Christopher Dring

We're running an awards to celebrate top video game marketing campaigns! More details through here. www.thegamebusiness.com/p/enter-the-...

$500 million Gears of War cannot happen again (Paid Subscribers) www.thegamebusiness.com/p/500-millio...

Lots in this one... - EA should let independent devs take a crack at Mass Effect - It's "easy" to get 1m players on web-based game platform Poki - Ken Kutaragi fears the console isn't needed anymore - And Cassia Curran and I try to make sense of game pricing (we did try)

"We see a lot of complaints about the phone price. We found a way to drop it by $100, but $399 for a flip phone, although it’s not your granny’s flip phone, can seem expensive. That is purely because the RAM price went from $11 per unit to $86 per unit." www.thegamebusiness.com/p/how-one-st...

Today we're going retro with Commodore CEO Peri Fractic by discussing the surprising direction he's taking the classic gaming brand, including a 'digital detox' flip phone that taps into a growing desire to disconnect www.thegamebusiness.com/p/how-one-st...

In today's Here's The Dring, we revisit the Call of Duty vs Zelda vs GTA 6 conversation, plus what to make of all the AI noise. Reminder: Here's The Dring is our newsletter/podcast for paid subscribers. Our Tuesday and Thursday Shows remain free. www.thegamebusiness.com/p/ocarina-of...

Interview: Activision on Game Pass, Nintendo, Black Ops and rebuilding trust in Call of Duty www.thegamebusiness.com/p/fixing-cal...

To steal from one of my readers. Zelda and GTA are not ‘the barbenheimer of games’. They’re the Ocarina of Crime.

"We really wanted to rebuild trust"

In today's The Game Business, I've been chatting to Guha and Karthik Bala, the leaders of Velan Studios and former heads of Vicarious Visions. We talk about surviving in a hostile US game development scene... and how they won the backing of Nintendo www.thegamebusiness.com/p/star-fox-d...

“The Nintendo partnership is a very special and unique one, and the bar is really high in terms of what we need to make.” www.thegamebusiness.com/p/star-fox-d...

This week's Here's The Dring (for our lovely paid subscribers), discusses the new AI, prompt-based UGC platforms offered by Google, Roblox and Meta. Plus, whether there is anything actually new to the Xbox XP division? www.thegamebusiness.com/p/is-prompt-...

- 35% of Wolverine sales came via physical (over 50% in Europe) - Switch 2, Xbox and PS5 sales jumped - Wardogs and Blood of the Dawnwalker beat famous names in the September charts - Over 50% of game publishing revenue is now concentrated on just ten companies - Pearl Abyss chat reviews scores

"We’ve had a small team on State of Decay 3 since maybe 2020. But development didn’t really pick up until 2022 or 2023.” www.thegamebusiness.com/p/how-undead...

Chunky episode this week as we spend time with the freshly independent Undead Labs as it begins its journey outside of Xbox

"We understand it’s a risky project, but it’s also a project that allows us to build a relationship with Nintendo and with Nintendo players.” www.thegamebusiness.com/p/games-medi...

Bloober Team chat Nintendo, finding weird projects, and becoming a platform for horror games. New York Games Week talks about its soft launch next week, and the thinking behind its decentralized approach. There are more media layoffs, too. Big edition this one.

An extra episode this week! This one is all about Criterion, and whether the Battlefield Studio still the same one that made Need for Speed

Big chat with Tencent this week, where we tackle the rise of Chinese games in the West, its long-term approach to building hit studios, the ambitions it has for Hollywood and lots more

It’s Monday! So time for 'Here's The Dring' (paid subscribers only). This week, Chris reports back on his experience visiting the Nintendo Museum. And why it embodies Nintendo’s efforts to widen the audience for its games and franchises www.thegamebusiness.com/p/nintendo-i...

ahh full blown editorial pitches from an AI is it

"Will these moves save Xbox? It’s certainly got a long battle ahead. But ultimately success will be decided, as it always is, on the strength of the games it puts out. And it’s making big moves to deliver on that"

Xbox is merging studios underneath Activision and Bethesda. Halo is now at Activision, alongside Rare and World’s Edge. 268 job cuts across Halo Studios, other first-party teams and Xbox Game Studios management. Ninja Theory faces closure. More here: www.thegamebusiness.com/p/halo-to-ac...

Big chat this week with the boss of Rainbow Six Siege

This week, I'm reporting live from Tokyo. Here's my mini-review of Tokyo Game Show. This is for paid supporters to The Game Business. I'll do a smaller recap on Thursday for free subscribers!

Big edition this week, with two interviews and breaking stories!

We’ve just shot past 30,000 subscribers to The Game Business! Plus, @jamesbatchelor.bsky.social is the latest person to start doing some bits for us. Double milestones!

In this bonus edition of The Game Business Show, we chat to Balatro publisher PlayStack on the impact of the hit poker game, the role of indies in the modern video game industry, and what they expect from their new owners www.thegamebusiness.com/p/beyond-bal...

“For the last six years, we have made redundancies every single year, about 20% of the company. This will be the first year we haven’t done it.” www.thegamebusiness.com/p/the-shoote...

Today's edition looks at this new shooter that's suddenly blown up. We chat to the CEO of the studio behind it, including his expectations around crunch, rewarding staff, and dealing with the sudden success

In today's paid-for subscriber edition, I dive into Kojima's alignment with Xbox. Can he make Xbox 'cool'?

Zelda Direct's peak viewership was 2.1 million. By comparison: - GTA 6 Extended Look (excluding Netflix) on YouTube hit 4.1m - PlayStation State of Play peaked at 1m - Gamescom Opening Night Live peaked at 2m - The SGF opening hit 2.2 million - Mario Kart World Nintendo Direct was 930k

“We’re not so silly as to claim that we’re going to kill Forza Horizon” www.thegamebusiness.com/p/some-of-th...

Our big interview this week is with @harinder.bsky.social and Mike Brown of Maverick Games talking Amazon, Focus, racing games and Forza. It's one of the Top Five interviews I've done this year (in my opinion)

"Trends and numbers can tell you what’s happening right now. It can certainly help back up your decisions. But in my experience, success in video games comes from those who follow their instincts, and not from reading the latest market report, or LinkedIn think piece."

GTA 6 reveal causes Xbox and PlayStation sales to jump by a third www.thegamebusiness.com/p/gta-6-reve...

Our first big interview from Gamescom. "If you want to have a cost-driven development, and that’s a proper business thinking for a lot of games, you cannot make a game like The Witcher 4. I doubt if the development of GTA VI was a cost-driven development. In fact, I’m 100% sure it wasn’t.”

Our 25% off Summer Sale ends today! It supports all the things we do (and you get some nice extras)

Reminder, we have a 25% off Summer Sale the ends tomorrow! You can get an annual subscription to TGB, which includes a bonus weekly podcast/newsletter, plus a monthly market report. It also supports all the work we do! Our main Tuesday and Thursday shows remain free.

In today's 'Here's The Dring', Chris shares my thoughts on GTA 6 and Gamescom 2026. Plus, he shares a story about how legendary British comedian Bob Mortimer ended up in an indie game www.thegamebusiness.com/p/how-a-lege...

So Patrice Desilets says he's talking with publisher Fictions about doing more Ancestors games. CD Projekt promises to do 'something' physical for The Witcher 4. And Raccoon Logic told me that gamers in subscription services don't buy DLC or add-on content

If you want to fill optimistic about the future of the video game business, check out this brilliant (he says) interview I did with the CEO of Unity

Focus Entertainment has signed Clutch, the AAA racing game made by Forza Horizon leaders. Still 25% off TGB paid subscriptions until Monday!

Black Pony Immersive is a new studio from Harvey Smith, Ricardo Bare and Ben Horne. Ben and Harvey came on our Show and discussed the apparent 'death' of immersive sims, the remarkable story of Redfall's final update, and building a studio for the modern age. It's a really fun, positive conversation

We have 25% off paid The Game Business subscription until August 31. Paid subscribers get: - An extra weekly newsletter and podcast called 'Here's The Dring' - Our monthly market report - The chance to The Game Business Live in LA at no extra cost www.thegamebusiness.com/p/summer-sal...

Where is today's episode of The Game Business Show? It's coming tomorrow because it ties with a news story, and features two legendary game makers. It's just a one-off. Back to Tuesdays from next week.