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Business Mayor
22-05-2025
- Business
- Business Mayor
AppOnBoard's Quvy simulates audiences for user acquisition testing
AppOnBoard is unveiling Quvy, a tool that enables AI to test user acquisition schemes on simulated audiences to speed up a game's audience growth. User acquisition (UA) is one of the biggest challenges in gaming today. Whether indie developers or major studios, teams are forced to spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to test ad creatives—often waiting weeks to identify what works with audiences. This process, reliant on traditional ad platforms and real-world A/B testing, has become a costly bottleneck, said Jonathan Zweig, CEO of AppOnBoard, in an interview with GamesBeat. AppOnboard, the company behind do-it-yourself game development platform Buildbox, is solving this with a breakthrough tool that uses simulated audiences to predict ad performance—delivering insights in minutes at a fraction of the cost—allowing gaming companies to grow their real audiences at lightning speed. The team addressed the major pain point for indie developers: high user acquisition (UA) costs. They developed a solution using AI to simulate audiences, reducing UA costs from $400,000 to $4,000, Zweig said. Here's a case study. 'The AI, developed over six months, predicts ad performance accurately, saving time and money,' Zweig said. 'The discussion also touches on the broader implications of synthetic data in AI, the challenges of eSports sustainability, and the impact of major game releases like Grand Theft Auto VI.' Jonathan Zweig is CEO of AppOnBoard, creator of Quvy. UA costs continue to climb. Acquiring a single paying user in mobile gaming can exceed $50. Creative testing now favors studios with massive budgets, leaving smaller developers behind. Quvy levels the playing field. It replaces expensive, slow A/B testing with fast, predictive simulations. Developers can now test thousands of creatives in minutes, launching only the top performers and saving both time and money. 'One of the biggest responses we got when we asked the community was about the biggest pain points for an indie developer, and overwhelmingly it was the cost of UA,' Zweig said. 'How do you compete with the big guys? Our CTO thought of this crazy idea, 'Why don't we simulate audiences to test ads to dramatically reduce UA costs?'' The company tried it and it's 'crazy effective,' Zweig said. Quvy can drastically reduces the cost of user acquisition via AI. Top gaming companies spend large sums of money testing ads before launch. With Quvy, they no longer have to. Simulated audiences allow for: Accelerated Testing Cycles – What took a week now takes minutes – What took a week now takes minutes Massive Cost Savings – Dramatically reduced ad testing costs – Dramatically reduced ad testing costs Smarter Creative Decisions – Quvy predicts winners before spending – Quvy predicts winners before spending No Guesswork – Validate thousands of variations affordably – Validate thousands of variations affordably Improved Resource Efficiency – Cost savings in man hours for tracking setup and data analysis – Cost savings in man hours for tracking setup and data analysis Higher Performing Campaigns – Resulting ads perform better and have higher campaign success rates – Resulting ads perform better and have higher campaign success rates Secure Testing Environment – Protect your unique ideas from being exposed to the public while gaining valuable actionable insights. – Protect your unique ideas from being exposed to the public while gaining valuable actionable insights. Maintaining a True Control Group – Keep your future audience and customers untapped while you find the best performing creative. The global digital ad market is projected to surpass $730 billion in 2025, with AI-powered marketing growing at 26.7% CAGR. Traditional A/B testing tools make up over $50 billion of that market. Quvy's focus—simulated audiences—is an emerging $20 billion to $30 billion category, growing at 30%+ annually. It's reshaping how developers validate creative ideas pre-launch. Read More Gearbox and Blackbird announce Homeworld 3 launches on March 8 Quvy can do tests for ads on thousands of simulated users. 'Discoverability shouldn't be limited to those with the biggest budgets,' said Zweig. 'We're proud to offer Quvy at affordable pricing so anyone can market their games and apps as effectively as the largest studios and companies in the world.' Whether you're launching your first game or managing a global UA budget, Quvy offers a smarter, faster, and more affordable way to win. 'By lowering the barrier to creative testing, we're helping developers compete based on quality and innovation—not just ad spend,' Zweig said. AppOnboard builds AI-first tools that empower creators. Its flagship product, Buildbox, enables anyone to create games and apps without coding. Quvy, its latest innovation, uses simulated audiences to predict creative performance before launch. Together, they form a unified ecosystem for building, testing, and scaling creative ideas. Quvy's results are matching that of real-world user acquisition tests. It usually takes an ad network about seven days to learn what works in terms of ads for gamers. With Quvy, it takes about three minutes, Zweig said. The company does this by testing the ads for acquiring users on synthetic people. It's a lot like how Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, talked at CES about testing robots on 'synthetic data.' A company would be lucky to test a self-driving car for a million miles, but it can't figure out all of the emergency situations that could arise when driving a car. But with synthetic data, the company can test the car for billions of miles in a virtual environment that simulates the real world. The same principle applies with synthetic data for user acquisition, Zweig said. Read More Who will compete with ChatGPT? Meet the contenders | The AI Beat 'They're synthetic people, but they have real emotions, real tastes, real judgment, real preferences,' he said. 'It's amazing. When we see an ad, what's going on in our brain is a lot different. And you can distill it into actual mathematics, which is then trainable for large data sets.' The company has run a bunch of ads on places like QVC and on Facebook to see if it can nail the best ads for those platforms. And it gets to the answer in a fraction of the time and cost of other methods. 'It's incredible what you can model with the right data,' he said. It's taken about six months to build Quvy, with a relatively small part of the AppOnBoard team. Meanwhile, Buildbox is still profitable, Zweig said.
