5 Video Game Things I Learned | 2026 September 5 - September 11

This week I find out about some old news that I missed regarding thefts that occurred at Gamescom 2026. I also look at what the video game industry is doing to help improve things for young developers fresh out of school via the Nova Games Foundation. French game developer Don’t Nod continues to faulter while GTA VI and Netflix continue to break through ceilings. Also, a sidestep for Kojima Productions and their upcoming game PHYSINT.

The Nova Games Foundation

The number of problems facing the United States sector of the video game industry today boggle the mind with compounding layoffs, an uncertain future, and business practices that range from questionable to downright diabolical. One of the arguably underdiscussed problems lies with the industry’s inability to pull in young talent.

When looking at career pages across small, indie teams and mega, AAA corporations alike, a thread connects them: a lack of junior roles. No matter the team sizes, companies have heavy desires for experienced employees. With so many senior developers leaving the industry behind for more stable work these days, new creatives have to wait in line for companies to find senior talent who can impart wisdom. Furthermore, smaller teams who have just one shot at making a game to hopefully earn enough money to make a second one would rather bring on senior developers whom they can feel more confident about to take their game across the finish line.

That leaves freshly graduated students with strong passions for video games without anywhere to work to break into the industry. The newly formed Nova Games Foundation seeks to remedy that in some small way.

Founded by video game event host and icon Geoff Keighley along with PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 lead architect Mark Cerny, Nova is a non-profit that aims to supply select graduates with “no-strings-attached grants, mentorship, and visibility.” Nova partners with 13 schools across the world (including University of Southern California and New York University in the United State) to provide recipients with $100,000 each to start directing their first game out of school. Based on milestones and other progress on the projects, a quarter of Nova fellows will be eligible to receive an additional $500,000 to fund their games.

Cerny and Keighley are actively recruiting other game directors to support the venture. One of the first to do so is Josef Fares, someone I believe to be a legend in the games industry for both his electric personality and his incredible games (It Takes Two, Split Fiction). Fares has pledged to help out (I imagine in the form of mentorship and providing connections to fellows) as well as donate to the cause. “[The Nova Games Foundation] gives the next generation of creators the freedom to explore their creativity and hopefully bring their unique visions to life,“ he says.

This kind of venture makes me very emotional. It connects to me very personally as someone who himself has not found a full-time game development gig out of college yet and is trying to navigate this harsh industry in his spare time. It’s hard to find people/companies who are willing to give young people a chance to do great things in video games. When a philanthropic venture such as this one arises to address that problem, it’s magic. An industry full of people that support one another intellectually, emotionally, and financially sounds pie-in-the-sky, but we aren’t far off from it being a reality. Companies like the Nova Games Foundation and people like Keighley, Cerny, and Fares are what this industry needs.

Don’t Nod Is Sinking

After reports earlier this year that Don’t Nod might not make it to November due to rapidly declining revenue and a refusal from shareholder Tencent to infuse additional capital, the French developer has confirmed the dire straits it’s in. The company’s cash reserves have supposedly dropped about 48% from the end of 2025 to the end of July 2026. Operating revenue has also fallen 56% year-over-year. This is now capped off with a statement that the company could be forced to shut down by January 31, 2027. The company is looking to restructure to help avoid this, shifting to a focus on one game at a time that would lead to potentially 90 jobs lost in France.

The writing has been on the wall for Don’t Nod for many years now. The company had a breakout hit with Life Is Strange, its second game and a revolutionary title in the narrative games space. They saw moderate success with Vampyr as their follow up and cashed in again on their most successful IP with Life Is Strange 2. In 2020, Don’t Nod then released Tell Me Why, a game that didn’t reach the same heights but managed to find an audience.

According to Gamalytic, Tell Me Why sold approximately one million copies on Steam since releasing in 2020. Since Tell Me Why, Don’t Nod’s six most recent releases have combined for 617.7 thousand copies sold. Those games include Aphelion, the studio’s most recent game that released to very mixed reviews due to an overall uninspiring experience, as well as Lost Records: Bloom & Rage which was decently received by critics but released against far too many other incredible games in 2025 to stand out.

While a closure of the studio would weigh heavily on my heart due to my love of Life Is Strange, I have to admit that I’ve been less than impressed with Don’t Nod’s games lately. Despite its relative success, I did not enjoy Tell Me Why’s narrative. I found myself unable to finish Twin Mirror or Harmony: The Fall of Reverie. I tried the demo for Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, and while it did grab me in some aspects, I was less than impressed with the combat or one of the two main characters.

While I would like to eventually purchase and finish Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden and some of the studio’s other recent games, I fear that this could be the end for Don’t Nod.

GTA VI Reveal Succeeds For Netflix

Many people and media outlets wondered just how valuable it would be for Netflix to have exclusive rights to the Grand Theft Auto VI extended gameplay reveal for its first six hours back on August 27. I was one of those people, feeling that six hours of exclusivity prior to the YouTube release was not enough time to entice people to fork over money to see it early. Apparently, I was wrong.

