Welcome to This Week in Games, by Deconstructor of Fun's Editor, Aylin.

You're wondering why this is the 396th edition instead of the 22nd? Well, it's because we are now staying true to the TWIG podcast show. We offer the summaries in a newsletter, but you can dive into the full episode to get the full and uncensored versions.

Someone Is Holding GTA 6 Hostage With a Memecoin. This Is New.

16 leaked gameplay clips, a crypto-funded voting system deciding what drops next, and Rockstar calling it heartbreaking.

​A leaker known as CyberLeek has released 16 GTA 6 gameplay clips, including a full in-game map view, in the days before Rockstar's official Netflix debut. Take-Two filed subpoenas on August 20th against Microsoft and Discord, then Google and X, and the filings cite stolen content, which strongly suggests the clips are real. Rockstar published a statement Wednesday calling the leaks heartbreaking for the team and apologising for how long everything has taken. No major plot spoilers so far.

CyberLeek issued a token, runs polls on its own site, and holders spend that token to vote on which clip gets released next. The token's market cap is sitting around $10 million. This is not a leak. It is a crowdfunded ransom with a governance layer. The stated cause is opposition to digital-only ownership, preorders, and paid unlocks for content already on the disc, which is a strange hill to defend using a cryptocurrency.

The genuinely missed opportunity, from a purely mechanical view, is that there is no "do not release" option Rockstar could have bid on. That would have been the real extraction play. Whoever this is will almost certainly be found and prosecuted, because Rockstar does not mess around here. But the model itself is now out in the world, and it is going to get copied.

​The full conversation on the new age of cyber ransom.

Newzoo Says the Market Is Growing Again. That Is Not the Same as Good News.

$213.9 billion in 2026, up 6.1%. North America is the slowest-growing region. And 95% of revenue still goes to games that already exist.

Newzoo updated its 2026 forecast, and the global games market is projected to hit $213.9 billion, up 6.1% year on year, with growth across every region and all three platforms. GTA 6 is expected to drive a 17.5% jump in console full-game spending. Mobile remains the largest and fastest-growing platform at $121.1 billion, even as downloads fall and growth shifts toward deeper spending per player. The global player base reaches 3.7 billion.

Strip out inflation, and you are looking at maybe 2 to 3% real growth. That is not an industry recovering. It's simply a mature industry. Asia is nearly half of all revenue, and North America is posting the weakest growth of any region on both revenue and players.

The awkward question this raises is why layoffs keep happening if players and revenue are both climbing. The answer is that this is now a market share game, not a growth game. Established players are taking more of a flat pie; 95% of revenue goes to known IP and recurring franchises across both mobile and console, and every job created during the 2021 and 2022 hype cycle is being unwound.

If you have a working game, everything should be going into onboarding, retention, and win-back rather than chasing new audiences that are not there. Jagex organises Runescape around exactly this: obsess over the game, make it as easy as possible to get into, then drive new and lapsed players into that funnel.

​The full breakdown of what the numbers mean for the labor market and an interview Mishka recorded with the CEO of Jagex.​

Makers Fund Raised $250 Million. But It Is Not a VC Fund Anymore.

$1.5 billion under management, a top 1% first fund, and an admission that venture capital does not work for games.

​Makers Fund closed a $250 million Fund IV, pushing total assets under management to $1.5 billion. The firm's $180 million Fund I has distributed 3.6x capital invested, which puts it in the top 1% of venture funds globally. The portfolio includes Dream Games through every round up to its reported $5 billion CVC acquisition, plus FaceIt, PixAI and Voldex. And they even invested in our very own Mishka's company, which was acquired by PlayStation. ​

It is genuinely good news that large capital is flowing into games again. But read the structure carefully. Fund IV backs games and consumer apps, entertainment and creation platforms, using equity, project financing, and marketing financing. That last part matters. Project financing and UA financing are not venture capital. They are closer to what a publisher does, with profit sharing instead of equity upside.

Which means the 3.6x from Fund I is almost certainly not repeatable here. Project and UA financing carry far less risk and correspondingly far less upside. Don't take that as a criticism. This model arguably makes more sense for games than traditional VC ever did, and Griffin Gaming Partners has moved in the same direction. It is just worth naming what it is: one of the original gaming VCs conceding that the venture model does not fit this industry anymore.

Worth noting alongside this is that the broader 2026 investment numbers look strong, around $7 billion in the first half, but the five largest raises all went to AI model or tooling companies. The biggest game studio round was $70 million. The money is coming back. It is just not coming back to content.

​The full take on what this signals for games funding.

HoYoverse Is Going After Monster Hunter. And Its Portfolio Really Needs This to Work.

Nodusfall was the opening reveal at Gamescom. Meanwhile, the existing portfolio is down 24% year on year.

​HoYoverse announced Nodusfall at Opening Night Live, a fantasy action project that looks squarely aimed at Monster Hunter: open world exploration, large creature hunts, some Shadow of the Colossus in the scale of the encounters. It is built on Unreal Engine 5 and the platform lineup has not been confirmed, which itself is a signal.

The thesis is smart. Monster Hunter has a DLC business, not a live service, and Capcom seems in no hurry to change that. Going after a proven mechanic that an incumbent is too cautious to modernise is the same play HoYoverse ran against Nintendo with Genshin. They are very good at picking targets that are already validated and adding what the incumbent will not.

They also need it to land. The mobile portfolio is down 24% year on year. Genshin has actually been the most stable product in the lineup while Honkai: Star Rail has struggled to hold revenue. Quarterly mobile revenue has fallen from roughly $500 million at the Star Rail launch, when the company was valued at $24 billion, to under $200 million in the latest quarter per Sensor Tower. Some of that has moved to direct-to-consumer, but not enough to change the shape of the curve. The cannibalisation problem we flagged two years ago is now visible in the data.

The encouraging read is that Nodusfall looks like a genuine departure rather than another reskin, and opening a Gamescom showcase is a PC and console signal, not a mobile one. HoYoverse is closely held with only around 15% outside ownership, so they can build what they want without quarterly pressure. The open question is whether an HD-first project reaches Western players in a way their mobile catalogue never quite has.

​The full debate on HoYoverse, China's Gamescom showing, and whether HD works on mobile.

See you next Friday!

TWIG #398: 2026 Reality Check, The GTA 6 Leak Nightmare and
Why Jobs Are Still Vanishing

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Watch the full This Week in Games episode where Jen Donahoe, Phillip Black and Eric Kress break down:

• CyberLeek posts 16 GTA 6 clips and runs crypto-paid polls on what leaks next
• Take-Two subpoenas Microsoft, Discord and Google to unmask whoever is behind it
• Newzoo's 2026 forecast hits 214 billion with North America growing slowest
• Why are layoffs still coming in a market still growing 6 percent
• Makers Fund raises 250 million and shifts into project and UA financing
• Google Play makes memory optimization a store requirement in February 2027
• Opening Night Live and the endless pile of tactics spin-offs
• HoYoverse reveals Nodusfall while its mobile portfolio drops 24 percent
• Garena picks up Palworld for mobile, and Roco Kingdom goes global
• Localization and UI as the real barriers for Eastern games in the West
• The HD on mobile fight: nobody at the table is winning
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What Happens When You Become A CEO? (The First 100 Days)

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In March 2025, Jon Bellamy became CEO of Jagex and Alexis Bonte became CEO of Stillfront. Both inherited companies with legacy, scale, and a long list of things that needed to go. This conversation is about what actually happens in a game industry CEO's first 100 days.