Business Mayor
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
The winners of the GamesBeat Summit 2025 Visionary and Up-and-Comer Awards
GamesBeat unveiled the winners of its eight annual Visionary Awards during the 2025 GamesBeat Summit event in Los Angeles. The Visionary Award winner is Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) president Patricia Vance, and the Up-and-Comer winner is Strange Scaffold studio head Xalavier Nelson Jr. GamesBeat editorial director Dean Takahashi started the Visionary Awards in 2018 to recognize industry leaders who took a daring, visionary approach to shaping the future of gaming, forging new paths that have mesmerized audiences and redefined the very nature of video games. Two awards are given every year: the Visionary Award and the Up-and-Comer award. This year's ceremony was hosted by Andrea Rene, president of Shortie Media and former executive producer of What's Good Games. The winners were chosen by a panel of judges from all across the industry, including Xbox president Sarah Bond, Women-Led Games founder Charmaine Duff, and veteran developer John Smedley. Patricia Vance has helped steer the ESRB for over 20 years. At the ESRB, Patricia Vance leads the teams responsible for age and content ratings on video games and apps, and enforcing marketing guidelines that've been adopted by the whole industry. She's also a founding member of the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC), a non-profit organization that operates a global rating and age classification system for digital games and apps Zebra Partners co-founder Perrin Kaplan introduced Vance on stage, calling her a 'respected pioneer on game content ratings,' and a quiet leader who gets it done better than anyone else. Unlike a lot of award winners who tend to be in the public eye, Kaplan noted that Vance's work is largely behind the scenes, advocating for games and 'protecting our industry's right to govern itself.' In her acceptance speech, Vance said that over the last 45 years, she's had the privilege to work in some of the most dynamic and fast-changing industries, from the early days of cable TV to the explosion of interactive media. But her 'most meaningful chapter' has been her time at the ESRB, which she first joined over 20 years ago. 'When I joined [the ESRB] in 2002 there was one glaring vulnerability threatening the integrity of the video game industry: Kids could walk into a retail store and buy a mature-rated video game, no questions asked,' said Vance. 'So we got to work. We launched the ESRB Retail Council and convinced the biggest retailers to step up.' By 2009, the Federal Trade Commission recognized that the video game industry had the strongest selling regulatory code and the highest compliance with that code, outpacing even movies and music. Then a landmark moment came when the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that video games are a form of protected speech, with Vance saying it was a 'powerful validation of what self-regulation done right can achieve.' But she said the biggest challenge the ESRB has ever faced is the rise of mobile gaming and the explosion of digital publishing, and creating a rating process that could scale to meet the high volume of games while also 'enabling developers to access culturally relevant and compliant ratings in different regions around the world across every platform.' This led to the creation of IARC, and today the system is used by 13 storefronts across mobile, console, VR, and PC, with nine regional rating authorities on board. 'So why does all this matter? Because our work helps reduce risk for publishers, protects the industry from unnecessary regulation, and most importantly, by informing consumers upfront, it safeguards your freedom to create the games you want to make,' said Vance. She noted how the ESRB operates quietly in the background of the industry, which is how it should be. It's thankless work most of the time, and she's often felt invisible at gaming conferences and events. 'So I can't tell you how much it means to be recognized today. I accept this award on behalf of my extraordinary team back in New York, who are as passionate about this industry as I am, and who are absolutely relentless in their commitment to our mission,' said Vance. 'And last but definitely not least, we could not do our work without the staunch and ongoing support of the [Entertainment Software Association] and the many industry leaders who serve on our board of directors.' Xalavier is the 2025 winner of the Up-and-Comer award. Xalavier Nelson Jr. is a renowned and prolific indie developer who's worked on over 90 games in the last eight years, with 15 of them coming from his own studio, Strange Scaffold. Unfortunately, he couldn't attend GamesBeat Summit in person to accept his Up-and-Comer award. In a video, Cyan Worlds development director Hannah Gamiel introduced Xalavier, saying that she has yet to meet another developer who makes games with the same level of 'unbridled creativity' that he does. 'To say his perspective on making games is refreshing is an understatement. This quality of his shines in every single game he makes. Xalavier is somehow wonderfully able to carefully harness meaning within a facade of incredibly absurd settings,' said Gamiel. In his acceptance video, Nelson Jr. thanked everyone he's ever worked with at Strange Scaffold and throughout his career, and that without them he wouldn't be here. He joked that receiving this award was existentially dread-inducing. '[This award] is for people whose greatest achievements lie ahead of them. I can think of at least three times in the last few years alone where I went, 'Oh, I don't know if I'll be able to make games anymore,'' said Nelson Jr. Read More Lotte Group taps Arbitrum for Web3 entertainment experiences He urged the audience to keep supporting and showing up for one another, especially in light of the layoffs that've plagued the industry over the past few years. 'That's why, if I can urge for anything from the audience, it is to look at the people around you because systemic issues in this medium — lack of funding, lack of job security — means that the person who's right next to you, no matter what they've achieved, no matter what their talents are, no matter how hard they work and how much you assume they're going to be fine… If they are showing up on your doorstep, if they are here with you right now, you are that person who will make them fine. 'You are that person who needs to show up for them, because otherwise we can't guarantee that they are here tomorrow, that they contribute to the future of our medium and what we can be,' said Nelson Jr.
