Wednesday!
