Mamoulian War

NetEase continues with their cutting spree... I am so pissed now

Strange decision in the wake of super expensive hardware period. Seems like Sony did not get hint from their Japan experiment, that PS5 started to sell much better only after they lowered the price to affordable level 🤷‍♂️

Netflix removed their bid for WB. It looks like only Paramount is now in play. Would this be better for the future of WB gaming studio, or not?

Looks like at least one Grand Wizard did not figured it out 🤷‍♂️

Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, which are waging proxy war against each other in Yemen and Sudan just announced, that they are joinining together military operations of Israel and USA against Iran.

He pretty much predicted this day very accurately a week ago, all based on weather patterns and Lunar phase in the context of history of similar strikes.

Yeah, I find it logical, unfortunatelly it is very skewed in Euro countries, as some, like Slovakia, Bulgaria or Croatia, still have to pay same prices as in Germany or Netherlands. Despite income being 2-3x lower based on profession.

Not sure where to link it, so hopefully this is the right place for it, but the guy which got everything right about Maduro has another prediction.

French publisher Nacon files for insolvency (they own devs like Spiders [Greedfall]) https://www.vgchartz.com/article/467121/nacon-files-for-insolvency-as-it-assesses-all-possible-solutions/

From 25.98 to 100.76 EUR depending on the region of sale. https://steamdb.info/bundle/59764/

I have completely missed it yesterday, but classic FFVII has been released on GOG https://www.gog.com/en/news/final_fantasy_vii_is_now_out_with_a_limitedtime_discount_alongside_classic_final_fantasy_deals

Goal 2/2026 achieved. February 20, 22:00 – I have decided to follow with one more easygoing game, so I have picked up and finished shortly after Hero of the Kingdom III from GOG. After enjoying the first two games, this one felt a little bit more overwhelming. The main reason was very grindy nature of some quests in the second part of the game, which slowed down the tempo of the game, and made me to do a lot of busywork, before I was able to proceed to the last town, where the game became more easygoing again, but still more grindy, than first two acts. This also artificially prolonged the length of the game, with all achievements unlocked, to almost 11 hours, which is pretty OK, but because of that, the story felt shortest of the three games. There were also a few improvements, like the possibility to shop on the world map, which made the grind at least a little bit more bearable.

Goal nr.1 /2026 achieved I have the first game of 2026 behind me, Celestian Tales: Realms Beyond from GOG. I have been postponing playthrough of this RPG for a few years, because it was meant as a part of trilogy, but unfortunately, the Indonesian studio behind it was acquired by another company, and because the game underperformed the expectations of the new owner, the last game was cancelled :( . Because of that, the game has few small cliffhangers at the end. On the other hand, it offers few plot twists in connection to the first game, but the main premise is still the same. Your party of companions are here not to save the world, but you are helping them to get through their life struggles, and help them making their decisions.

And exactly because of what you said about the risks in this industry, expecting every single game to have 30% margin is IMHO damaging, as there are only few games which could boast with such a margin in last 6 years. According to Bloomberg, the average profit margin in the video game industry is 17-22%. Over the past six years, Xbox has hit 10-20%. To put that 30% target into more context, Sony's PlayStation division achieved a 16% profit margin in Q1 FY25. Link to mentioned Bloomberg article behind paywall, if anyone owns access to them: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-23/microsoft-pushes-xbox-studios-to-hit-higher-profit-margins

Yeah you are absolutely correct about that IMHO insane profit margin. I doubt, that in MS anyone, except iD and Bethesda can meet this target (even Blizzard cannot do it anymore). I am kind of disappointed, that they bought so many smaller AA studios, and then they decides to come up with such crazy profit margin target for them. This might pretty much kill all the smaller size projects in these studios for the foreseeable future.