Business Mayor
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
What to expect at GamesBeat Summit 2025: A guide
I've posted the updated and final agenda for our GamesBeat Summit 2025 event (25% off discount code: gbs25dean25) and thought it would be good to post a guide on what to expect on May 19-20 in LA. This post is organized by subject matter. On our first day, May 19, we'll start out with a couple of hours of networking starting around 11:30 a.m. in the lobby of the Marriott Marina del Rey (4100 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey). Then we'll get started at 1:30 p.m. with four small group sessions at a time, all downstairs from the lobby. These are hour-long sessions and they answer our attendees' desire for more engagement with speakers. These small rooms have about 65-seats each (for three of the recorded sessions) and 35 seats for the roundtable room (Catalina). Audience Q&A will be encouraged in these sessions, though some will opt for written questions. Our roundtables are not recorded, with Chatham House rules, where you can say what was said but not who said it. We'll close out day one with a reception at 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. (Kicked off by Dean Takahashi and Gina Joseph of GamesBeat and Peter Levin of Griffin Gaming Partners). Gina Joseph and I will come out on stage at around 9:30 am and then I'll kick things off with a short opening speech around 9:35 a.m. Then, throughout the day, we'll have more traditional 30-minute talks on two stages (California and Promenade rooms) as well as two roundtable rooms (Malibu/Santa Monica and Venice/Peninsula). I'll give closing thanks at 5:30 p.m. on May 20. Tynan Sylvester created RimWorld while Owen Mahoney spent a decade each at EA and Nexon. As noted in one one of our social posts, we've got a number of sessions on AI and gaming. The hype around AI reminds me of some years ago of how we had lots of sessions on blockchain games or the metaverse, but AI is showing early results and we've heard that this is what people want to talk about. I don't see these as repetitive sessions. Rather, they present attendees with choice, with exposure to many different bright minds on their own perspectives of the AI revolution. The sessions include high-level strategic views of AI in entertainment and games with Owen Mahoney formerly of Nexon, Bing Gordon of Kleiner Perkins, Mitch Lasky of Benchmark and Tynan Sylvester of Ludeon. (2:30 pm -3:30 pm in Palisades downstairs room on May 19). We'll also have a talk on surprising uses of AI in game creation with Kayla Comalli, Neil Young, and Irena Pereira (3:30 pm-4:30 pm in Malibu/Santa Monica on May 19). AI in Gaming presented by Amazon Web Services (AWS) will include Ashwin Raghuraman, Hilary Mason, J. Aaron Farr, and moderator Chris Melissinos. They will talk about their own perspective on the AI tools that are emerging for production. (4:30 pm – 5:30 pm in Venice/Peninsula room on May 19). On May 20, Rich Vogel, CEO of T-Minus Zero Entertainment. Vogel, who won our Up and Comer Award in the past, will talk for the second year in a row on the AI tools that are reinventing game development. (3 pm – 4 pm on May 20 in Malibu/Santa Monica room — not recorded, with Chatham House rules). Also on May 20, we will have a roundtable entitled 'From Player Safety to Child Wellbeing and the Role of AI' with moderator Chris Melissinos of AWS, Henderika (Heidi) Vogel Brockmann of Guardian Gamer and adviser Joel Silk. (1 pm – 2 pm on May 20, in Venice/Peninsula room). During our mainstage sessions on May 20, we'll touch on AI in 'Living Games: The AI and Live Services Revolution Reshaping Games,' presented by Google Cloud with Catherine Hawayek of Google Cloud Games and Dean Takahashi (2 pm – 2:30 pm in the California ballroom on May 20). And we will have another AI topic come up in 'Driving Change in Gaming: Business Models, Player Needs, AI, and the Road Ahead,' with Matthew Bromberg of Unity and Sarah Parvini of the AP at 3:30 p.m. – 4 p.m. in the California ballroom on May 20). Chris Hewish is chief strategy officer of Xsolla. We've also got sessions related to the growth opportunities for gaming, including the clash between developers and platforms over fees. On day two, our opening panel with Chris Hewish of Xsolla, Anthony Bartolacci of Sensor Tower and moderator Gina Joseph of GamesBeat will cover the topic of Epic Games' recent court victory against Apple and the opportunity it creates for mobile gaming growth. (9:45 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. on May 20). Our Visionary Awards will take place at 10:15 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on May 20, with Andrea Rene as our host. The Visionary Award is for a game industry leader who showed vision throughout their career. And the second award, The Up and Comer Award, is for someone whose potential lies ahead of them. Our judges included They include Sarah Bond of Microsoft, Rich Vogel of T-Minus Zero Entertainment, Don Daglow of AIAS Foundation/Strong National Museum of Play, Perrin Kaplan of Zebra Partners, Elizabeth Olson of Strategic Marketing, Dinga Bakaba of Arkane, Tara Bruno of Tara Bruno PR, Charmaine Duff of Women-Led Games, Mark Chandler of TIGS, Meggan Scavio of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, Kat Jones of Motiv, Shelley Andagan of Qualcomm, onine game pioneer John Smedley and me. Rachel Kaser is a GamesBeat writer. More than 54% of our speakers come from diverse backgrounds, and 35% women. And we continue to focus on diversity in the gaming industry for many of our topics. On day two, we get started with our tenth Women in Gaming Breakfast (meant for women, at 8:30 a.m. Pacific – 9:25 a.m.) Presented by Xsolla, that session (starting at 9 a.m.) will be moderated by GamesBeat's Rachel Kaser and include speakers Carla Bedrosian of Xsolla, Angela Dalton of Signum Growth Dot Play and Nancy MacIntyre of World Winner. During lunch on May 20, at 12:30 p.m. to 1 p.m, we'll have our first accessibility in gaming panel, sponsored by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). Aubrey Quinn, senior vice president for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), leads a conversation with Holly Wescott, Accessibility Lead at Amazon Games, Kaitlyn Jones, Director of Clinical Outreach at Warfighter Engaged and Gaming Accessibility Lead at Xbox and player, content creator and accessibility consultant Steve Saylor, about how the video game industry is advancing efforts to make games accessible for as many players as possible. Gordon Bellamy, professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and head of Gay Gaming Professionals, will lead a roundtable on how the 'underestimated' can break into high levels of gaming. (a roundtable 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. on May 20 at the Malibu/Santa Monica room). And for the first time in about a decade, we'll have a panel on ageism entitled, 'Lost on the outsides: Ageism and belonging in the game industry.' The session will be moderated by Bellamy and includes Amir Satvat of Tencent, Jen MacLean of Dragon Snacks Games, Richard Brown of Blue Moon Production Company. (10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the California ballroom on May 20). Warren Spector is chief creative officer at OtherSide Entertainment. Gaming veteran Warren Spector recently wrote about his decision to talk about his bipolar condition and working in the game industry with it. Kelli Dunlap will discuss mental health in the games industry with Spector in a roundtable. This session will take written questions