Americans spent on video games $59 Billion
Hi, Tibi & Ionuț here, hope you're having a great day! 🥳
Welcome to the #71 FREE edition of the Game Vibe Weekly Newsletter!
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This newsletter shares video game industry trends, insights, and top games, all in an easy to read and fun format.
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👑 Highlights
Americans spent $59.3 billion on video games in 2024.
Dubai’s gaming industry has 260 development studios.
U.S. App Store enabled $406 billion in developer sales.
Hong Kong banned an anti-communist game.
Nintendo sold a record-breaking 3.5 million units of Switch 2.
A free two-day game dev event takes place in Burgas. Meet there?
Interesting
💡 In 2024, Americans spent $59.3 billion on video games, with 83% of households playing on at least one device and mobile phones being the most popular platform.
💡 Unity just launched Audience Hub, a new privacy-first tool for game marketers, now live in the US and Canada.
💡 Summer Game Fest 2025 which lasted 2 hours, showed over 40 trailers, but felt repetitive and lacked excitement, with no big blockbuster game reveals.
💡 Phasmophobia which has sold over 23 million copies is now being made into a movie.
💡 After the Minecraft movie earned over $900 million, mobile in-app revenue rose by 44% and console sales went up by 36% in April.
💡 Google is letting players in Roblox earn Play Points rewards in the Diamond District experience.
💡 Problems with Blender face orientation display? You can quickly fix the issue by resetting the viewport overlays setting.
💡 Dubai’s gaming industry now has 260 game development studios and grew by 16.6% since November 2023.
💡 Disney and Universal sued Midjourney, claiming it made $300 million last year from 21 million users by generating unauthorized images of their famous characters.
🎮 SAG-AFTRA has ended its 11-month strike against major video game companies after securing a deal with over 24% wage increases and strong AI protections for voice and performance-capture actors.
🐸 Last chance for Fraggy GO! Beta invitation
See that pesky mosquito on the cap? You need to catch it!
But how? Move the cars and ZAP him in place!
Fraggy GO! is a mobile game like no other, where you control the traffic.
Me and 5 friends have been working on for the past 18 months to make this game and I’m so excited for you to try it!
🔥 Want to be the first to Play next week? Join the mail list and you’ll be the first!
"It’s like Crossy Road, but you control the cars. I like it!" This is what a friend said.
Mobile
📱 Apple says that the App Store in the United States enabled $406 billion in developer sales, with over 90% of developers paying no commission to Apple. Wonder why the need to point this out now?
📱 May’s top downloaded mobile game was Subway Surfers with over 20 million downloads worldwide.
📱 Honor of Kings was the top-grossing mobile game in May 2025, earning over $180 million worldwide.
📱 A new game from Rovio’s series is coming in the form of Angry Birds Bounce.
📱 Squad Busters made $472,000 on the Chinese App Store, but its new update has not boosted global sales.
📱 Apple will launch a new Games app that puts all your games, leaderboards, and challenges in one place to help players discover new titles and connect with friends.
📱 Supercell adjusted in-game prices on June 10 in several countries due to tax and exchange rate changes.
📱 Hong Kong banned the game Reversed Front: Bonfire, about overthrowing the communist regime, warning that downloading it could lead to legal charges under national security laws.
PC & Console
🎮 Nintendo sold a record-breaking 3.5 million units of its Switch 2 console worldwide within the first 4 days of launch, making it the fastest-selling Nintendo system ever.
🎮 Elden Ring: Nightreign sold 852,500 copies and made $30.9 million on Steam in its first days, with 85% of buyers already owning the original game.
🎮 Microsoft announced two new handheld gaming devices, title ROG Xbox Ally, to expand its gaming reach. Interesting timing, right?
🎮 The Outer Worlds 2 will be the first Xbox game to launch at $80 when it releases on October 29. Is your wallet ready?
🎮 Game of Thrones: War For Westeros, a real-time strategy game where players command iconic houses, launches on Steam Early Access in 2026.
🎮 Splitgate 2 launched on June 6 with a new battle royale mode for 60 players and reached almost 26,000 concurrent players on Steam in its first hours.
