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Ads in games are not the problem. The seams are.

Ads, subscriptions, casual games and clips all work. Player Driven Live with Richard Goldsmith on the seams that break them: the funnel, the metric, the ad load.

WITH Greg PosnerJUL 16, 2026

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──FROM PATCH NOTES — WEEKLY ANALYSIS BY COLAN NEESE

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JUL 17, 2026

An App, Inside An App, Plus An App On Another Platform... Netflix's Confusing Path To Play

Netflix Games... throwing stuff on the wall to see what sticks Follow me here… or on LinkedIn This is the last Patch Notes of July, and before you ask why... it’s Comic Con week. San Diego, my annual pilgrimage.

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Past streams.

Xbox: end of an error, not just a bad week

Microsoft's gaming layoffs and studio spin-offs weren't a bad week. Player Driven Live on Xbox's 64-cent problem and why ad-funded discovery is the way out.

WITH GREG POSNERJUL 9, 2026

GTA 6's zero-ad launch and the death of physical media

Player Driven Live breaks down GTA 6's earned-media launch, Sony killing physical discs by 2028, and why Xbox can't buy its way back into the platform race.

WITH GREG POSNERJUL 2, 2026

GTA 6 Won Summer Game Fest by Posting a Box Art

Greg Posner and Colan Neese on the week attention stopped meaning what people think it means: GTA 6's post-marketing, the Steam wishlist lie, Poki's quiet rise, and Bungie's collapse.

WITH GREG POSNERJUN 25, 2026

Xbox's Restructuring Isn't an Asha Problem. It's a Game Pass Math Problem.

Microsoft can't seem to stay out of the news, and this week it earned the headlines the hard way.

WITH GREG POSNERJUN 17, 2026

Blizzard Built a Market That Killed Its Own Game

Tomorrow on Player Driven Live: a legendary Diablo III mace sold for $250 in Blizzard's official auction house, then resold on a third-party site for $12,000. That gap is the whole story.

LIVEJUN 4, 2026

Let Bungie Die

Bungie's mindshare has collapsed 86% since 2019 and Destiny is winding down. Colan and Greg unpack what went wrong at Bungie, why Bond's launch curve still has room to run, and what Activision's Modern Warfare 4 surprise drop signals about Call of Duty's next era.

WITH GREG POSNERMAY 28, 2026

Who Pays for Attention in Gaming Now? Inside the Xbox Ad-Tier Debate and the Death of the Open Web

WITH GREG POSNERMAY 21, 2026

IP Name Is Not a Marketing Strategy: What Forza Got Right That Bond Got Wrong

Forza Horizon 6 landed a 91 on Metacritic, pulled data showing unprecedented traction in Asian markets, and flew its influencer event to Japan to sell car culture instead of game features. Bond, releasing in the same window, bought an NBA halftime placement, put dev talent in turtlenecks for YouTube interviews, and assumed that 007 still carries weight with anyone under 35. One of these games will be a cultural moment. The other will be fine. That contrast, laid out across a full episode of Player Driven Live by Greg and analyst Colan, is the editorial spine of something practitioners running live games and planning launches need to hear: audience assumption is a budget leak.

LIVEMAY 14, 2026

Can Ubisoft Win By Going Backwards? Xbox's Ad Future, and Ranking the Best Star Wars Games Ever

This week on Player Driven Live, we dug into three conversations that kept pulling us in different directions — Ubisoft's remake strategy and what it means for one of gaming's biggest franchises, whether Xbox should build an ad-supported free tier, and a May the 4th-inspired ranking of the best Star Wars games in history. We also talked indie games, Subnautica 2's questionable launch window, and why someone grinding on a souls-like after their day job reminded us both of something important about how games actually get made.

LIVEAPR 30, 2026

Why Microsoft Pulled Call of Duty from Game Pass... And What Comes Next

Sony's exclusivity strategy just became impossible to ignore. This week, as Pragmata climbed the charts and Saros loomed on the horizon, it became clear that PlayStation is making a deliberate choice: fewer games, bigger budgets, zero Steam ports. And it's working.

LIVEAPR 16, 2026

Who’s Really Driving the Game Industry Right Now? Microsoft, Nintendo, and the AI Crossroad

The gaming landscape is shifting beneath our feet. This week on Player Driven Live, we break down a whirlwind of high-stakes earnings calls, massive leadership changes, and the generative AI technologies that are forcing every major player to pick a side. From Microsoft's supply chain struggles to Nintendo’s absolute dominance with legacy IPs, here are the key takeaways from our February 5, 2026, episode.

LIVEFEB 5, 2026

Gaming Industry Pulse: Revivals, Layoffs, and the Road to 2026

The gaming landscape in early 2026 is defined by a strange dichotomy: the massive success of independent "revival" stories like Hytale and the unsettling restructuring of industry giants like Ubisoft. On this week’s episode of Player Driven Live, Greg Posner and Colan Neese broke down the biggest trends from Pocket Gamer Connects (PGC) London to the upcoming DICE Summit.

LIVEJAN 24, 2026

Player Driven Live: Call of Duty Losses, Cloud Gaming's Latency War, and the Lego Pokemon Craze

LIVEJAN 15, 2026