This article was originally published on December 19, 2025 - read the full issue

By Patrick Garratt

As this is our last edition of the year, the 40th we've published since launching in March, it seems reasonable to consider the Knowledge story to date, and what our output has taught us about the state of the videogame industry in 2025.

Objectively, the past 12 months have been a success for Knowledge. Our subscriber numbers have risen constantly, we received a huge amount of positive feedback following the first Knowledge Live panel, and we have plans to multiply the formats on which we publish. We're excited. Instead of merely existing, our presence has been welcomed and will grow next year.

I would hope that we've also succeeded in creating something professionally useful to our audience. A media outlet can be valuable in many ways (it can be primarily entertaining, for example), but a B2B editorial product must, must, provide information that can be beneficial to the professionals that read it, however you want to define that. The classic B2C game media example is the importance of guide-related traffic ("how to win"). In the wider world, you're seeing all that "how to make a cake" content on social media (and the billion variations thereof) because it's sticky (badum). Learning something, anything, in return for 15 seconds of staring at your perma-screen on a bus is a good deal. We had to be useful.

This idea has shaped our editorial this year through a constant evaluation of whether or not our strategy is benefiting our audience. The aim has always been to provide practical, free editorial to those who work in the videogame industry, be it in development, publishing, marketing, PR or beyond. Consequently, Marie and I have spent the large majority of 2025 interviewing developers and publishers about their working lives. These stories have, I think, described a frantic frontline on which battles are once again being won.

Stayin' alive

What were the major game industry themes of 2025? The obsessive topic this year was debated in our first Knowledge Live panel in November: how do game companies and independent creatives form sustainable ventures in an environment so deprived of investment and confidence? Because despite the gloom, there exists in games today an incredible opportunity, a place where ARC Raiders can take down Call Of Duty, and double-A teams in Montpellier can win everything. That nothing is certain means that anything can happen. We've spoken to two-person companies powered by private funding and Kickstarter, Asian publishers working their way back into the west after the pandemic, and developers working on the biggest and smallest of projects. There has never been a lack of optimism or excitement, and while the meta-narrative of creation and commerce in the videogame industry is currently one of woe, a diverse, fluid environment has emerged in which games, in general, are emphatically succeeding.

The past 12 months have even been vibrant in terms of hardware. Switch 2 launched, bringing with it backwards compatibility and real opportunities for publishers and developers for the following years. Microsoft launched ASUS-engineered handhelds, and Valve resurrected its Steam Machine strategy. This year was one where lines continued to blur, and expired norms, most notably in terms of the form of Xbox's general role, were swept aside in hardware as well as software.

Knowledge's 2025 editorial also underlined 'AI' as an issue liable to remain one of the most fiercely debated in the industry for the foreseeable future. As was highlighted this week by Swen Vincke causing a social media ruckus over the use of gen-AI at concept and prototype stages on the new Divinity, many, both in the industry proper and on the sidelines, are very much in pitchfork mode when it comes to its use in any way. With some of the most popular and profitable games of 2025 openly employing AI, however, the combat against the use of the technology in development could be nearing something of a conclusion. This theme has never dropped from the news this year, and it's unlikely that the 2026 version will be any less fiery.

I'm looking forward to seeing it pan out, of course. For now, though, that was the year, our first year. We built it, they came. We sincerely hope you've found us useful so far and have enjoyed our weekly mails, and we can't wait to share our plans for 2026. Until then, all of us here at Knowledge wish you a restful holiday. Thank you so much for your support.

This article was originally published on December 19, 2025 - read the full issue