only. (4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on May 19). Mental health and games will also come up for discussion in a roundtable with Susanna Pollack of Games for Change and Perrin Kaplan of Zebra Partners. They will talk about the subject in the context of work by the Global Mental Health Task Force and the World Health Organization. (roundtable at 1 pm to 2 pm at Malibu/Santa Monica room). Mitch Lasky of Benchmark One of our longer big-stage talks will be moderated by Eric Goldberg of Playable Worlds with longtime game venture capitalist Mitch Lasky. They will talk about how to navigate games in the new normal. They will address what the new normal is, how to get out of the box that the industry has put itself in and fix gaming investment. (10:15 a.m. to 11 a.m. on May 20 in the Promenade room). I will also moderate Tian Xiao of Tencent, one of the giants of the game industry, on its perspective on the global game industry. (11:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. on May 20 in the California ballroom). Mobile gaming has become the biggest sector in gaming, and so we'll have a session on 'Winning in mobile gaming: Strategy, growth and innovation with Playtika.' Craig Abrahams of Playtika and moderator Michael Metzger of Drake Star Partners will talk at 2 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. on May 20 in the California ballroom. And following up on their big-stage sessions, two industry thinkers will discuss 'The repair room: Industry problems, group solutions.' The games industry is overflowing with problems, but light on solutions. In this interactive roundtable hosted by Adam Boyes (Vivrato) and Amir Satvat, attendees will vote on the 10 biggest challenges facing games in 2025. (a roundtable at 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. on May 20 at Venice/Peninsula). Jesse Meschuk, the new COO of Savvy Games Group, will discuss a big new frontier of games in 'Savvy Spotlight: Investing in the long-term mindset.' I will moderate the session with Meschuk with a focus on the long-term view of gaming and esports. (3:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. at California ballroom on May 20). And our lone debate of the conference is entitled, 'Is there still growth ahead for gaming?' The years of double-digit games market growth are over. COVID accelerated things, but the writing's been on the wall for a while. Even live-service games have shown themselves to be mostly zero-sum, while esports, the blockchain, and the metaverse have done very little to move the needle. So what's next for the games market? This debate features game economist Catalin Alexandru, Michael Pachter of Wedbush and moderator Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics (1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. in Malibu/Santa Monica room). Karla Reyes founder and studio director at Anima Interactive. Politics has divided us across the country, and so it's no surprise that some political topics have risen to the fore at our event. 'Gaming the government' is about the experiences that gaming industry professionals have had in the U.S. federal government. Mark Deloura of Level Up Games (formerly Obama's White House lead on games) and Paul Fischer of Accenture (formerly of the U.S. State Department). (It will take place 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on May 19 in the Palisades room). One of our sessions is entitled, 'Playing With Truth: Handing disinformation through games.' It's about storytelling can be used to challenge false narratives. Karla Reyes (moderator) of Anima Interactive, Paul Fischer of Accenture and Susanna Pollack of Games for Change will speak in the session (11 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at Promenade room). Rich Hilleman of Cleanplay will talk about 'Partnering for the planet: Adopting clean energy for growth' to address energy consumption in the game industry. (a roundtable at 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m on May 19 in the Catalina room). Andre Swanston is the CEO of Phynd and previously founded Tru Optik. André Swanston of Phynd will do a solo talk on 'The gaming revolution will be televised,' with a focus on the new business model of ad-supported free cloud gaming services. (11 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on May 20 in the Promenade ballroom). Adam Boyes of Vivrato and moderator Andrea Rene of Shortie Media will talk about the need for more transparency in the game industry and paths to focus on growth. (11 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the California ballroom on May 20). We'll have a live services talk, 'Get live or die trying.' Industry veteran Sheloman Byrd will take the audience through a live service exercise of decision making based on past cases, where each team will weigh decisions across multiple areas, including an assessment on where they would end up for market success at session's end. Sheloman Byrd of Open Ocean Games (1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. on May 19 at Palisades room) Byrd's colleague, Jennifer Jo of Open Ocean Games, is a seasoned expert with over 20 years of experience in gaming monetization. She will run a roundtable on unpacking the secrets of maximizing revenue while keeping players engaged. Drawing on her extensive work across companies like Tencent, Kabam, Meta, WB, and Nexon, Jo will offer actionable lessons learned from PC, mobile, console, AR, and VR games. This session is a must for anyone seeking to refine their approach to monetization in a player-first era. (roundtable at 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on May 19 at Catalina room). One of the most interesting new models for helping brands connect with players comes from Twin Galaxies in a session entitled, 'The competitive layer you're missing: How game brands are building loyalty without adding extra code.' In a world where attention is fleeting and communities are fractured, competition might just be the secret glue. This session explores how game publishers and brands are using no-code, community-driven competitions to generate positive player sentiment, drive repeat engagement, and foster long-term loyalty. Learn how a novel approach has turned casual players into invested communities and why competitive formats are emerging as a must-have in the modern live ops toolkit. A talk by Zack Rozga and Jace Hall of Twin Galaxies (1:30 pm – 2:30 pm on May 19 in the Venice/Peninsula room). And we have a session on game publishing dubbed, 'The problem with publishing.' Moderated by GamesBeat's Rachel Kaser, with Jon Snoddy of Operative Games and Ben Kvalo of Midwest Games (2:30 pm – 3:30 pm at Malibu/Santa Monica room). Modulate's team in Cambridge, Massachusetss. One of our tech sessions is about 'Moderation tools and techniques: the advanced class.' Today's gaming audiences are demanding more: safety, clear communication, and smarter responses to issues. In this fireside chat, Meta's Blake Harper will share real-world strategies for building resilient communities. Mark Nolan of Modulate and Blake Harper of Meta (3:30 pm – 4:30 pm on May 19 at Palisades room). And Matei Trebien of VoicePatrol will give on a talk on advances in voice moderation technology in a five-minute sponsored session at 9:25 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. in the California ballroom on May 20. Sometimes old technologies coming back. We have a session on the evolution of motion gaming: Past, present and future. Nex Playground has launched to target children and their love of motion gaming. It's an example of going after a niche