Blindside Weekly
5 structural threats the market isn't pricing — and where each one sits on the scale.
This week on Blindside — 5 structural threats the market isn't pricing yet. The heaviest: Indie Games Vanish in the Crowd, about $1.3bn/yr at risk. Here's where each one sits:
Steam's record sales hide a brutal squeeze: the typical game now earns $249, the top 1% of titles take 90% of indie revenue, and barely 0.5% of 2024 releases are viable businesses.
Blindside index 96 · about $1.3bn/yr at risk →
AI voices cost over ninety percent less, and ninety percent of studios already use AI. About $1.8 billion in yearly game voice and motion-capture pay is draining away — and the cheapest work goes first.
Blindside index 94 · about $1.8bn/yr at risk →
New York is suing Valve, eight states are suing Roblox, and regulators already fined a prize-box maker. The billions games earn from random loot and item-betting just stopped being safe money.
Blindside index 91 · about $2.0bn/yr at risk →
AI buyers outbid gamers for every chip. NVIDIA cut gaming card output 40%, memory is up 172%, the PlayStation 5 jumped $100 — a $9.4bn yearly hit to gaming hardware that won't fix itself.
Blindside index 91 · about $9.4bn/yr at risk →
Big publishers are destroying an estimated $4.7 billion a year launching online games that mostly flop — a money pit the market still mistakes for a run of bad luck.
Blindside index 85 · about $4.7bn/yr at risk →
Every entry links to its live model — drag the assumptions and watch the range move. Blindside · FASTMaster Intelligence.
