Bob Holtzman

Franchise Marketing Director for Guild Wars. LMU alum, GBR 🏈, COYG ⚽️, 🏀 is life, Par-time ⛳️ . I post on LinkedIn about games. Please see me there.

[Bob Holtzman @Calisker]

Embargoing a layoff has to be a first.

[Tom Henderson @_Tom_Henderson_]

Earlier today, Insider Gaming received emails from several Ubisoft employees that two of its studios were shutting down and hundreds of employees would be affected. Subsequently, after corroborating said information, we ran with those stories.

This is normal journalism. It's a normal practice - you get news from sources, you corroborate, you try to get a comment from the company, and you publish.

After some of these stories went live, Ubisoft contacted us to say that the information was under an embargo (which IG never received), which, frankly, is weird but understandable, since employees should be told first by their employer. However, before each story went live, the affected teams were informed of the impacts, and that's how we found out; it just wasn't a company-wide announcement yet. Sure, there were probably a few people who were affected and didn't know about the layoffs/changes, but it has NEVER been the media's job to protect a company.

Developers find out about layoffs all the time via the media, and I even know of instances of journalists pursuing a story, texting/emailing developers BEFORE their dreaded all-hands meeting to say they would be laid off in a matter of hours. The fact is, it is shit to report on layoffs, but ultimately, it's a part of our job.

Am I glad we published articles on layoffs today? Hell no. But I am glad that we did what we were supposed to do.

Personally, I think as an industry, we're running into quite dangerous ground when we start abiding by embargoes about layoffs, but even more so when we publish the info like we learned info from sources rather than the company itself... But maybe that's just me.

[Bob Holtzman @Calisker]

Straight 🔥

[PlayGuildWars3 @PlayGuildWars3]

📣 Guild Wars 3 is coming Get ready early. Enter to win an @Alienware system powered by @IntelGaming with an Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 processor. Don’t miss your shot:

https://t.co/rkWlee4SZ4

[Bob Holtzman @Calisker]

@DanielOlimac @PlayGOALS The player fantasy without the star players is tough imo.

[Bob Holtzman @Calisker]

This should be a great update for Klei and team. Looking forward to seeing how players react to this.

[GamingonPhone @GamingonPhone]

Don’t Starve Together is finally going mobile on July 21, 2026.

This is a standalone multiplayer expansion of the popular survival game Don’t Starve.

◾Full co-op survival experience on mobile
◾Developed by @klei, mobile port handled by @Playdigious
◾Explore, fight, farm, and build together in a massive, procedurally generated world
◾Supports online multiplayer or private sessions with friends
◾Mobile version features UI revamp, cloud saves, and controller support

Co-op survival fans, this one’s been a long wait 👀

🔗https://t.co/xfzL9PHNfz

[Bob Holtzman @Calisker]

Data heads drowning in new data this week.

And since I was at the IRL events for a chunk of the weekend, I'm working my way through the showcases too.

Looking forward to getting to PC Gaming Show and finishing XBOX Showcase sometime before the end of the month. 🤣

[Rhys Elliott @superhys]

Here's the Summer Game Fest titles that got the most new wishlists between June 2 and 8 (@alineaanalytics estimates).

Resident Evil Veronica has already netted 522K Steam wishlists as of yesterday, the most of any game shown at SGF. Launch-aligned, our estimates show that Veronica is accumulating wishlists 1.5x faster than Requiem did. It’s early days, but that is a remarkable number for a deeper-cut Resi remake.

Guild Wars 3 was #2, pulling in 435K. The MMO leans hard into traversal and faster, more action-oriented combat, and comes to console for the first time. Well-timed 20% discounts on GW2 expansions have seen some revenue gains for ArenaNet, too.

1666 Amsterdam from Panache Digital, the studio led by Assassin’s Creed co-creator Patrice Désilets, got 383K wishlisters. There’s a free prologue available, and it’s had a bit of a bumpy start. Of the prologue’s Steam reviews, just 61% are positive. The complaints cluster around expectations: players went in expecting action and found a narrative-led experience.

