Sidecar here: Arc Games, which is financing the last year of development for Blow's game, sold off Torchlight late last year to pay down an outstanding loan.

I'm not a huge Pokemon guy, but I believe this is a first principal that has served Game Freak well.

Tough month for VR. Listen to me and @slhamlet.bsky.social talk through what Meta may have done to avoid this moment, what other builders are getting right, the risks of AI in virtual worlds and more. Like and subscribe.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

open.spotify.com/show/2DYEqB5...

Exit question on CES. Will robots be doing our chores anytime soon?

Waiting for October is the real gem in the Polaris catalog.

Jonathan Blow is an interesting creative force in gaming worth paying attention to, even if he talks a bunch of shit and blows up everyone's spot.

Just checked in with the team. 630k lifetime; 300K from 11/16 to 11/30 alone

Barron's really letting Roblox off the hook here. All game companies operate with a deferred revenue schedule and most of them have found a way to be profitable.

Anyone know what the "custom sheds" sketch might be? Arthur Two Sheds?

youtu.be/Hu4H5ykBP0I?...

I'd be losing sleep

I'm still sort of struggling to see how it's sound on paper. If you sell someone a PC to play games on, what is the hook that drags them away from Steam?

"Revisionist" might not be the right word here. Fairly certain this same crowd had this same opinion of the over-advertised, green-screen musical last year. "Contrary" is probably in play though...

Apple's AI service implementations may lag some of its peers, but that does not appear to be hurting unit sales. Shipments of Apple devices tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan grew an estimated 5% year over year in the third quarter.

Check out my colleague Stefan Modrich's excellent reporting on the role of AI in game development.

www.spglobal.com/market-intel...

Why are gamers excited for the Steam Machine? It's about bringing a vast PC gaming library into the living room. Steam has more than 100,000 games published or with scheduled release dates before the end of 2025, according to an analysis by S&P Global, 10x the count on PS Store.

Will not deny that there a distorting factors in VR.

This is true. They are in the rare position of making a PC that is designed to make money from software. But looking at what they've already done in hardware: The Steam Deck was competitive-ish at launch. The Index? Not so much.

I don't mean to call out anyone specifically, but the public has gotten into a strange habit of thinking this way. Private companies care about margins! Where do you think Gabe gets his yacht money?

That isn't to say that Steam Machines cannot be worthwhile or even successful with fewer sales. But take a grain of salt with headlines saying this is a substantive challenge to the console gaming model. Or at least wait until pricing is available.

Valve is more deeply entrenched in gaming culture and vernacular than it was 10-15 years ago. Does that mean Valve can sell expensive hardware at Sony- or Nintendo-level volumes? So far it hasn't.

If developers are using Gen AI to ideate or refine code, I don't necessarily see that as deleterious to the creative process. When you start to move into asset generation, it would be easier to lose sight of the inherent benefits of human creativity.

YouTube video by The Jeff Gerstmann Show The Jeff Gerstmann Show 177: An Enthusiastic Four-Year-Old Tells You About Katamari

The moment when the great @jeffgerstmann.com almost said my name on his podcast! (I was quoted in the Bloomberg report. So, maybe I wasn't very close to being mentioned at all.)

youtu.be/8IpuaE6fhLg?...

Huh... I missed the era of Steam where you could buy Mike Epps: Under Rated.

CapIQ Pro clients can read the full report here: www.capitaliq.spglobal.com/apisv3/spg-w...

EA's new owners will want to keep costs in check, but current licensing agreements cost $500 million a year and are likely to grow with renewals before the end of the decade.

This is an insane piece of music.

I'm here for @jamesaltonsanders.com music posts.