News
Industry news, game highlights, and deep dives from our editorial team.
The Console Price Hike Tracker: Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo in 2026
Switch 2 rises to $499.99 on September 1 after the UK Series S hit £429.99 in August and PS5 climbed again in April.
Nintendo's Switch 2 Holiday Plan: 23.68 Million Sold and a Stacked Winter Lineup
Switch 2 is Nintendo’s fastest-selling system yet — and Monster Hunter, Pikmin 4 and a $50 price hike land this …
GTA 6's Gravity Well: Why 2026 Console Growth Rests on One Release
Newzoo puts the 2026 games market at $213.9bn — but console growth only exists because of GTA 6 on November 19.
Every Big Game Landing This Fall: From Gears of War to GTA 6 on November 19
Gears of War: E-Day, a new Castlevania, Phantom Blade 0 and GTA 6 — the confirmed fall 2026 release dates, platforms and …
CD Projekt Red Posts Its Strongest Half-Year and Lays Out Three Years of The Witcher
Revenue rose 23% to 435m PLN and net profit 37.8% — plus a Witcher 3 Remaster on September 29 and The Witcher 4 in 2028.
Bungie Reverses Course: Vaulted Destiny 2 Content Is Coming Back
Bungie says it is ‘absolutely not done with Destiny’ and will restore vaulted campaigns, raids and …
Black Ops Cold War Joins Game Pass as Cyberpunk 2077 and Frostpunk 2 Head Out
Microsoft has confirmed September 2026’s Game Pass wave one — six additions including Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold …
268 Jobs Cut, Halo Handed to Activision: Inside Xbox's Biggest Studio Shakeup Yet
Xbox is eliminating 268 more roles, moving Halo and Rare to Activision, folding Obsidian into Bethesda and proposing the …
2026 Is On Track to Be the Worst Year for Game Industry Layoffs on Record
The ASGC tracker forecasts 14,259 layoffs by year end, up 78% since January — the second-worst total on record after …
The October 2026 Horror Calendar: Hellraiser, Silver Pines and Remothered's Finale
Six horror games land in October: Hellraiser and Silver Pines on October 8, Tenebris Somnia, then Remothered’s …
SteamDB's New Owner, MindsEye's Maker Insolvent: September's Biggest Industry Stories
Nexus Mods buys SteamDB, CD Projekt Red profits climb 37%, Build A Rocket Boy enters administration, Epic faces a €100m …
Prompt-Built Games, Ad Credits and Digital Likeness Rights: Platform Policy in Late 2026
Meta ships AI game builders, Microsoft patents ad-credits for natural pauses, and the NO FAKES Act advances.
Cheating Has Become an $8.5 Billion Business — And Studios Are Spending More to Fight It
Activision and Anybrain put the cheat market at $8.5bn a year, with 69% of studios calling it a serious problem.
$5M Bets and 1 Billion Plays a Month: Why the Browser Is Gaming's Hot Platform Again
An Irish startup just raised $5M for ‘console-quality’ browser games, while Poki reports 1 billion monthly …
Why Nexus Mods Bought SteamDB — and Why PC Gamers Are Nervous
SteamDB’s founder burned out; Nexus Mods’ new owners bought the site. Everything stays free — for now, they …
700 Games Landed on Steam in One Week — and 74% Barely Got a Single Review
For the first time ever, more than 700 games launched on Steam in a single week — 530 of them finished with fewer than …
Phaser 4, PixiJS 8, Kaplay: Picking a Web Game Engine in 2026
Phaser 4 shipped April 10, 2026 — on WebGL, not WebGPU. The corrected guide to choosing an engine.
WebGPU in 2026: Where It Genuinely Helps — and When to Stay on WebGL
Chrome and Safari are ready, Firefox is partly ready. Where WebGPU compute truly helps, and when WebGL2 wins.
How Web Game Developers Actually Get Paid in 2026
Poki’s revenue share, CrazyGames’ payouts and itch.io’s long tail — the honest economics of browser …
Why Some Games Spread on Their Own: Flappy Bird, Wordle and the Sharing Loop
Retry loops, status and daily rituals — the documented patterns behind games that market themselves.
10 Free Browser Games You Can Start in Under 10 Seconds
Ten no-download picks from our 37-game library — stealth, rhythm, physics and idle loops, sorted by mood.
Mobile-First H5 Games: dvh, Safe Areas and Touch Targets That Work
Design for the phone first: viewport units, safe areas, 44/48px targets, pointer events and a test checklist.
WebAssembly in 2026: Faster Than JavaScript? Here's What the Benchmarks Say
The invented 45ms-vs-8ms table is gone. Here are real published numbers, honest use cases and three toolchains.
Gamification Works — If You Get These Four Levers Right
Points and badges are not a strategy. What motivation research says about rewards, progress, comparison and loss.
The Day Flash Died — and How Web Games Rebuilt Themselves
Adobe blocked Flash on January 12, 2021. The real timeline of how HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly replaced it.
Your First WebGL Shader: A Water Ripple That Actually Runs
The old snippet used a uniform it never created. Here is complete, runnable ripple code plus what each stage does.
Offline Earnings, Prestige and the Math of One More Click
Why leaving is rewarding — the three-layer number design behind Cookie Clicker, Kittens and Idle Mining Empire.
Browser Games Are Winning the Attention War — Here Are the 2026 Numbers
100M people now play web games every month. Poki’s study of 2,000 players explains why the browser won.
No Storefront, No Gatekeepers: How the Web Rewrote the Odds for Small Studios
Two people, one link, millions of players. What HTML5 actually changed about cost, distribution and discovery.
Physics at 60 FPS: How Native Code Sneaks Into Your Browser Tab
WASM is not magic, but physics loops and pathfinding are where it pays off. The honest engineering guide.
Do Puzzle Games Make You Smarter? What the Meta-Analyses Actually Say
Training effects on memory are real. Claims of a general IQ boost are not. The honest science of puzzle play.