that players love and the hardware makers have left behind. How big a niche will it be? Tom Kang of NEX and moderator Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat will discuss the topic. (3 p.m. to 3:30 pm on May 20 at the California ballroom). Moritz Baier-Lentz is a gaming partner at Lightspeed. Justin Woodward has long experience working with indies via The Mix. This session will look at how to curate indie games and talent. How can indies diversify their funding sources and engage with passionate, collaborative co-developers? I will moderate a talk in a fireside chat at 1:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. on May 20 in the Promenade room. One again, we're delighted that Lightspeed is sponsoring our Game Changes 2026 list, which will find the top 25 game companies in the industry and present them in the fall. The Game Changers 2026 theme is 'Building Through Chaos.' From mass layoffs and economic headwinds to the rise of AI and shifting global policies, the gaming industry is weathering continued volatility. Speakers include Moritz Baier-Lentz of Lightspeed, Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat, Kieran Donovan of K-ID, Stephen Bell of Gardens and Cheryl Fichter of Inworld AI. (1 pm – 1:30 pm on May 20 at California ballroom). We'll also have a session on investing in new markets. What are the trends that matter to game investors now? How can we forge ahead with investments during a tough time for gaming? Where can we find new players? This panel of game M&A and investment experts will tackle these questions and more. The speakers include Hemal Thaker of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Danzig of Sharp Alpha, moderator Emily Wang of Griffin Gaming Partners and Tyler Matheson of Makers Fund. (1 pm – 1:30 pm on May 20 in the Promenade room). Louis Gresham of Hydratec Dan Bunting, Venture Partner at 1am Gaming and former Call of Duty Game Director will discuss 'The lucrative niche: Building multibillion-dollar franchises from core initial community outward.' (3 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Promenade room). We'll also cover the path from triple-A to solo game devs, with Adam Kugler, founder of CyanAvatar Studios and solo developer behind MoteMancer. He'll run an intimate roundtable exploring the transition from leading large triple-A teams to the deeply personal journey of solo game development. (roundtable at 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Venice/Peninsula room). Lastly, we'll get the '360-degree view of raising money for game startups' in a panel with Garrett Young of Emptyvessel, Jeonghee 'JJ' Jin of NC America and Teppei Tsutsui of GFR Fund. Emptyvessel was one of the companies that targeted a niche, created a good prototype and got off the ground with funding. We'll talk about the process of raising money for game startups from multiple points of view — and how we got to a full vessel. (4 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. on May 20 at Promenade room). Scopely is acquiring Niantic's game business for $3.5 billion. We'll explore game communities in 'Beyond the game: Scopely and Discord's approach to building and maintaining thriving game communities.' Fostering thriving, vibrant player communities is not just a competitive advantage—it's become crucial for game discovery and meaningful engagement. The speakers are Ryan Jacobson of Scopely, Stanislav Vishnevskiy of Discord and moderator Rachel Kaser of GamesBeat (1:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. on May 20 in the California ballroom). Shelby Johnson-Sapp SVP of Corporate Strategy at Scopely, and Rachel Kaser of GamesBeat in a roundtable conversation on what it takes to build a resilient, adaptive games business in today's dynamic market. (2 p.m. to 3 p.m. on May 20 in the Malibu/Santa Monica room). Read More 2nd Street Stage calls in The Federales - Park Rapids Enterprise We'll also have a session on understanding the next generation of gamers. Kevin Beatty of Samsung Gaming and Emerging Technologies and moderator Stella Chung (2 pm – 2:30 pm on May 20 at Promenade room). We'll also have a session about games in Asia and the West, entitled, 'The East-West Connection: Successfully bringing Asian games to western markets (and vice versa).' There's still a lot of flow of games between Eastern and Western game markets, as players are embracing global content in both predictable and surprising ways. We'll talk about the way to foster this connection and get new projects off the ground. The session includes Jeonghee 'JJ' Jin and moderator Lisa Cosmas Hanson of Niko Partners (2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. on May 20 in the Promenade Room). And lastly on the community front, we have a session, 'Leveraging industry non-profits for growth.' Gaming nonprofits are a great tool to grow your audience and grow your revenue. How working with nonprofits can help you build more successful games and businesses. The speakers include Blair Durkee of GLAAD, Stephen Machuga of Stack Up and moderated by Jen MacLean of Dragon Snacks Games and IGDA Foundation (2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on May 19 at Venice/Peninsula). Maureen Fan is CEO of Baobab Studios. Since we're doing this in Los Angeles, we would be remiss if we didn't cover the love affair between the movies, TV and gaming. We'll talk about where it's going next in a session with Hollywood and gaming veterans. We'll have a more intimate roundtable entitled 'Video games: A performers' perspective. A look inside the world of video game performers providing insights into the realities of working as a video game actor; the state of the industry, the existential threat to performers livelihood due to Generative Artificial Intelligence and the future of the gaming industry for performers who are passionate about their art and work. Actors speaking include Sarah Elmaleh, Zeke Alton and Andi Norris (3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on May 19 at Catalina room). Adam W is a creator and comedian. We will also have a small group session entitled, 'The influencer playbook behind Assassin's Creed: Mirage. In the fast-paced world of gaming, where trends start and evolve swiftly, and audiences crave innovation, only the most creative and authentic campaigns can make a lasting impact with audiences. This conversation brings together the visionary minds behind Ubisoft's award-winning influencer campaign for the launch of 'Assassin's Creed Mirage.' Glenn Ginsburg of QYOU Media, Anna Ivanko of Ubisoft, content creator and comedian Adam W and moderator Amanda Perelli of Business Insider (3:30 pm – 4:30 pm on May 20 at Venice/Peninsula room). We'll put a spotlight on 'How documentaries are shining a light on games.' This will be a roundtable documentary discussion with Theresa Loong, who is making Game On , a film about game designer Brenda Romero and how to exist as a creative person. Moderated by Shelby Moledina of Glowy Pixels Entertainment and maker of Resting Pitch Face , a short film about a woman running the gauntlet of raising money for a startup. (1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. on May 19 at Catalina room). And lastly, we'll have a talk from a tech/film/gaming pioneer Territory on 'The Motion Revolution: Redefining real world experiences.' Step into the forefront of innovation with The Motion Revolution to explore how interactivity is transforming the way we engage with next-generation technologies. Discover how we bring the unimaginable to life, crafting motion design at the intersection of science fiction, technology, and