Four publishers, four playbooks
Game makers face a maturing games-as-a-service market. Earnings show how.
The SuperJoost Playlist is a weekly take on gaming, tech, and entertainment by business professor and author Joost van Dreunen.
If the data don’t agree with you, it must be the data’s fault.
No one likes bad news. I get it. Bringing evidence into an organization is sobering—especially when it cuts against the internal narrative. Worse still, it can rattle the fragile politics of the place, suddenly arming the unpopular view with third-party validation.
The games industry is no different. In the fat years, everyone looks like a genius. It’s the lean years that test mettle. And when the numbers don’t cooperate, people don’t change their story—they shoot the messenger. Just ask Erika McEntarfer, the labor stats chief Trump fired hours after reporting weak job growth.
So, to keep in shape this summer, we’re sticking close to the numbers. This week (and next), we’re digging into earnings season to sharpen up before everyone’s back from vacation.
On to this week’s update.
BIG READ: Four publishers, four playbooks
The short: Earnings season lays bare how game makers are adapting to a maturing market, each betting on a different path forward.
The big winner (so far) is Roblox, which reported a new all-time high of 112 million daily active users.
The success of Grow a Garden has emerged as a key driver of the platform's current momentum, validating its growth model to investors and attracting mainstream attention from non-endemic brands and celebrities. It blew away Wall Street analysts. Bookings totaled $1.4 billion, representing a 51 percent year-over-year increase, surpassing consensus expectations of 23 percent growth. Additionally, the average daily hours of engagement per daily active user reached a new high of 2.69. It puts Roblox squarely at the center of the attention economy.
I previously wrote about the success of Grow a Garden, specifically how it demonstrates that Roblox can evolve into the next central entertainment platform. The firm’s strategy to become a creator platform and shed its label as just a game is starting to materialize, silencing skeptics. The logic breaks down as follows.
First, rather than cannibalizing other experiences on the platform, Grow a Garden is actually elevating the entire ecosystem. The success did not come at the expense of different experiences, indicating a net positive of new users. It demonstrates positive network effects that will enable Roblox to continue scaling, thereby disproving any concerns about market saturation.
Second, the platform is proving capable of generating homegrown hits. Instead of purely relying on outside content or third-party development, Roblox is becoming a creative hub. This "hit factory" model proves the firm is capable of consistently generating new viral experiences that drive user engagement and platform growth. That makes Roblox different from, say, Fortnite, which relies more heavily on licensing outside IP to organize in-game events and experiences.
Third, the speed at which brands, advertisers, and celebrities are responding signals a shift in their thinking about Roblox. Last week's AMA featuring Taylor Swift's football-playing boyfriend (complete with free virtual vegetables as attendance incentives) tells you that these interactive environments are becoming essential venues for audience engagement. Roblox offers its own blend of Reddit-style Q&A sessions and Fortnite-style live events as a meaningful alternative to conventional social media.
In response, Wall Street analysts have dramatically increased their price targets. Across the major banks, there was an average increase of 40%, led by Barclays (+142%) and Morgan Stanley (+124%), taking the consensus target from $107 to $150.
My take: Having proven its model and exceeded everyone’s expectations, Roblox’s ambition of capturing 10 percent of the global gaming industry is starting to look more achievable. What if it does? This prospect creates a familiar sense of FOMO among investors, of course, who would hate to bet on the wrong horse.
The broader significance extends beyond having some talented kids make something cool. Traditional platform ecosystems have become perfectly optimized to benefit their owners while pushing most of the risk and effort onto creatives. The economics of both mobile and PC development are increasingly prohibitive.
How long before a new generation of developers starts to take this more seriously? Instead of releasing a beautiful, high-end production to an audience of 12 people, I expect more creatives to begin building for this environment. I expect the one-two punch of first breaking the 100 million daily active user barrier, followed by surpassing financial expectations, to be the moment when, suddenly, more firms will flock to the ecosystem. It mirrors early mobile games, which were initially dismissed but later emerged as the largest category ever. Just as aspiring filmmakers pivoted from pursuing careers in Hollywood to building audiences on YouTube, game developers may increasingly choose Roblox over traditional platforms.
Finally, the gravitational pull extends beyond gaming to attract non-endemics on a large scale. As brands seek relevance and white space, ecosystems like Roblox will become increasingly appealing. It will be increasingly complex to ignore the organic growth, especially when compared to existing channels. Precisely because it is still nascent, Roblox currently represents an opportune moment for ambitious newcomers to build something cool in the absence of apex predators, and for big incumbents to earn some street cred.
I mean, look at the big smile.
By comparison, the largest US legacy publisher, Electronic Arts (EA), posted net revenue of $1.67 billion, essentially flat year-over-year (+0.7% year-over-year), and came in slightly above guidance. Major contributors were EA SPORTS FC, Apex Legends, and catalog titles.
