#Publishing

Six Xbox Games Are Available Today, Including September's Final Game Pass Addition (September 29)

Six games launch on Xbox today, September 29, led by The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Remastered, which is a free update for existing owners and includes the Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions. September's final Xbox Game Pass addition is Minecraft Dungeons 2, available on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC. Other releases today include Gothic 2 Complete Classic, NEIGHBORS: Suburban Warfare, Transport Fever 3 and Way of the Hunter 2.

SEGA Finally Joins Xbox Disc To Digital

SEGA has officially begun rolling out its games onto Xbox's Disc to Digital program, though it currently appears limited to Xbox Insider testing. Reported successes include Persona, Like A Dragon, Yakuza, and Unicorn Overlord, while titles such as Alien Isolation are not yet included. It remains to be seen whether other major publishers like Square Enix or Bandai Namco will join.

Grasshopper Manufacture splits from NetEase Games

Grasshopper Manufacture announced it has split from former parent company NetEase Games and is once again an independent developer. NetEase Games had acquired the studio from GungHo Online Entertainment in 2021. Representative director and CEO Goichi Suda said the decision followed thorough discussions with NetEase Games and their cooperation, after the studio released ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN this past February.

No More Heroes Dev Grasshopper Splits from NetEase, Returns to Independence

Grasshopper Manufacture, the Japanese developer behind No More Heroes, Shadows of the Damned and Lollipop Chainsaw, confirmed it is no longer owned by NetEase Games and has returned to being an indie studio. The two sides held talks and decided to part ways, with Grasshopper saying it has improved its self-publishing know-how and wants to deliver titles in a wider variety of styles. NetEase acquired the studio in 2021 and let it go five years later, ahead of Grasshopper's 30th anniversary.

Suda 51's Grasshopper officially regains independence from NetEase

Grasshopper Manufacture, the studio led by Goichi Suda, has announced it is officially independent of former parent company NetEase Games. The studio was acquired by NetEase in 2021 and released its latest title, Romeo Is A Dead Man, this February, marking its 28th anniversary in March. The statement said the decision followed thorough discussions with NetEase and their cooperation, and that the two companies will keep collaborating. NetEase has sharply scaled back its overseas investments, closing studios including T-Minus, FPC, Bad Brain and Ouka Studio, and splitting from Worlds Untold and Jar of Sparks.

Football Manager 27 Joins Xbox Game Pass as November's Third Title

SEGA's Football Manager 27 launches November 10th on PC, with the Console version arriving the same day on Xbox, and both will be available via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass on day one. It is the third Game Pass title confirmed for November, alongside the 1-4 player co-op action builder Gravhounds and the minimalist strategy game Thronefall. Developer Sports Interactive is focusing on a cleaner interface, smoother flow and enhancements to the 3D match engine after criticism of Football Manager 26's UI.

Tencent Leads $25 Million Series A for Turkey's Circle Games

Turkish mobile studio Circle Games has raised $25 million in a Series A round led by Tencent, bringing its total funding to $32.25 million. The new funds will be used to bring its newly launched Jelly Escape to more markets, grow Sort Express globally, and double its staff. Sort Express, a merge-elimination puzzle game, currently generates about 15 million yuan in monthly revenue.

Double Fine's first game since being dropped by Xbox, Thank You Bus Driver, launches October 14

Double Fine announced that Thank You Bus Driver, its first game since being dropped by Xbox, will launch on October 14 for Steam, GOG, and Itch.io, and is now available to wishlist. The driving sim is described by the studio as Crazy Taxi meets Papers, Please, and is published under Double Fine Action Labs, a label for experimental games. CEO Tim Schafer said such titles are complete but rough, scrappy, and small, meant to be cheap and played in shorter sessions, and not something like Psychonauts 3.

Halo's Former Franchise Creative Director Sees 3 Possible Paths for Activision's Halo

Frank O'Connor, Halo's Franchise Creative Director for nearly 20 years at 343 Industries/Halo Studios, has outlined three possible paths for Halo under Activision. They include a classic Halo movement, sandbox and shooter experience for the core audience, a modern reinvention of the game and universe, or translating the Halo IP and sandbox into Activision's proven player, progression and business models. He also advised against tying the series to hardware or services launch cycles and suggested hiring talent from Bungie, Halo Studios and other laid-off developers.

