The Business of Video Games Podcast

It's Friday!

Søren Lundgaard from Ghost Ship Games returns to discuss the recent triumphs and setbacks while once again sharing his wisdom with Shams and Fernando on the studio's growth and their expansion into publishing.

And of course major topic is the launch of Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core, a spin-off that faced massive criticism and review bombing, particularly in China where the pricing was considered too high, which leads to the question: how do you recover from that in 2026?

Additionally, we can't have Søren on without of course talking about their continued success, now with Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor.

This and MUCH more, thanks for listening!

More on Ghost Ship Games, Deep Rock Galactic and Deep Rock Galactic Rogue Core
More on Funday Games
More on Dress Maker
More on Wizard 3

It's Friday!

Shams and Fernando are finally addressing the AI elephant in the room, but not before dissecting Microsoft’s brutal studio cuts and why the old Game Pass pipe dream hasn't gone the way they planned.

Then, we dive headfirst into the AI swamp. Are these models built on stolen IP? Probably. Can you stop this wave from coming? Not a chance. We’re looking on developers hiding their AI use on Steam, geeking out over insane LLM-powered mods for Football Manager, and arguing how AI is going to democratize game dev just like Dreamweaver and drum machines did back in the stone age (fair enough?).

We also make time to hype up The Planet Crafter and a brilliant indie game about a skateboarding glass demon (Skate Story). And much more.

Thanks for listening!

More about Skate Story here
AI Games on Steam

It's Friday!

And holy moly. Trust us when we say - this one is one for the books.

Our dear friend Johan Pilestedt is finally back(!) to the interrogation room, to take us down the very depths of developing and releasing Magicka under their publishing deal with Paradox Interactive. A trip down memory lane about crunching, missing timelines by an absurd 700%, and pocket advance money for a promised Xbox 360 port with zero completed milestones? You bet. And that's not even close to the whole truth.

TLDR: Read the contract.

But before they go into the interview the hosts eulogize games media's death, noting IGN as the last struggling legacy dinosaurs. Fernando also brings up a theory on why modern audiences are hyper-fragmented and monolithic media is dead among many other nuggest.

Finally, the panel goes into what they've been playing. 

Thanks for listening and have a great weekend!

Also - watch the trailers for Magicka here:
Once upon a time
Get your Robes Ready Teaser
Vietnam Trailer
PVP Trailer

And of course that magical poster...

Welcome back dear listener and sorry to keep you waiting!

Fernando and Shams are fresh (+ one week give or take) off the Gamescom floor and ready to share a little bit of what happened when over 360 000 gamers and industry people flooded Cologne last week. While Shams spent the week hiding out in hotel lobbies, Fernando was out working the floor.

Today, we break down a couple of Opening Night Live favorites, including Neon Giant’s gorgeous immersive sim No Law and Paradox's IP-building play with Afterworld among other things. But the real meat is in the changing publisher landscape. Today’s publishers expect you to stroll in with 50,000 wishlists already, so make sure that you are locked in on doing very early community building. Add in the fact that AI tools are making prototyping dangerously easy, and the market is about to be flooded with cheap indie hobby projects. 

But hey! Despite it all, Fernando and Shams actually have a shocking revelation: the industry vibes are actually good again. Deals are being signed, optimism is back, and Fernando is officially famous enough to be recognized purely by his voice at an Icelandic industry mixer. So what could possibly go wrong?

Thanks for listening and have a nice weekend!

Oh and btw!
Read Shams interview in Gamesindustry here and also his other interview in Gamesbeat here.

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)