In-Depth

The Music+Sound Awards have announced the finalists for 2026, globally celebrating the composers, sound designers and wider creative talent whose work is shaping music and sound in gaming.

Gaming is becoming increasingly digital. But that doesn’t mean consumer choice is disappearing with the disc. If anything, as digital becomes the default, players are becoming more demanding about how, where and on what terms they buy.

Fireshine Games announced today it has added Danish indie studio Fair Games and its survival-crafting title Necesse to its growing portfolio. With plans to add key long-tail support to the PC title and its millions of players, the label also confirms plans to develop Necesse for additional platforms. Necesse, originally launched in December 2019, has amassed approximately 2.5 million players and a Very Positive user rating of 93% on Steam 

by Lokesh Jaral A moving image can communicate a game’s atmosphere long before a playable build exists. That makes it useful for discussing art direction, planning a trailer or explaining a proposed scene. It also creates a responsibility: an audience should be able to tell whether the image shows a …

Cormac Moylan, CMO at Loaded, argues that GTA VI could become the release that finally makes gaming’s shift away from physical discs impossible to ignore.

Latin America is one of the fastest-growing video game markets in the world, yet millions of its players have long faced barriers to purchasing content because of how they pay. EBANX, a global technology company specialising in cross-border payments for emerging markets, and NetEase Games Club, the official top-up destination for NetEase Games titles, today announced a partnership to expand payment access for players across the region.

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2026 MCV/DEVELOP "30 Under 30", which will be given the spotlight as part of MCV/DEVELOP #1012, appearing Jan 2027.

By Berkley Egenes, Chief Marketing & Growth Officer at Xsolla, and Faisal Kazim, Games Commissioner at Dubai Films and Games Commission

Gamescom 2026 landed at an odd moment for the industry; money is starting to move again, and the industry's biggest bet in years is about to decide who benefits from it. Behind the demos, the market itself was quietly changing shape.

By Olga Taranova, online tech lead at Thrylox On August 18, 2026, the small Korean studio ALIVE released Vapor World: Over the Mind in Early Access, a 2D Soulslike platformer that had accumulated more than 100,000 wishlists before launch. After release, the discussion quickly shifted from the game itself to …