Housemarque and Bithell Games Join Game Republic New Horizons Speaker Lineup, Nintendo to Host Open Session for Developers and Publishers

Game Republic New Horizons has added Housemarque and Bithell Games to its speaker lineup, plus an open session with Nintendo representatives for developers and publishers. Housemarque VFX lead Robbert Groenendijk will cover visual effects design and technical implementation in Saros, while Bithell Games' Mike Bithell will join a fireside chat about Vampirium: 1997. The Nintendo breakfast session runs October 15 from 8:30 to 9:30 am, requires a GR New Horizons ticket, and is now fully subscribed.

Coinbase Joins Pokémon TCG Hype With Its Own Digital Pack-Opening Service

Coinbase announced in a September 28 tweet that it will launch a phone-based digital pack-opening service, with every pull backed by a real physical card that users can vault or have shipped. The post's image showed five Pokémon TCG card packs labeled "Pokémon," though the text did not name the franchise. Details remain sparse, including how Coinbase's crypto platform status will affect the service and how cards will be graded or ownership proven.

"A quite beautiful compromise": The LEGO Skylines devs did consider brick by brick building, but decided it was too much fuss for players

Iceflake Studios, the Cities: Skylines 2 and Surviving the Aftermath developer behind Paradox Interactive's LEGO Skylines, considered brick-by-brick building early in development but decided it was too much work for players. Producer Joanna Ronkanen called the game's template-based customisation "a quite beautiful compromise," while game director Lasse Liljedahl said more brick-related features will be shown later.

Why So Many Steam Games Have Weirdly Similar (and Forgettable) Names

Failbetter communications director and games marketing consultant Hannah Flynn says too many developers copy other games' naming styles, producing interchangeable titles on a crowded Steam. She flags filler words like "fall of" (11,527 Steam results), "echoes of" (2,750) and "shadow of" (8,243), arguing a good name should reflect the game itself. GameDiscoverCo founder Simon Carless counters that names mainly need to be short, clear and not easily confused with another game, since most people buy based on footage or recommendations.

Valve moves Steam discounts and events to dynamic, personalized recommendations

Valve announced that Steam's Discounts and Events page will use dynamic and personalized recommendations, giving more discounted games and sale events a chance to appear on the homepage and elsewhere instead of being limited to a small, fixed number of slots. Valve said a manually managed calendar no longer fits diverse player tastes, and while no hard rollout date is set, it expects to begin the process in early 2027. The change affects what players see rather than what they pay, and the author notes it could give indie developers more visibility.

Putting Together a Game Showcase Means Treating 45 Minutes Like a Puzzle

Evil Empire co-founder Benjamin Laulan said the Triple-I Initiative uses a 45-minute "in and out" structure with only trailers and no host, out of respect for viewers' time. The showcase focuses on "high-quality" indie games for an enthusiast audience, balancing world premieres with returning big names. He described assembling a showcase as a puzzle.

Thunderpick Takes Year-Round Role in 2026 Esports Awards

Valve updates Steam's Discount & Events section toward dynamic, personalised listings

Valve is updating Steam's Discount & Events section, moving from manual, calendar-based placements to a more dynamic and personalised system to improve discoverability. Valve said the shift lets it display ten times more games daily and has produced increases in store page visits, wishlists and cart additions, with the new system to be fully implemented in early 2027 and new tools coming for developers. Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender said the section, once weighted toward best-selling games, is now showing indie titles with under a hundred to a few thousand reviews, with some small games going from near-zero visits to a few thousand.

Xbox's disc-to-digital feature rolls out to all players after Insider testing

Xbox's disc-to-digital feature is now available to all users, arriving with the next system update. Inserting a compatible Xbox One or Xbox Series X disc grants a digital licence while the disc still works, and the digital version can be played on disc-free consoles like the Series S, with support for Play Anywhere and Xbox Cloud Gaming on some titles. The feature also covers games delisted from the digital store, such as Deadpool, F1 2021, Minecraft: Story Mode, Rock Band 4 and Titanfall, though Xbox says not every disc yields a licence yet.