gaming. As technology takes center stage the world is evolving into multi-dimensional realities, offering us new experiences like never before. Discover how our design work extends into this new era, honed on blockbusters such as Iron Man, Avengers, Ready Player One and VR games including Batman: Arkham Shadow. Russ Gautier of Territory Studio (5 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on May 20 at California ballroom) Our advisers include Peter Levin of Griffin Gaming Partners, Mark Chandler of TIGS, Jace Hall of Twin Galaxies, Jeff Karp formerly of EA Mobile, Ed Lu of Fandom, Mike Romo of DDM, Charmaine Duff of Women-Led Games, Don Daglow of AIAS Foundation/Strong National Museum of Play, Eric Goldberg of Playable Worlds, Tammy McDonald of Fusion Point Studios, Noah Falstein of The Inspiracy, Perrin Kaplan of Zebra Partners, Ivan Fernandez Lobo of Games Executive Summit Europe, Michael Metzger of Drake Star Partners, Elizabeth Olson of Strategic Marketing, David B. Hoppe of Gamma Law, Mike Vorhaus of Vorhaus Advisors, Zsuzsa James of private family office, Kat Jones of Motiv PR, Wanda Meloni of M2 Insights, Lisa Cosmas Hanson of Niko Partners, Sibel Sunar of Fortyseven Communications, Michael Chang of Mavent Partners and Adam Boyes of Vivrato. We hope you're excited about this and appreciate your support. Our sponsors include Xsolla, Scopely, Tencent, Entertainment Software Association, Modulate, AWS, Google Cloud, Lightspeed, GEEIQ, Sawhorse Productions, VoicePatrol and more. We couldn't draw as much attention to our event without our great community partners including Women-Led Games, Women X AI, IGDA Foundation, Black in Gaming Foundation, Games for Love, Games for Change, Moms in Gaming, AIAS, GEMA and WIGI. And thanks to our staff: Gina Joseph, CEO of GamesBeat; Cathy Simpson and David Glass of the events team; Ji Bowlus of partnerships; our writers me, Mike Minotti, Rachel Kaser and Giancarlo Valdes; our marketing head Marta Ordeig. We also had a lot of help from VentureBeat on this event, with contributors including Marc Gartenberg, Todd Bokin, Gloria Lukos, Karen Horn, Nicole Patricio, Mike Rosinski, Alyssa Hill, Brian Thurman and Alexey Ilinikh.
Business Mayor
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
How many people work in the game industry?
Amir Satvat, the game job champion, estimated recently that about 230,000 people work in the game industry. That sounded low to Kenn White, one of the leaders of the Game Industry Coffee Chat. So White's crew dug into the numbers on their own and came up with their own defensible estimate of 740,000 to 900,000. White, a longtime game developer, said in a LinkedIn post that the median number of their estimates (ranging from low end to high end) is 833,000 game industry employees across more than 25,000 companies. That sounds a lot more impressive, but it's such a wide variation compared to Satvat's bottoms-up estimate. Satvat raised his estimate to about 350,000, based on his own analysis of White's information, but the two sides still remain pretty far apart for people directly employed in games. White said in his post that this estimate this includes developers and publishers working in PC, Console, Mobile, AR/VR, as well as external developers and outsourcers. It includes functions like art, engineering, production, management, marketing, sales, and other SG&A and Admin functions. It is not meant to include (and we tried to ensure we did not include) headcount and companies whose primary competency is NOT developing or publishing games. 'When we were working on this list (Kenn White, Brandon Hagerman, and others still), we got to collaborate with Amir Satvat in a very open, honest, top-down methodology, and kept asking ourselves: Why has no one done this work before to figure this out?' said Neil Haldar, a game industry veteran. Haldar added, 'This is meant to be an answer for a snapshot in time. We might go back and re-run the research at some point, but it's not meant to be a forever-updating body of work that many others will work on ad infinitum.' He said the group is open to feedback and will continue to work on the accuracy of the estimate and the assumptions. The group has estimates for each country in terms of low and high estimates of the game industry employee population. Satvat said in a message to GamesBeat that he is supportive of the group's exercise and they deserve credit for doing their numbers with realistic information to back it up. He acknowledges that the Game Industry Coffee Chat, which is a descendent of a group I used to frequent on Clubhouse, deserves credit for their research. Satvat's own estimates come from a bottoms-up approach to counting. 'For context, the 230,000 figure I had been using focused specifically on game developers, based on aggregating open role data and estimating headcount for studios without public numbers. That worked reasonably well for regions like North America — for example, my 104,000 U.S. estimate closely matches theirs — but I now realize it likely undercounted large markets like China and India, where data isn't easily available in English,' Satvat said. Read More Hogwarts Legacy for PS5 and Xbox Series X is discounted today That's why he upped his estimate to 350,000. Savat added, 'But the really interesting shift comes from reframing the definition — not just counting game developers, but all people working in the games industry. That broader framing is what could push the number to 600,000, 700,000, or even higher.' And he said, 'While still relatively small compared to some industries, it's much larger than anything I've seen cited before — most dev-only global estimates top out around 350,000. So I think this new framing will open up some healthy and important discussion.' Satvat counted developers tied to publicly visible job pages, live listings, and traceable hiring activity. 'That's still how I do it. If someone believes the real number is higher – and I am increasingly convinced it is much higher – I always ask: What company, with current open roles, are we missing? I want to know so we can put those jobs in front of real people looking for work,' he said. 'That's the entire reason my estimate exists. At any moment, folks like Mayank Grover and I only ever see about 10,000 to 15,000 open games roles globally.' He noted the Games Industry Coffee Chat researchers aren't disputing that data point. 'But here's where things get fascinating – and why I've been so inspired by the GICC community's tackling the same question from a completely different angle: A top-down model pulling from global census data, labor bureau reports, and academic pipelines. That broader lens could land their estimate at 1 million+ people in or adjacent to the industry,' Satvat said. 'I admire and love this exercise. The rigor, the effort, the transparency – it's everything data work should be. Allow me, however, also to explain why reconciling that number is hard and why I still have many open questions, intended in a cooperative and inquisitive frame.' He noted that even if a top-down figure is directionally correct, it needs to pass other sniff tests – and that's where things start to stretch and we need to answer tough questions. Unemployment math is one way to cross check the data. 'If we believe in 240,000 workers and see 10,000 to 15,000 open jobs, that's about 20% unemployment. But if there are a million workers, that drops to 5% unemployment — in line with general U.S. labor force averages. That doesn't reflect the visible suffering and stagnation many in our field feel,' Satvat said. He noted that he tracks 3,000 game studios that hire with any regularity and don't have dead websites. 