Jon Hicks

Opinion

ESA's iicon was a promising start, but needs more commitment and more candour | Opinion

The new industry event has the right idea and most of the right audience, but had a few significant absences

May 1, 2026 Jon Hicks

Feature

How Evil Empire makes one of the most effective indie showcase events – while juggling Castlevania, live ops, and building its own IP

The flat-rate Triple-I initiative has a high hit ratio. "We had several games that made more than 100,000 wishlists only five days after the event"

April 29, 2026 Alex Forbes-Calvin

Feature

Why publishers and investors are increasingly backing user-generated games over conventional ones

Andrew Porat and Brogan Keane from management firm Double Black discuss how "kids in bedrooms" are doing eight-figure deals with firms that previously backed PC and console

April 27, 2026 Jon Hicks

News

Podcast: Call of Duty, Game Pass, and the Mario movie

Discussing the main stories of the week gone by

April 24, 2026 Jon Hicks

News

Microsoft CEO sees Xbox as "critical audience and category" that's "really important to the company’s future" says Asha Sharma

Xbox CEO wants to "see Xbox return to growth next year", echoes focus on active players as key performance metric

April 24, 2026 Jon Hicks

Data

Why Xbox took Call of Duty out of Game Pass

Data from Newzoo indicates that game was not driving subscriptions, while Game Pass was cannibalising its sales - and shows sharp drops in engagement across all platforms

April 24, 2026 Jon Hicks

News

"Not surprising at all" – analysts see Xbox Game Pass price cut as inevitable shift that will drive subscription growth in 2026

Dropping Call of Duty "does not mean the death of day-one game releases on Game Pass;" opinion is divided on the impact on the game's revenues

April 22, 2026 Jon Hicks

News

Microsoft cuts Game Pass pricing and removes Call of Duty as day-one launch title in response to "a lot of feedback"

Price drops from $29.99 to $22.99; new Call of Duty releases to be added "about a year" post-release; change does not fully revert most recent increase

April 21, 2026 Jon Hicks

Feature

"This is not a sustainable business model" – Why Google Cloud's Jack Buser thinks AI can save the games industry

The global director for games believes AI has the potential to "right size" business models in an era of shrinking margins

April 21, 2026 Alex Forbes-Calvin

News

Kotaku hires Rebekah Valentine as Senior Reporter as site expands under new ownership

Owner Keleops says that traffic has doubled in under a year; further hires planned to drive further growth

April 20, 2026 Jon Hicks

News

Podcast: Roblox, Hollywood, and London Games Week

The GamesIndustry.biz podcast returns with a look at some of the biggest news stories of the week

April 17, 2026 Jon Hicks

News

Roblox releases agentic AI tools for creators, promising ability to "build a game with a single prompt"

Company claims new tools can generate game design document, create a game from it, and run QA tests

April 17, 2026 Jon Hicks

News

ESA's iicon conference expands speaker lineup, with EA's Andrew Wilson joining CEOs of Ubisoft, Take Two, Riot, Savvy Games and more

New conference for entertainment execs and leaders includes sessions from the MLB, Roblox, IGN Entertainment, Warner Bros. and Story Kitchen

April 13, 2026 Jon Hicks

Feature

Follow a game's rules, not its story: Exit 8 director Genki Kawamura on the secret to a successful movie adaptation

"People try to take the story of the video game and translate that into a movie – I don't think it really functions that way"

April 13, 2026 Lewis Packwood

Feature

Reddit posts can be more important than data, and other lessons from maintaining Candy Crush as a forever game

Head of live operations Eva Ryott discusses changes in player behaviour and how King keeps its mobile hit engaging for millions

April 3, 2026 Sophie McEvoy

Stub

Xbox announces FanFest world tour to mark brand's 25th anniversary

Community event will take place in LA, London, Mexico City, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto, with more locations planned

April 2, 2026 Jon Hicks

Feature

A Game Pass for indie games: meet Indie Pass, a $6.99-a-month subscription launching with 70 titles

Indie.io's Jess Mitchell says that the platform will help smaller creators with discoverability in an ever-busier games landscape

April 2, 2026 Alex Forbes-Calvin

Feature

Raiding like it's 1999: Why Daybreak thinks new players will try a 27-year-old MMO

Inside the "passion project" of EverQuest Legends, resurrected from lost backups by fans from the emulation community

March 30, 2026 Sophie McEvoy

News

Krafton shutters free-to-play PUBG spin-off after two months, in line with policy of using Early Access to "quickly validate a game’s potential"

Company abandons top-down shooter after two months of declining player counts, despite franchise delivering record revenues

March 30, 2026 Jon Hicks

News

The list of people hit by recent Epic layoffs has been turned into a dedicated portal for recruiters

Google sheet turned into dedicated website, while Tim Sweeney steps in following outcry over laid-off worker losing cancer treatment

March 30, 2026 Jon Hicks

News

Unity sees growth in engine revenue, shuts down IronSource ad network in favour of Vector AI user-acquisition platform

Firm also planning to divest internal publishing arm as part of drive to "simplify the business"

March 30, 2026 Jon Hicks

News

Ziff Davis announces new IGN France partnership, as part of international licencing expansion

GamesIndustry.biz parent also launching French version of CNET as it expands partnerships globally

March 26, 2026 Jon Hicks

Stub

Early Bird pricing for Develop Brighton ends today

GamesIndustry.biz is returning as a media partner for this year's event, which runs from 14-16 July

March 25, 2026 Jon Hicks

Feature

"The player base never disappeared; they just didn't have anything to play" – Echo Foundry on reviving the rhythm game genre

Industry veterans Marcus Henderson and Lennon Lange discuss how they plan to right the wrongs of Guitar Hero and Rock Band

March 18, 2026 Sophie McEvoy

Feature

"We will support Dead by Daylight as long as we can" – How Behaviour evolved the horror hit into a live-service success

Senior creative director Dave Richards and partnerships chief Mathieu Cote discuss the title's impact on its co-dev business and how the studio hopes to extend the game to a second decade

March 17, 2026 Alex Forbes-Calvin