Veteran Solo Dev Sparks Debate: "The Game Itself Is Now Secondary"

A developer who moved from AAA studios to solo projects posted in an overseas community that "the game itself is almost secondary," saying publishers want trailers, screenshots and key art validated and wishlists built before real production begins. Hundreds of replies split between those who call this the standard path to publisher funding over the past 10 years and those who insist the game itself still comes first. One commenter's breakdown of 7,000 wishlists leading to about $10,000 net showed that good data does not guarantee players stay.

Behind Steam's "Exposure Hunger": 470 Game Festivals in 6 Years, Yet Two-Thirds of Games Never Get In

An analysis by the game marketing blog How To Market A Game counts 470 third-party online game festivals around Steam, yet only about 31% of new games released since 2020 have appeared in one, leaving two-thirds with no access at all. The Wandering Village topped the list with 59 festivals, while Lost Twins 2 joined 35 festivals but drew only 53 reviews after launching last year. A YouTube channel was also reported to sell exposure, with a $2,228 package yielding just 1,622 impressions and zero wishlist growth.

Meta unveils AI game creation tools Horizon Create and Horizon Studio

Meta announced Horizon Create and Horizon Studio at its Meta Connect developer conference, letting users generate complete 2D or 3D mobile games with level design, progression systems and multiplayer from text descriptions, then publish them to Facebook, Instagram and Horizon. Both tools are still in testing with access limited to selected creators and a waitlist for others, and no official launch date was given. Horizon Create is a mobile app that can run multiple creation threads at once, while Horizon Studio is a browser-based platform covering design, editing and post-launch live operations and analytics, with both sharing the same backend.

Limited Run Announces Lord of the Rings: War in the North Physical Release for Switch 2

Limited Run Games is distributing the physical version of The Lord of the Rings: War in the North - Legacy Edition for Switch 2. The standard copy pre-orders open on 2nd October 2026 for $49.99 USD and include a slipcover and Wayfinder's Ledger Booklet, while a Deluxe Edition at $79.99 USD adds a steelcase, cloth map and weathered letter with a foreword by Jed Brophy.

Satisfactory announces first paid DLC Core Values, taking building underground

Coffee Stain studios announced Core Values, the first paid DLC and a major expansion for Satisfactory, which will take the construction sim underground for the first time with new resources, flora and fauna. It is coming "later," though a Steam page is already live.

Steam's discounts and events tab will soon be fully algorithm-driven

Valve is turning Steam's discounts and events section into algorithm-driven personalized recommendations

Valve announced that Steam's discounts and events section will move away from hand curation to more dynamic and personalized recommendations. In a blog post, Valve said that after months of testing dynamic recommendations in place of some curated spots, it showed 10x more games per day in that section and saw meaningful increases in store page visits, wishlists and cart additions. Valve said it has no definite date for the change and is still tuning the details.

Game Informer's Grand Theft Auto VI Digital Issue Is Now Live

Game Informer announced that the digital version of its November 2026 issue, featuring Grand Theft Auto VI on the cover, is now live. The 14-page cover story includes new developer interviews with Rockstar Games and 12 exclusive new screenshots focused on Leonida and how Rockstar recreated the state of Florida ecologically and culturally. The issue also features a 10-page preview of Tides of Annihilation, an interview with Invoke Studios about Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons, and previews and reviews of other upcoming games.

《心之眼》工作室濒临破产，已解雇全部员工

"Why should we just give up the entire month of November?" – The indie games going head to head with GTA 6

Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to launch on November 19, and while major publishers have moved their games away from that date, Fairy Mount's Flame, Forest and Flood and Devolver Digital's Volvy's Adventure: Reslimed are still launching the same day. Fairy Mount's CEO calls it a statement for the small gamedev scene, while Devolver points to GTA 6 not launching on Steam as a gap worth targeting.

This year's update to my Capcom story includes an updated animation of Capcom's ever-evolving list of 10 best-selling games

All New Games Coming to Xbox in October 2026

Pure Xbox has rounded up every Xbox game with an October 2026 release date, along with the confirmed Xbox Game Pass lineup so far. Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve arrives October 1, Gears of War: E-Day lands October 6, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 launches October 23. On Game Pass, Keeper is confirmed for October 2 as a new XGP Premium addition.

