Recognizing Patterns
Gaming industry pattern recognition from inside the conversations. How one game delay reshapes an entire calendar, why roguelikes are eating everything, and what studios are really doing right now.
| Platform |  | Pricing | Only free issues | Publishes | Weekly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issues | 44 | Founded | 10 months ago | Last Issue | 8 days ago |
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recognizingpatterns.substack.comLatest Issues
Sony Killed the PlayStation Disc. Consumer Preference Is Only Half the Story.
TL;DR
- Sony confirmed on 1 July 2026 that it will stop producing physical discs for new PlayStation games from January 2028, and the backlash arrived within hours: a Change.org petition passed 40,000 signatures in 48 hours and cleared...
Mobile Games Never Had To Answer Which Players Pay
TL;DR
- On the App Store and Google Play, the storefront is not where the selling happens. Steam, Epic, PlayStation and Xbox all carry free-to-play titles (F2P), but their business is still mostly paid downloads. On mobile the inst...
A Buffy Dance, An X-Men Cartoon, And A Roguelite Walk Into A Memetic Engine
TL;DR
- The four-engines community marketing models treated memetic participation as one mode. This piece is about the two production paths into it, and why the accidental one takes twenty-five years to pay off while the intentiona...
Valve's Steam Revenue Is An Estimate And So Is Everything Built On It
TL;DR
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Steam is where PC games get sold, and Valve does not publish its revenue. Every figure you have seen is an estimate, inferred from public signals by firms working without the underlying data.
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The 2024 figure in circulatio...
China's Gacha Paradox
TL;DR:
- Gacha is a slot machine with better art direction. Premium currency buys a randomized shot at a rare character. A pity timer guarantees a hit after enough misses, which makes spending feel fair without making it smaller. ...
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Authors
The writers behind this newsletter.
Award-winning producer of games and animation. 25 years shipping Video Games, Peabody-winning transmedia, and securing $17M+ for studios. Now shares the intelligence that stays in publisher meetings and conference bars at 11pm.
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