However, the firm has increased its R&D spending by 12 percent compared to last year. As it winters through the current malaise, investing in what’s next is a solid move. It also beefed up its marketing spend in preparation for its upcoming release slate, which includes Battlefield 6 and Madden NFL 26. These combined increased spending resulted in a net income decline of 28 percent to $201 million. Live services remained the primary revenue engine, contributing $1.38 billion (83% of total), but full-game sales still rose 16 percent year-over-year to $289 million on the back of EA SPORTS F1 25.
Looking ahead, EA reaffirmed its full-year 2026 guidance of $7.1 to $7.5 billion in net revenue and expects next quarter’s net bookings to fall between $1.8 to $1.9 billion, buoyed by Madden NFL 26 and ongoing Apex Legends momentum. Anticipation for Battlefield 6 is building, and EA has allocated its largest-ever resource investment to the franchise, previewing a multiplayer reveal ahead of its expected launch in early October. Analysts remain cautiously optimistic, viewing Battlefield’s success as essential for revitalizing EA’s non-sports portfolio and expanding its live services footprint, especially as industry competition intensifies.
Next, Capcom reported strong results, with net sales of $316 million, up 54% year-over-year, and an operating profit of $171 million, nearly doubling from the prior year (+91%). Here, too, higher unit sales and the steady performance of catalog titles led the charge. It sold 14.2 million units in digital content, accounting for the bulk of revenue, up from 9.5 million a year earlier. Major contributors were its mainstay IPs Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Street Fighter, as well as ports of Street Fighter 6 and Onimusha 2.
What sets Capcom and several of its Japanese peers apart is their diverse mix of entertainment operations. In addition to game sales, the company also has a sizable business in arcade and modernized slot machines, known as Amusement Equipment, which features the firm’s IP, such as Devil May Cry 5 Stylish Tribe (10,900 units sold). Its confidence in the upcoming release of Resident Evil convinced the firm to reiterate its 2026 revenue guidance of $1.32 billion.
And, finally, South Korean game maker Krafton generated $1.1 billion in revenue in the first half of 2025, up 11.9% year-over-year. It also reported a 9.5 percent increase in operating profit, reaching a record $520 million. Its core PUBG franchise continues to deliver across both PC and mobile, with PC revenue growing 24.9 percent year-over-year. Mobile, on the other hand, dipped slightly compared to last quarter, reflecting a broader market softening, according to the firm.
Central to this round of earnings was the report card on its recently released inZOI, a life simulation game. Essentially a fancier version of The Sims, Krafton’s inZOI became a breakout hit, selling 1 million copies in just 7 days, compared to 16 days for PUBG and a 32-day average for Korean packaged titles. An essential contributor to inZOI’s success was the publisher’s effort of establish a geographically diverse community around the game pre-release, with Europe, Asia, and North America all accounting for comparable shares of total sales.
It has emboldened Krafton to put some big numbers in its future. It aims to double its corporate value and reach $5.1 billion in annual revenue by 2029, with $2.9 billion expected to come from PUBG and $2.2 billion from new IP.
Across earnings from these different firms, a pattern emerges: game publishing is shifting again. Games as a service, while currently the dominant business model, has matured. Game makers are developing different strategies in response. Roblox, with its ecosystem-driven growth, homegrown hits, and viral pull for brands, is setting the pace. Electronic Arts, by contrast, continues to bet big on traditional franchises—a high-risk, high-cost endeavor that may or may not pay off. Capcom is relying on its diversified content portfolio to deliver breakout profitability. At the same time, Krafton’s push behind inZOI tells you it is looking to establish a geographically coordinated, community-led effort for its future success.
Earnings season is exposing which camp is scaling—and which is just treading water. The next few quarters won’t just be about hits; they’ll be about gravity. And right now, gravity favors platforms over publishers.
We’ll conclude this outlook once the next batch of firms has reported their earnings.
🎙 THIS WEEK ON UNBOXING
Laine and I break down the recent wave of game removals from Steam and Itch.io and offer insight into what triggered it. (Spoiler alert: it’s all about platform power.)
PLAY/PASS
Play. Gabe Newell is like video game Santa without a predictable schedule. Last week, he did an interview on some bootleg channel, which offered some much-needed cold water on AI’s impact. It also featured an incredible symbolism: I cannot imagine any other platform billionaire taking such a casual approach. He’s like the anti-Bezos.
Pass. Electronic Arts is shutting down several of its forever games, right as the broader conversation about video game preservation has flared up. Every time I boot up one of their titles, they tell me “it’s in the game.” Until it’s not.
NEXT UP
I’ll continue my analysis of this quarter’s earnings when we look at Take-Two Interactive, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony.