The Switch 2 is Out for $450
Or $499.99 with Mario Kart World
Hi, Tibi & Ionuț here, hope you're having a great day! 🥳
Welcome to the #70 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.
Happy reading!
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👑 Highlights
Nintendo launched the Switch 2. Hyped?!
Over 64% Americans played video games in 2024.
Unity developed its first game in 20 years.
Epic Games Store reached 40 million downloads.
Disney is laying off hundreds of employees.
Meta sold over 1 million Ray-Ban smart glasses.
And the Fraggy GO! Beta Test invite is open!
Interesting
💡 Over 205 million Americans played video games for more than an hour each week in 2024.
💡 Tim Sweeney says more game revenue is moving directly to creators instead of being lost to unnecessary middlemen and gatekeepers. Wink wink to Apple.
💡 Selling 2 million copies of a game at $20 each can still leave an independent studio with very little profit due to costs and revenue splits.
💡 Ampere Analysis: The global gaming market reached $199.4 billion in 2024, with mobile making up 58% and Asia-Pacific nearly twice as large as North America.
💡 The Esports World Cup Foundation has signed a three-year partnership with Amazon to support global esports events.
💡 Roblox launched a new tool called License Manager that lets developers easily use famous brands and characters in their games.
💡 Sega launched a free-to-play football management game called Sega Football Club Champions 2025, featuring over 10,000 players and licenses with top teams.
💡 Minecraft and Adidas launched a free in-game add-on with 3 new companions and a real-world clothing collection.
💡 Minecraft mobile revenue jumped 44% after the movie release, reaching $5.5 million in one week.
💡 YouTube is testing a leaderboard that highlights the top 50 most active fans in live stream chats, with special badges for the top 3 participants.
💡 Unity developed its first game in 20 years, Survival Kids, as a Nintendo Switch 2 launch exclusive with a core team of around 20 people.
🐸 Be the First to play Fraggy GO!
"It’s like Crossy Road, but you control the cars. I like it!" This is what a friend said.
I received amazing feedback from you about the teaser video. Thank you!
After showing the game to a few people at Dev.Play, I’m more than confident that this game will blow you away! 💣 And one of the frogs shoots lasers 🔥
🔥 You can still join the Beta list and be the first to Play!
Fraggy GO! is a mobile game like no other, where me and 5 friends have been working on for the past 18 months. I’m so excited for you to try it soon!
Mobile
📱 Epic Games Store reached 40 million mobile installs and aims for 70 million by year-end.
📱 Apple’s new Games app for iPhone will let users track achievements, discover new titles, and see what friends are playing.
📱 Honor of Kings led mobile game revenue in May 2025 with $184.2 million, mostly from iPhone users in China.
📱 Dungeon and Fighter Mobile earned over $1.3 billion in its first year on the Chinese App Store.
📱 Candy Crush Saga’s new All Stars live event helped boost its monthly earnings close to a record high of $151 million in April 2024.
📱 Delta Force Mobile has surpassed 100 million downloads worldwide.
📱 Dunk City Dynasty reached 1 million downloads in its first five days.
📱 Stash now lets game makers show in-game popups on Apple devices to help boost sales and player sign-ups outside the app store.
📱 Candy Crush Solitaire has exceeded company expectations, reaching over 10 million downloads since its launch.
📱 Wuthering Waves marked its first anniversary with over $317 million in mobile revenue and a celebration event in Los Angeles.
PC & Console
🎮 Nintendo launched the Switch 2 on June 5, with pre-orders selling out, and the expected sales in the fiscal year are 15 million. For refence, Nintendo has sold 152 million Switch 1 consoles. Check out this unboxing video from MKBHD. Did you get one?!
🎮 It takes about 10 minutes to drive across the open world map in Mario Kart World, making it larger than the maps in GTA V and Forza Horizon 5.
🎮 MultiVersus, which cost Warner Bros about $200 million and once had over 150,000 players at launch, officially shut down its online servers on May 30, 2025.
🎮 Hypercharge: Unboxed became the 5th best-selling new PlayStation game after a heartfelt message from its developer team went viral, reaching over 650,000 people.
🎮 R.E.P.O. was the top-selling Steam game in May with 1.7 million copies sold, reaching 14.4 million total sales and $113.6 million in revenue.
🎮 Drug Dealing Simulator: Schedule I, made by a solo developer with a tiny marketing budget, became one of 2025’s top-selling Steam games.
🎮 The Witcher 3 has earned almost $650 million in revenue over 10 years since its release.
🎮 The Witcher 3 will get cross-platform mod support on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S later this year, giving console players access to over 7,700 mods.
🎮 The Witcher 4 tech demo shows how Unreal Engine 5.6 can create huge, seamless open worlds with advanced animation tools.
🎮 A sealed copy of Fallout 3's Mothership Zeta is being sold for $2,499.99, even though similar copies have sold for as little as $50 to $300 in recent years.
🎮 Helldivers 2 replica helmets, based on three popular in-game designs, are available for pre-order at $59.99 each and will release in the second quarter of 2026.
💬 Have you seen any other cool news? Drop a message and we can include them in the next edition.
Events
🎟️ Steam’s Summer Showcase 2025 started and it highlights new game releases, major discounts, and exclusive demos for millions of players worldwide.
🎟️ Unreal Fest Bali 2025, featuring over 50 sessions and access to the Dev Hub, will be held June 25-26, with tickets available for $150 AUD. A gamedev event in Bali? Nice!
🎟️ Black Sea Game Summit 2025 is a free, two-day event in Burgas on June 27–28, bringing together game studios, professionals, and fans for talks, workshops, an expo, and a VR hackathon award ceremony. I just booked my AirBnB in Burgas. Are you coming?
🎟️ Apple announced the winners of its 2025 Design Awards, celebrating the best mobile games and apps for creativity and innovation, with the Delight and fun game being Balatro. Surprise!
💬 Continue reading in the app or web page.
Business
💰 Disney is laying off several hundred employees globally across film, television, and corporate finance as part of ongoing cost-cutting.
💰 Ubisoft shut down XDefiant, closing two studios and laying off nearly 300 employees.
💰 Zynga has closed Echtra Games, the studio behind Torchlight 3, as part of a company restructuring.
💰 Hi-Rez Studios laid off five senior leaders, including the president, to address company size, but Smite 2 development and updates will continue as planned.
💰 Six Welsh game studios received $1.15 million from the Welsh Government to grow their games.
💰 In 2024, players in Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa spent $86.6 billion on games, with China leading at $49.2 billion, as reported by Niko Partners.
💰 Appcharge and AppsFlyer have teamed up to help game companies track player activity and sales across both mobile and web stores.
💰 People Can Fly has paused two projects and announced more layoffs due to funding issues and publisher problems.
💰 Tencent has invested more money into Lighthouse Games, the new studio founded by the creator of Playground Games.
💰 Warhorse Studios, creator of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, is opening an office in Brno after selling over 10 million copies of the first game and 3 million of the sequel.
💰 Playtika has reportedly cut up to 160 jobs in Israel and Poland, mainly affecting its Best Fiends and Redecor teams.
VR/AR
👓 Meta sold over 1 million Ray-Ban smart glasses in 2024 and plans to open more retail stores to compete with Apple and Google in the smart glasses market.
👓 Meta and Anduril are teaming up to build augmented and virtual reality systems for the US military as part of a $20 billion project to create new helmets for soldiers.
👓 An unofficial virtual reality version of Counter-Strike 1.6 is coming soon to Quest and Pico headsets, with cross-play and easy server creation features. OMG!
👓 Demeo x Dungeons and Dragons: Battlemarked, a new turn-based fantasy game for up to 4 players, launches in late 2025 on Quest, PlayStation 5, and PC.
👓 Hockey fans in the US can watch all 2025 Stanley Cup Final games live in virtual reality on Quest headsets using the free Xtadium app.
👓 32 new virtual reality game demos will be available for free to try during Steam Next Fest from June 9th to 16th.
👍 Game to Wishlist / Play
The recommendation for this week is a surprise from Mark Brown, the vlogger behind Game Maker's Toolkit. And as he puts it in his new video “Sorry I stopped posting, but I made another game”. 😄
It’s a game about word spelling, upgrades, score points, and to survive until the end. Every round is different. Sounds like Balatro to me. Smart inspiration.
You can try it out the Demo for free on Steam. Give it a go!
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 🔥