It's Friday and we are back to to tackle two major industry deep-dives, but not before touching base on Microsoft and EA, comparing BBC quotes  and teasing a Patreon-exclusive story about a spectacularly failed kosher salt business.

First up, Shams and Fernando unpacks Joakim Achren’s newsletter breakdown (link here) on the "Six Reasons VCs Pulled Back from Games," examining why early-stage bets and public game studio IPOs are falling flat. Paired with insights from Thomas Bidaux’s ICO Partners newsletter, which recently tracked an all-time record number of Steam releases, they further explore why standing out is harder than ever.

Next up, it's time to dissect Matthew Ball’s massive, "doorstop" state-of-the-industry deck "The State of Video Gaming in 2026" (link here). Ball’s data reveals a sobering picture: actual growth is heavily carried by Roblox and subscriptions, overall gamer numbers might be shrinking due to screen fatigue, and median players are sticking to forever-games rather than buying new titles. And of course this is just the tip of the iceberg in Ball´s presentation.

Thanks for listening!

Shams quoted in BBC Ico Partners Newsletter Almost Ready Games Fund That page in Ball´s deck around time spent on new games that Fernando mentioned? Page 35 (link to deck once more here)

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