October 14, 2026

⚠️⚠️ gameloop will be switching to publishing 3x per week (MWF) starting next week! ⚠️⚠️

Microsoft has unveiled Xbox Labs, a new experimental division led by Xbox CTO Scott Van Vliet. The team will explore emerging technologies including AI-assisted game development, cross-platform porting, game decompilation and modding, with a focus on making games easier to create, modify and play across devices. Xbox says it will develop in the open and share its tools with developers, potentially bringing new capabilities to the broader games industry.

Gaming saw a wave of major deals in Q3 2026, led by EA’s $55 billion buyout, Paramount’s $110 billion Warner Bros. acquisition and Alibaba’s $1.5B+ sale of Lingxi Games. According to Drake Star Partners, 45 gaming M&A transactions totaled $2.4 billion, excluding the headline megadeals, while private companies raised another $1.6 billion across 106 funding rounds. AI and development tools captured over 80% of private investment, and gaming stocks rallied roughly 15% despite continued industry layoffs.

Rollcraft CEO Rob Carroll shares how his indie studio raised $87,000 from 67 investors through WeFunder, using equity crowdfunding and revenue sharing instead of traditional publisher funding. His biggest lesson: fundraising quickly becomes a full-time job, requiring constant marketing, community engagement and investor updates. Carroll recommends building an audience, preparing promotional content and organizing legal and financial paperwork before launching a campaign. The studio is now planning a second funding round.

Braid and The Witness creator Jonathan Blow spent more than 10 years developing Order of the Sinking Star, a $30 puzzle adventure featuring roughly 1,500 puzzles. His studio, Thekla, built an entirely new programming language (Jai) and custom game engine alongside the game, adding years to development. Despite the success of The Witness, the team eventually faced funding concerns and partnered with Arc Games to finish the project. Blow says the next game should be easier now that the underlying technology is complete.

Ludeon Studios is moving RimWorld from Unity to its new in-house Waylith engine, reporting 2–4× performance improvements without changing the game's appearance or gameplay. In testing, late-game colonies ran 2.2× faster, while a modpack containing 1,500 mods loaded in 6 minutes instead of 14. The upcoming 1.7 update preserves existing saves and most mod compatibility, with an unstable beta available now. Ludeon also teased another game being built with Waylith.

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