Ampere Analysis believes that about 100,000 people signed up for a Netflix subscription just to experience the GTA VI reveal. While that’s not a crazy number for a streaming service that has an estimated 325 million subscribers, it’s nothing to sneeze at. Considering that this would’ve driven no less than $900,000 in gross revenue just for a six hour window in an industry that Netflix has yet to find a firm foothold in, I think it paints a pretty clear picture that there’s a market for these kinds of game reveals that Netflix could capitalize on. Furthermore, I expect that a healthy chunk of those 100,000 people will either decide to keep their Netflix subscriptions or forget that they’re getting charged for it every month, Netflix is getting plenty of extra money on a monthly basis from this deal, meaning that the true payoff for the company is yet to be realized.

Even when I thought that the six-hour difference would be insignificant, I did (and still do) believe that Netflix would be using GTA VI as just a start for a new direction in gaming. Netflix saw the potential in a six-hour exclusivity window that I did not. I think they’ll escalate this into day, week, or even week-long exclusivity for big gaming reveals in the future. I do believe this is a safer way into the video game industry for Netflix than them trying to make their own games, and I’ll be interested to see which game they target next, if any.

Kojima Moves to XBOX

This past week, PlayStation announced that they will not move forward with funding Hideo Kojima’s upcoming game known as PHYSINT. Jason Schreier has spoken with people from the PlayStation side of things, discovering that Kojima Productions, Hideo Kojima’s independent AAA development studio, has missed deadlines, missed milestones, gone over budget, and overall failed to live up to PlayStation’s expectations with PHYSINT. In the wake of PlayStation dropping PHYSINT from its portfolio, XBOX swooped in and scooped up a deal with Kojima Productions to finish funding the game.

A public statement from PlayStation says, “We continue to have great admiration for Hideo Kojima’s vision for the game… Our relationship remains strong after three decades of industry-leading, genre-defining creative cooperation, and we look forward to continued close collaboration with Hideo Kojima and his award-winning independent studio in the future.“

It’s interesting some of the things that this quote says without saying it. On a first read, it sounds like PlayStation really likes Hideo Kojima, and that’s why they want to continue working with him. However, that’s not what PlayStation actually says. They repeatedly reference his work without making mention of him as a person. They say things like, “Kojima’s vision for [PHYSINT],“ and “decades of industry-leading, genre-defining creative cooperation…“

They also make a strong effort to distance themselves from Kojima Productions while also taking some amount of credit for the studio’s success. The words “award-winning independent studio“ do a lot of work. The PR department for PlayStation knows that PlayStation and Kojima Productions are heavily associated with one another despite Kojima Productions being a third-party developer. In those three words communicate that PlayStation has been a part of Kojima Productions’ “award-winning” games while also giving ample credit to the studio itself. PlayStation also made a deliberate choice to refer to Kojima’s team as an independent studio, making it clear that they are not part of PlayStation.

On the other side of things, this makes sense for XBOX to jump on. XBOX desperately needs a win, and PlayStation hands them a lot of opportunities these days. In this case, PlayStation has already sunk a lot of money into PHYSINT, and XBOX can now have the pleasure of funding and publishing a game from a mythical game director that is already a long way into development and is poised to bring in tons of fans. While I’m not sure what the contracts between Kojima Productions, PlayStation, and Xbox look like, even if the contract between Kojima Productions and PlayStation for PHYSINT somehow leaves Xbox with reduced ability to capitalize on financial reward from the game, there’s something to be said about the goodwill and player base that publishing PHYSINT would draw.

Gamescom Thefts

There’s been an update this week to a situation that I didn’t even previously know about. If anything, it’s an entertaining headline.

Gamescom 2026 concluded back on August 30 to put an exclamation point on the 18th iteration of the largest gaming event in the world. It came to light that while there was plenty of fun and excitement to be had at this year’s Gamescom, several indie developers and publishers present at the event had their laptops or other equipment stolen. Those devices contained person and company information, as well as builds of the unfinished games being shown off.

Some video game industry companies stepped up and helped these independent companies replace what was stolen and/or present their games properly, and I love to see the industry helping itself.

The real meat of this story, though, is the response from Gamescom that struck people as unempathetic and defensive. While Gamescom did express sorrow for the situation and the individual developers both publicly and through private communication, the public statement left a lot to be desired. Gamescom largely pointed at “terms and conditions of participation and the technical guidelines,” implying that Gamescom has done their job and leaves any responsibility with the attendees, including the exhibitors. According to the statement, “Uniformed guards provide general security across the venue. Individual stand security can be booked separately, and exhibitors are advised to insure equipment against theft.“

It then came out that thefts like this have happened in the past. In a 2024 case, a developer was discouraged from making a police report to avoid making Gamescom and the city of Cologne, where the event was held, look bad.

This is all old news that I’m catching up on. The latest is a new statement from Gamescom expressing regret for their first statement and a commitment to change moving forward to do what they can in avoiding such circumstances in the future. The statement spends most of its paragraphs on damage control, stating that the “criticism is justified” that they received across the industry for their initial statement and going on to say, “To everyone affected: we understand what this has cost you, and we should have said so from the very first moment.“

In the last few paragraphs of the statement, Gamescom encouraged anyone affected, whether it be during the event this year or in years past, to reach out to them so that a proper investigation into any connections can take place. The statement also promises “a dedicated review of security for indie exhibitors“ in addition to the typical post-mortem Gamescom performs following every event.

Gamescom ends with: “Our commitment has always been to keep making gamescom better - together with the community, not just when things go well. That is exactly what we will do here. Thank you to everyone who is helping us.“