September 21, 2026

A new analysis of more than 100,000 paid Steam games offers a detailed look at how revenue is distributed across the platform. The report estimates $132.4 billion in lifetime gross revenue, while revealing a heavily concentrated market where the top 1% of games account for 84.6% of estimated revenue and the median title earns just $3,498. The figures are estimates based on review counts and pricing rather than official Valve sales data.

Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé shares lessons from helping transform Nintendo’s brand during the DS and Wii eras. His core advice: understand what your brand stands for first, then use great content, new audiences and carefully chosen partnerships to expand its reach without losing its identity.

A Shanghai court ordered an unnamed generative AI company to pay ¥750,000 ($112,000) to MiHoYo after it reproduced and sold AI-generated voices based on 63 Genshin Impact characters. The company also used game imagery and story animations to market the voice packs. The ruling is reportedly Shanghai’s first unfair-competition case involving AI recreations of voiceover work, potentially setting an important precedent for AI use in China’s games industry.

Valve appears to have quietly personalized Steam’s Discounts & Events grid, replacing a section once dominated by bestsellers with recommendations tailored to individual players. Some smaller games are already seeing dramatic results: one indie title received 7,341 visits from the section in a single month, compared with just 14 across the previous five months. The change could give niche and older games significantly more visibility without needing bestseller-level momentum first.

Thai indie studio Bit Egg, developer of Lost and Found Co., has become the first video game developer to receive Thailand’s Prime Minister’s Export Award, the country’s highest government honor for exporters. The recognition comes as its hand-drawn hidden-object game surpasses 100,000 copies sold and becomes Thailand’s most wishlisted game on Steam.

Indie developers are criticizing ‘Best Indie Games’, a YouTube channel with 190,000+ subscribers, for its paid promotional packages reportedly starting at $2,228 and charging $380 for a single X post. Developers who previously paid for promotion say the campaigns generated little traffic or wishlist growth, while marketing consultant Indie Game Joe says 20–30 developers have contacted him with similar experiences.

Chip architecture giant ARM’s Peter Hodges explains how chipmakers work directly with game developers to shape new development tools and optimize hardware features. The discussion includes ARM Neural Technology, which can help mobile developers bake lighting faster and deploy more dynamic lights, including through Unreal Engine’s MegaLights, while exploring the broader challenge of designing tools developers will actually use.

The Defold Game Jam 2026 is underway, giving developers two weeks to build a game with the open-source engine while competing for $9,000+ in rewards from Defold, Poki, Heroic Labs, Photon, Kenney and others. The event also includes a free eight-talk online conference covering multiplayer, mobile monetization, publishing, animation, shaders and Defold’s future roadmap, with recordings available afterward. Top entries can also earn publishing opportunities, €1,000 Poki release payments, multiplayer infrastructure and developer tools.

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