5 Video Game Things I Learned | 2026 May 9 - May 15
I’m deciding to start something new today. I would like to start writing a list of five things I learned about video games every week. Ultimately, I want this to serve as a way for me to be more deliberate about absorbing the information I’m finding and catalogue the things that jump out at me every week. I think by pushing myself to come up with five things every week, I’m also committing to consume even more video game information if I’m not able to hit that number.
For this first edition, we’re looking at millions of copies of Subnautica 2 being sold despite hardship with the publisher, as well as some old news I never knew before involving the spouse of a certain Electronic Arts (EA) employee. Without further ado, here are the five things I learned about video games this week:
Double Fine Files Unionization Paperwork
Double Fine Productions added itself to the list of Microsoft-owned game studios that has unionized. It’s been super cool to see the unionization of the industry during the 2020s. For a long time, companies involved in video games have placed themselves in a position of power because working with video games is largely thought of as a “dream job.” Therefore, the companies can get away with lower salaries compared to the same positions in other industries, fewer or worse benefits, less job security, and worse treatment. The resolve of video game developers to step up collectively and say no to these practices, acknowledging how much they’re worth, excites me.
I feel very fortunate that I’m not in a union and don’t feel the need to be in one. However, if I were in these other game developers’ shoes, I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to be a part of the union. In fact, I would be proud to be part of a group of people trying to make the industry better. I believe the goal of any person in a union would be to get to a point where there doesn’t need to be any unionization and companies could simply learn that their employees are worth a hell of a lot. Unfortunately, that’s wishful thinking.
25% of 2025 Steam Revenue Was Indie
This is a headline that I didn’t see when it initially came out in December of 2025. I saw it mentioned in a Gameranx video over this past week, and it’s a stat that really makes you think. It’s worth noting that this is based on estimates from Alinea Analytics where it appears they specifically used the “Indie” tag on Steam to decipher that over 25% of Steam’s revenue came from indie titles. This is largely based on which games users believe count as “indie”.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the biggest phenomenon from 2025, has an indie tag and would be included in this stat. However, I think it’s highly questionable if this counts as “indie” no matter how many criteria someone tries to use:
The game is published by Kepler Interactive, so it’s not independently published.
It’s not exactly very low budget. At least not in the way indie games are typically thought of. Indie games often times have budgets in the thousands, hundreds of thousands, and low, single-digit millions. Clair Obscur reportedly had a budget just under $10 million.
It’s not short. HowLongToBeat.com clocks the average playtime at around 47 hours.
It’s not cheap. It’s strategically not the price of the typical AAA game, but it does come in at a base retail price of $50 USD, and that’s not easily afforded by most people.
It didn’t have a particularly short development timeline. The game took an estimated five years to develop which rivals development timelines of AAA games.
It wasn’t developed by a small team. Sandfall Interactive developed Clair Obscur with about 30 employees. While this is well below what an entity like the United States government, for example, would consider to be a “small business,” in terms of game development teams, this is a very healthy amount of people. Most often, I feel that indie games carry employee counts between 1 and 15 people.
Not all of these are particularly valid ways to view what makes an indie game “indie” these days, but what I’m trying to say is that it could be argued that such a game doesn’t belong in the category; instead, it could fit better in the AA sector. The point is to show that the 25% stat could be skewed by non-objective factors.
What I do like is that AA games and indie games share a common goal of standing out in an industry that for quite some time has felt dominated by the biggest AAA titles, so I don’t mind them being lumped together to show how significant their collective influence on the industry was in 2025. Furthermore, even though some games that may not belong in an “indie” conversation are included, there are lots of AA games that likely happen to not have the “indie” tag on Steam, meaning 25% is a bare minimum representation of the indie and AA dominance last year.
Marvel Galore
I’m catching up on some recent Game Informer issues that I’m behind on. Issue 372 has a large section in it about all of the Marvel games currently in development, and I had no idea the extent of the franchise’s video game library. While I am not deaf to the fact that there are tons of Marvel games coming out, when taking a step back to examine the shear volume of games, it’s astonishing.
What’s more incredible is that this isn’t even the golden age of Marvel media. According to Wikipedia, through the first half of the 2020s, 15 Marvel games were released. Compare this to the first half of the 2010s decade when the MCU really took off and 42 Marvel games were released. These figures include crossovers, but it’s impossible to deny just how popular Marvel games have been in the past decade and a half.
EA Spouse
I’m what scientists would refer to as a young whippersnapper. There’s so much about the game industry that I don’t know and am excited to learn. One of the things that I had no idea was a thing until this past week was the EA Spouse blog post that cast a prominent light on working conditions in the video game industry (particularly at Electronic Arts). I did some perusing of the many articles written about the subject in addition to the original blog post itself. What’s fascinating is seeing how labor practices in the industry continue to evolve.
I personally don’t feel that there has been any less revelation about the working conditions for game developers in recent years than there was as a result of the EA Spouse blog post. However, I believe the focuses have shifted over time. Rightfully so, the current focus is the astronomical number of layoffs and a lack of job security in an industry that, in terms of sales and dollar figures, continues to flourish.
In my opinion, this focus shift is due to the fact that the industry is still young and fraught with horrible business practices. Video games first emerged on giant, university-owned computers and oscilloscopes in the 1950s and ‘60s, and that was followed by some arcade hits and home consoles throughout the ‘70s. However, it could be argued that there was no proper industry until the 1980s as standards and structure emerged, largely led at the time by Nintendo. If we subscribe to that belief, then video games have been around for roughly 70 years while the video game industry is only about 40 years old. This is often compared to the film industry that is of course much younger than something like literature but still around a century old.
I have been inspired by the writings of EA Spouse to write another blog post talking more about industry practices over the years as it relates to working hours and crunch, but that’s for another day.
Subnautica 2 Sells One Million in an Hour
This one heavily surprised me. As someone who loves playing games with his significant other, I carried a lot of anticipation for Subnautica 2. However, once it became clear to the public what kind of strife the publisher, Krafton, was putting on the development team, I largely wrote it off, at least for its early access release. Games that have this kind of disconnect between the publisher and the people actually pouring their talent into the game usually spells disaster.
However, a lawsuit where Krafton came out looking like bumbling buffoons has acted like a second marketing campaign for the game. With the leads of the studio returning to work and not being hindered by Krafton’s greedy business practices, the game has the space it needs to flourish. After one hour of the early access version being released, the game surpassed one million copies sold. After 12 hours, it hit two million. These are the numbers of a game that could find itself as one of the top 50 best-selling games of all time. As of writing this post, the game is clearly firing on all cylinders, too, with 93% of its 20,000+ reviews on Steam being positive.