The gaming industry is spiraling at the moment because gaming stocks have plummeted in recent days, wiping hundreds of billions off that particular market.
You can blame Google’s ‘Project Genie,’ which allows ordinary users to create complex virtual worlds. Do you remember when writers and artists panicked because ChatGPT was threatening to take their jobs?
In all fairness, they were right. Many blogs and YouTube channels use AI to write their scripts. Some industry experts fear that Project Genie will make gaming studios and publishers obsolete by placing the power to create video games in the hands of the public.
Wells Fargo disagrees. The company’s analysts argue that programs that simplify procedural environment generation for ordinary users have been on the market for years. And yet, the status quo persists.
Gaming studios will undoubtedly incorporate AI tools into their processes, primarily to expedite video game development. Nonetheless, human workers will continue to contribute a level of artistry that AI tools are presently incapable of replicating.
You see this in writing. ChatGPT can pen movie scripts, but no one in their right mind would ever turn them into full-blown movies because they fall far below the required standards. The same applies to YouTube.
YouTubers who rely on AI to write their scripts have recorded a noticeable decline in the quality of their videos. Project Genie, for all its benefits, is unlikely to create any significant paradigm shifts in the gaming industry.
In fact, the gaming community is anticipating a relatively strong 2026. Just look at the current release schedule. After numerous delays, GTA 6 will finally come to your console on November 19.
If you don’t know why that matters, Grand Theft Auto is one of the most successful video game franchises ever, having sold a whopping 450 million units since its 1997 debut. Grand Theft Auto V alone made $1 billion in its first three days of release and eventually shipped 220 million copies, becoming the second-best-selling video game of all time.
No one believes the online claims that Rockstar Games spent $1-$2 billion on the game’s development. But one assumes that the studio threw everything they had at the project, and for good reason.
GTA V debuted in 2013, which is a lifetime ago. Fans expected the follow-up to hit shelves a few years later. They are practically frothing at the mouth at this point, and they will pay any price Rockstar demands for the game once it comes out. Any year with a GTA VI release is guaranteed to be a good year for the industry.
Meanwhile, ‘Resident Evil: Requiem’ is expected to continue the hot streak Capcom kickstarted with ‘Resident Evil 2 Remake’ in 2019. Once dismissed as a dying franchise, ‘Resident Evil’ keeps finding new ground to plough.
‘Requiem’, which sent fans into a frenzy when it announced Leon S. Kennedy’s return, crossed 4 million wishlists on Steam. If those terms are foreign to you, a wishlist is a bookmark that represents a user’s interest in making a particular purchase.
The surge in wishlists suggests that ‘Resident Evil: Requiem’ will be a critical and financial success. ‘Phantom Blade Zero’ is your Chinese martial arts wet dream brought to life. The developers have used the term ‘Kungfu- Punk’ to describe their game.
Think ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’, but with monsters and demons. If you have as much control over your character’s lightning-fast moves as the teasers and trailers suggest, ‘Phantom Blade Zero’ could become 2026’s Game of the Year, assuming it releases on September 9 as planned.
Then there’s ‘Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis’, which reinvents the first game from 1996, ‘Wolverine’, hailing from the makers of the Spider-Man games, and ‘00 First Light’, to mention but a few. The stock market is fickle. It rarely reflects the industry’s actual state.
katmic2
Why 2026 poised to exceed every gaming expectation
