Games are cool. Economics is cool. Game Economics is just beginning.

The Strange Game Agglomeration Effects

This (the games industry is deprofessionalizing”) is an interesting line of thought by Ryan K. Ringey, and Simon Carless, especially when you consider how Roblox studios form – very much “de‑professionalised,” virtual, and less “sticky.” Sometimes, these Roblox studios look more like a Discord server than a company. It echoes Coase’s famous argument in The…

Will Monetization Actually Trump Engagement?

Marvel Rivals numbers are in free-fall. The engagement bump from the latest season won’t reverse its decline toward equilibrium: potentially matching but not exceeding Overwatch’s audience size, which has since recovered from Rivals’ launch. Is that a “successful outcome”? It feels like a blow to the arms race hypothesis. Chinese developers are releasing AAA content…

Marathon, Extraction Shooters, & The Big Shooter Mistake

Extraction shooters were supposed to be the next big leap, and Escape from Tarkov was the movement’s exemplar. Titles like Jager’s The Cycle: Frontier and Call of Duty’s DMZ failed to generate meaningful traction. Many mistakes stem from a misunderstanding of Royale’s place in shooter evolution, creating an inability to conceptualize what’s next. Bungie’s Marathon…

INZOI: THE SIMS HAVE A NEIGHBOR

While game director and sim genre maniac Director Hyungjun “Kjun” Kim seems to have delivered on the game at this stage in development, Krafton needs to step up to deliver on the title’s business promise. Krafton needs to flex its newly formed publishing arm quickly, or a franchise could slip away.

Anti-Ai Artists Need Better Arguments; They’re Losing the AI Debate

Another wave of AI advances, another chorus of artists crying foul. Each wave has been unoccupied by serious argumentation; pro-Copyrightists need to advance something beyond an assumed conclusion if they want to win minds, not just hearts. Copyrightists routinely declare AI-generated art and “training” as copyright infringement and insist artists are owed royalties. This presumption is…