🎮 Borderlands 2 was free to keep on Steam, but over 700 negative reviews in one day have dropped its rating due to backlash against new privacy rules.
🎮 Black Myth: Wukong will launch on Xbox Series X and S on August 20, exactly one year after its PlayStation and PC debut.
🎮 Dune: Awakening reached 93,634 concurrent players on Steam during its early access period, even before the official launch.
🎮 A new demo for The Witcher 4 shows how Unreal Engine 5.6 can create huge, seamless open worlds for future games.
💬 Have you seen any other cool news? Drop a message and we can include them in the next edition.
Events
🎟️ I’m going to Burgas in 2 weeks. Let’s meet at the first edition of the Black Sea Game Summit 2025, June 27–28, in Burgas, Bulgaria. A free two-day event organized by CreaTech Bulgaria for game developers, studios, and fans featuring talks, an indie expo, and a cosplay program. Also, don’t miss the VR Hackathon before the event, with the winners revealed at the Summit, register here for the Hackathon.
🎟️ Pocket Gamer is inviting players to nominate their favorite mobile game of the past year for the 2025 People's Choice Award.
🎟️ Xbox announced The Outer Worlds 2 and teased new games from both its own studios and global partners at its 2025 showcase.
🎟️ PlayStation’s June 2025 State of Play revealed Ghost of Yotei, and Death Stranding 2, with Resident Evil and Final Fantasy Tactics remaster teased.
🎟️ Zynga will host the Girls Make Games 2025 summer camp at its San Mateo headquarters starting July 7, welcoming students aged 8-18.
💬 Continue reading in the app or web page.
Business
💰 Tencent bought a 15.75% stake in Arrowhead Games, makers of Helldivers 2, for $80 million.
💰 Wizards of the Coast signed a deal with Giant Skull to make new Dungeons and Dragons video games for its millions of players.
💰 Outplay Entertainment, the developer of Subway Surfers Blast, has laid off 21 employees.
💰 Mobile game studios that first launch a medium-sized game can use their success to secure Series A funding and then build a bigger game with billion-dollar potential.
💰 Bend Studio, maker of Days Gone which generated over $265 million in revenue, laid off about 40 developers after canceling a live service shooter project this year.
💰 Homa co-founder Olivier Le Bas has launched Everyday, a new AI-first mobile game studio aiming to create engaging daily game experiences using AI.
VR/AR
👓 Meta’s studio Twisted Pixel will launch Marvel’s Deadpool VR exclusively for Quest 3 and 3S this year, featuring an original story and Neil Patrick Harris as Deadpool. Cool!
👓 Beat Saber released Lady Gaga’s new song Abracadabra as a $1.99 paid track, on all platforms and supporting multiplayer features.
👓 Pimax invested $2.5 million in Motorsport Games to boost virtual reality racing experiences at the Le Mans 2025 event.
👓 visionOS 26’s update will enable developers to create co-located augmented reality experiences where users can interact with the same app or 3D model together.
👓 visionOS 26 introduces persistent spatial widgets for Vision Pro, where users can anchor interactive widgets like clock, weather, music, and photos on walls or surfaces.
Podcast
🎙 Interested in how to make a great Steam Next Fest demo to gain loads of wishlists? Mark has some insights.
👍 Game to Wishlist
The recommendation for this week is a game that caught my attention at the Wholesome Direct 2025.
🍂 It’s called Leaf Blower Co. and it’s exactly about that. Build up your business, buy new tools, and unlock upgrades - all while watching the leaves fly. Seems relaxing and fun.
You can try the free demo on Steam. It’s developed by LifT Games and published by Forklift Interactive.
Have fun!
💬 This is not an Ad, but if any of you want to collaborate on that, give a shout my dear friends!
🥳 You're Awesome!
Wow, you've made it to the end! We hope you found this newsletter fun and interesting!
Let us know what you think in the comments and thanks for reading!
Reach out on Linkedin if you’d like to collaborate on anything.
Have a great day!
Tibi & Ionuț 🔥