'Let's say there 5,000 active studios worldwide and that many pass under our net. If there are a million people in games, the average headcount per studio would be 200, which doesn't match the actual composition of an industry dominated by small and mid-sized teams,' Satvat said. 'And it would mean, as opposed to the long-tail of most small and mid-sized teams that I track with less than 10 people, they would have to be 20 times bigger on average.' Satvat noted that every major aggregator — LinkedIn, Hitmarker, Work With Indies, etc. — surfaces a consistent number of open jobs. If we were dealing with a million-person industry, we'd expect far greater hiring activity across every region and platform, Satvat said. And if the headcount were that large, Satvat said we would see heavy hiring in emerging markets. Instead, most high-skill, high-compensation roles are still concentrated in North America, Europe, and select parts of Asia. If you extrapolate a million workers to about $185 billion in global games revenue, the revenue-per-employee math begins to break — especially when adjusting for roles in lower-cost regions or sectors with lower margins (QA, community, etc.), Satvat said. Satvat said that both his numbers and GICC's numbers both matter — because they measure very different things. 'Mine reflects the 'hiring-visible' active core of the industry — and is built to support people looking for work today. My original estimate of about 240,000 came from counting only companies with public job pages and listings. But even knowing what I do now, I believe the ratio analysis I used to account for studios I couldn't see was too conservative,' he said. With the benefit of hindsight – and after seeing how the GICC team has surfaced global teams, regional directories, and indirect contributors — Satvat said he would up his estimate to 350,000. That is because he now appreciates the volume of studios and teams that don't post jobs in the usual places but still employ staff. 'I underestimated adjacent or support functions (QA, tools, operations, localization) that are part of internal teams but don't always show up in job boards,' he said. 'And I didn't factor in as much of the Asia-Pacific and MENA ecosystems, where hiring is often harder to surface with standard scraping or tracking methods, often because of where roles are listed or language issues.' That said, Satvat argued that even 350,000 is still a focused count of the structured, salaried, and generally visible part of the global games labor force — not the entire orbit of talent with transferable skills or aspirational ties to games. Satvat believes GICC explores the broader career and skills ecosystem and represents the scale of where games touch the wider economy. 'I don't doubt that many of these roles exist – there's strong top-down data suggesting they do – but I still struggle to see how or where to map them from a bottom-up perspective. That's what makes it feel so murky to me,' Satvat. 'In short, this is a very hard number to pin down – and even if we do, it's equally hard to ringfence it with a consistent definition.' Read More The best entertainment of 2023 Still, Satvat said, 'If you ask me which figure I'll point people to going forward, I'll reference the GICC work. I strongly encourage everyone to review their estimate and the methodology behind it – it's thoughtful, transparent, and offers a critical top-down view of the industry's broader footprint.' He added, 'That said, for my own modeling – especially when tying estimates to the 10,000–15,000 open roles we see at any given moment – I'll continue to use a more conservative 350,000 estimate. That reflects what I consider the hiring-visible, active core of the video games industry that I can reconcile at an individual company and role level.' Satvat said he could be convinced to increase his estimate if someone shows him studios with live job openings that aren't yet in the games jobs workbook. That's how he will reconcile the gap between the bottom-up and top-down – one real opportunity at a time. He said whatever the number winds up being, his goal is to put more real jobs in front of real people, understand where the gaps are, and help every developer, artist, and dreamer find their way. He thanked GICC for their efforts. For my own part, I think the game engine makers have more data that is worth cross checking and I would love to see them weigh in. Unity, Epic Games' Unreal and even Godot could help us understand how many engines are out there being used on a regular basis, and where they are. I would encourage them to join this conversation. I have brought it up with them in the past. As an aside, Satvat looked into how many people work at external development and co-development studios (such as Keywords, which says it has 13,000 people, and Virtuos, which has 4,000). But this is also a tough number to assess. 'If I use the total headcount and open roles from that group and look at what percentage is external development, I estimate it falls in the 27% to 35% range,' Satvat said. 'Within this, as I discussed with Kenn, contractors are very hard to estimate, so that could be a confounding factor.' His guess is it's about a third but he will look into it further. GB Daily Stay in the know! Get the latest news in your inbox daily Read our Privacy Policy Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here. An error occured. READ SOURCE businessmayor April 26, 2025
Business Mayor
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
The new GamesBeat: Ready to serve the industry, with your help
Thank you all for the kind words related to our announcement that GamesBeat is going independent as we spin out of VentureBeat. We can't think of a better way to spend our time than serving this industry with our journalistic flair and our community-oriented events. It was wonderful and heartwarming to see our story go wide. My own Twitter saw more than 160,000 impressions over a couple of days as Variety covered our move as if Gina Joseph and I were celebrities. On LinkedIn and Facebook, I was heartened to see thousands more expressions of congratulations. Our hope is that we can use this love to take advantage of what we see as great opportunities before us. I felt a bit like Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life , realizing we had friends after all. After all, this business of game journalism is kind of a lonely road. So many of the people who were my peers when I was younger have dropped out of the trade and moved on to something more rewarding. The GamesBeat crew at E3 2012. But I feel blessed to have stayed in this game long enough to see the less earthly rewards. One of those rewards is to see so many people go through a life cycle of a humble start and wind up in an incredible position — like Jensen Huang, Jason Citron, Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, Reggie Fils-Aime, Shawn Layden, Mark Cerny, John Carmack, Henk Rogers, Shu Yoshida, Will Wright, Neil Druckmann, Tim Sweeney, Owen Mahoney, Mitch Lasky, Jenova Chen, Amy Hennig, Mark Pincus, Danny Bilson, John Romero, Frank Azor, Brenda Romero, Brian Fargo, Mike Morhaime, Johanna Faries, Geoff Keighley, Robert Kirkman, Perrin Kaplan — and on and on. There are also so many new creators from the Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft generation. We've benefited from having a number of industry veterans continuously help us with our events. I better stop dropping names, as I'll feel guilty for leaving folks out. The point is: telling their stories over