As noted in the most recent edition of Game File, Ubisoft has trademarked its internal name for the group handling its previously announc...

Roblox launches Roblox Everywhere, letting developers ship platform games to Steam and mobile stores

At RDC 2026 Roblox announced Roblox Everywhere, a plan that lets developers package games made on the platform as standalone apps and publish them to Steam, the App Store, Google Play and even console stores, with Roblox still providing the underlying technology and operations. Roblox shares rose about 13% to close at $51.29 on the following trading day. A Roblox spokesperson told Game Developer that the first creators selected to publish games externally will benefit from the same revenue share economics as the Roblox app, including the higher DevEx rate for verified users aged 18 and over in the US.

Lilith's Cat Paw Latte Studio unveils urban life sim Qi Yu Dong Wu Cheng

Lilith's newly incubated Cat Paw Latte Studio released the first PV for Qi Yu Dong Wu Cheng, an animal-city life simulation game. Players live with animal roommates that have their own schedules and needs, take on jobs such as idol, milk tea shop owner or mayor, and can transform into an animal to rent a friend's home. The studio has about 100 staff and posted a recruitment notice last week.

Xbox reportedly paying a fraction of the $400 million Kojima quoted Sony for Physint

Multiple outlets say Xbox is paying far less than the reported $400 million budget for Hideo Kojima's stealth game Physint. Christopher Dring of The Game Business, who first cited the figure, later clarified Xbox is likely paying quite a bit less than what Kojima originally quoted Sony, while Bloomberg's Jason Schreier said his sources described the figure as significantly less and Windows Central's Jez Corden said it was only a fraction, with no actual number reported. Physint was originally a PlayStation project before Sony pulled funding after it exceeded budget and missed deadlines, and Xbox later picked up funding and publishing, with the deal including film and TV rights for Physint and improved terms for Kojima's horror game OD.

Windows Central: Xbox Is Paying a Fraction of What Sony Was Paying for PHYSINT; Deal Included Enhanced Terms for OD

According to Jez Corden's article on Windows Central, Xbox's deal with Kojima Productions for PHYSINT is worth far less than the reported $400 million figure that Sony and PlayStation may have been on the hook for before cancelling. The deal also includes movie and TV licenses for PHYSINT and enhanced terms for OD, Kojima's atmospheric horror game for Xbox. Chris Dring had reported the $400 million budget on his podcast but walked the claim back after Bloomberg's Jason Schreier cast doubt on it.

Xbox's Physint Deal Potentially Significantly Less Than $400M, Jason Schreier Says

Jason Schreier said someone at Xbox with firsthand knowledge of the deal told him the company signed Physint for significantly less than the roughly $400M figure reported by The Game Business. He cautioned that he is hesitant to give exact numbers without documentation or corroboration from multiple firsthand sources, noting the many different figures involved, including what PlayStation originally signed Physint for and what Xbox agreed to.

Transport Fever 3 developer interview: 13 years of transport games

Chuapp interviewed Urban Games senior 3D artist Manu Oehler at Tokyo Game Show 2026 about Transport Fever 3. Oehler said the game leans further into tycoon management, with cargo now routed by the player and storable in warehouses, and that map terrain shapes how each map plays; he said playability wins over realism when the two conflict, and that Paradox handles publishing, marketing, translation and testing. The game launches September 29 on PC, Mac, Linux, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with development spending of about 24 million.

MobyGames Now Lets Developers Claim Their Game Credits

Video game database MobyGames now lets developers claim credits for games they worked on and build personal portfolio pages, but only through a new premium tier called MobyGames Professional. The service launched in beta in June with a full 1.0 version due this autumn, and costs $14.99 a month or $11.99 a month with an annual subscription, with a 45-day free trial currently available. Product manager Reece Denzel said thousands of developers have already claimed their pages, though the feature does not let them edit the structural information of their credits or add themselves back if they were removed entirely.

NEW: In a sequel to one of Game File's biggest posts from 2025, I've got new charts and discoveries about how Capcom's games are doing

"There is a chasm between the LLM and your enterprise business and context"