generations has been a joy. We serve you. I've written more than 26,000 stories for GamesBeat and VentureBeat over 17 years, and I've been dedicated to covering the game industry as a business and creative art for 27 years on a daily basis. I've covered the tech industry longer and enjoy seeing the seams between the industries. I often say that I've written 10 stories in a day, and that speaks to how vast and global the game industry has become — it has so much news every day. And I get to meet new passionate people every day; it's like finding little gems of sea glass on the beach at night with a flashlight. Part of the GamesBeat/VentureBeat team at GamesBeat Next 2024. Game and tech startups often tell me that I was the only one that chose to write about them as they got off the ground. That seems like a heavy and ever-growing burden, but I don't see it that way. What I get from talking to all of you over the years — the creative developers or the repeat entrepreneurs or the savvy investors — is a unique perspective on the business of gaming as it goes global and becomes the dominant culture of the world. Gaming is not just entertainment culture. It is global culture, and I am grateful I have been able to travel the world to meet people in the game industry. The only drawback in covering the business of games so fiercely is that I don't get enough time to play games. I'm writing this column near midnight. And this is why I'm not the only person here at GamesBeat. We have a strong team in people like Mike Minotti, our managing editor at GamesBeat, and our writer Rachel Kaser. It's a small team, and we want it to be bigger. But we're an authentic squad. Rachel and Mike have near-encyclopedic knowledge of games and gameplay, as they play a lot more than I do. That's a core value in this business, and it means that they bring a lot of intangible authenticity and cred to the table. I'm just glad to be able to pull out the occasional win in Call of Duty: Warzone battle royale or Call of Duty multiplayer. Sadly, Rachel and Mike don't like all of the same games I do. They're not perfect. But hey, this industry is vast. It contains multitudes. A decade ago, Mike Minotti hams it at the media table. Want to join him? My focus was to track new trends without dwelling on any single category of gaming too much. Follow the money. My colleagues in game journalism — those of us who are left, as well as our readers — keep me grounded in the notion that it's not only CEOs I need to track. Amir Satvat, the game job champion, has reminded me with his data on layoffs, hirings and people on the ground floor of gaming are topics that need to be highlighted and recognized. Our industry is only somewhat transparent in giving out the information that could help game developers as they try to break into the industry, survive, and thrive. Over time, our focus evolved. Follow the people. I am humbled when I realize that we are just one publication, and every surviving journalistic outlet helps shed light on this vast business. It saddens me that PressEngine's data shows that the top 135 video game websites published 635,000 articles during the first quarter, down 13%, or more than 100,000 fewer articles, compared with the same quarter a year ago. I am not happy my friends cannot make a living in game journalism. It's like we're all standing on the Wall in Game of Thrones, doing guard duty and pitied by those that think we have the worst of jobs. Read More PlayStation Plus adds The Callisto Protocol for the spooky season Gina Joseph, CEO of GamesBeat. Gina Joseph, our CEO, is one of the only women who is the CEO of a game journalism company. She brings a unique perspective and a couple of decades of media experience on the business side. Gina has made an effort to get to know the game community and embrace its diversity. And she has done more to enable us to become an independent entity so that we can make our own destiny and develop our own unique voice in an industry full of large corporate media. This has been a tough time for gaming and a tough time for games media. We are grateful to you that we are still standing. More than 2,902 'press contacts' have disappeared from the database of PressEngine, in a report cited by Christopher Dring of The Game Business. We have survived, or done well, as a business because we have been able to get sponsors for our GamesBeat events. David Glass and Cathy Simpson have been critical to the success of those events, from small high-touch dinners to conferences where the crowds can top a thousand people. There are other things that we can try in hopes of taking advantage of new opportunities and new models. There are others on the team that I won't mention for the moment, but we acknowledge their contributions as we get this new 17-year-old startup off the ground. There are those who are staying at VentureBeat to cover the awesome story of our time as AI transforms the enterprise. None of us got into this journalism thing to get super rich. As I watched others do that around me, I knew that staying in journalism was not the path to financial glory. But at VentureBeat, Matt Marshall provided me with a self-directed platform to do what I wanted for 17 years, and that helped me put my kids through college and stay in this business for the long haul. For that, I am eternally grateful to Matt and VentureBeat. It's also been a joy to see my family around me grow up appreciating games or the industry — or finding their joy in some other way. GamesBeat's own story and its ethos are really about individuals. We are not here to mimic what the biggest game media companies already do. One of the stories I felt best about doing was the mourning of Carter Lipscomb, a game industry veteran who passed away earlier this year. It seemed like just about everybody in the industry had a story to tell about Carter's bear hugs and zest for life. Now it's time to leave the nest so that we can do a better job at our purpose; we are here to serve you. We do not simply serve up traditional objective journalism. We strive for perspective. Unique stories. Thoughtful analysis. A shelter where you put down your shields and swords at the door. And a joyful and inspirational community. Carter Lipscomb, a game industry veteran, has passed away. At the same time, we need your help. We have a fresh opportunity to be better at what we do. We can benefit from your own advice for us. This is the part where we feel like it's our public radio telethon. I know it is exceedingly easy to sit it out and not make a contribution. Then we wonder later where that resource has gone. We're not a nonprofit, but as an independent company, we need to grow to continue doing what we do for our community and for the industry. We need your support on many different levels. We would love it if you share our stories or support us with sponsorships. None of this would be possible without the support of our partners. So we can grow our team. Send us your exclusive story tips at tips@ We would welcome you at our events where you can find the right networking opportunities to get ahead. We would love it if you would encourage your friends to come. Or volunteer. Contact us for event info at events@ It's a tough and uncertain time, but we could use sponsors for our events, such as our upcoming GamesBeat Summit 2025 event on May 19-20 in Los Angeles. You can purchase your ticket here and we're offering a special 50% off as part of our celebration, in light of our announcement (GBSCELEBRATION50). Message us for sponsors/partnerships at partnerships@ I think we'll be OK, together. Most importantly, thank you.