Lords of the Fallen 2 took #4 with 182K Steam wishlists. CI Games confirmed the game – previously slated as an Epic Games Store exclusive – is now coming to Steam, and the numbers suggest that was the right call. Lords 2 looks like it plays rad and borrows a lot from Bloodborne – faster, more fluid, and very bloody. As a Soulslike obsessive, I wishlisted QUICKLY.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword added 174K Steam wishlists in the past week, pushing its total past 1M (the page has been live since late 2024). A demo dropped after Friday’s PlayStation State of Play and has been played by around 300K people on Steam – but only 6% of Steam wishlisters have tried it, so there’s an untapped audience yet to be converted by hands-on play.

Crossfire, the single-player, narrative-focused tactical shooter debut from That's No Moon, got 160K wishlists. It's built on Smilegate’s huge multiplayer IP and backed by a $100M investment. That’s No Moon has worked in deep secrecy since the early 2020s, pulling talent from Naughty Dog, Infinity Ward, and Bungie, and that pedigree shows in the third-person reveal’s cinematic pacing and combat.

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis – a reimagining of the 1996 classic – got 137K new Steam wishlists, bringing its total well over 1M on Steam. Of those who wishlisted in June, 23% also wishlisted Resident Evil Veronica, 19% Control Resonant, and 14% Onimusha. That’s your serial-wishlister cohort in plain sight – people stacking lists during the event. Whether they convert is, as ever, the open question.

HAEX (148K wishlists on Steam), a co-op survival shooter, got strong pull from the co-op horror and “friendslop” crowd. 43% its of wishlisters have played Phasmophobia, 42% R.E.P.O., and 41% Peak. That overlap cuts both ways: a receptive, well-defined audience, but perhaps also a saturated one? Those sub-$10 budget co-op games sell volume. Alongside quality, the biggest questions around HAEX are its price and virality potential.

Gundam Rogue Orbit, a third-person mecha action game based on the iconic Japanese IP, got 143K Steam wishlisters. Details on Rogue Orbit are thin, but mech fans are curious. About 32% of wishlisters have played Titanfall 2, 26% Armored Core 6, and 20% last year’s Mecha Break.

Saw Genesis, a 3-vs-1 asymmetric multiplayer horror game from Bloober, got 142K Steam wishlists. Unsurprisingly, nearly two-thirds of wishlisters have history in Dead by Daylight (21% of wishlisters played DbD this month!), 22% played 2017’s Friday the 13th: The Game, and 13% logged hours in 2024’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Asymmetrical-horror affinity and horror IP fandom are doing a lot of work here.

GREAT SHOW by the way. This was easily the best one Keighley and co. have put on, so hats off to them. SGF 2026 showcase was well-paced, smartly presented, and packed with reveals.

More SGF data and insights on the free Substack! Link's in my bio!

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

Glory for the Gunners.

Shot in collaboration with @GorrySnaps 📸

[Geoff Keighley @geoffkeighley]

Matthew Ball says Xbox shed “millions of subscribers” when the Gamepass price increased 50 percent in Fall 2025.

[Guild Wars 2 @GuildWars2]

Tune in today at 11 AM PT on https://t.co/BGxz74GJTL as Studio Head - Colin Johanson, and Game Director - Josh Davis continue the conversation about the #GuildWars franchise, and answer some your questions following Friday’s big #GuildWars3 announcement.

[Bob Holtzman @Calisker]

I need a fan comic version of this now.

[emi エミ🗝️🫟 @keyokku]

in the guild wars 3 trailer, we see the six human gods dwayna, abaddon, dhuum, lyssa, balthazar, melandru,

so let me explain a bit about the lore of the six

these were six homies who picked up a MMO and played respective classes, some classes which are forgotten knowledge and not playable now, although a lot of current playable classes are based off of them. anyway they formed a guild called the Six Human Gods L33TSQU4D (really full of themselves calling themselves gods) and after they've completed end game content and become as powerful as there was to be, they isekai'd to another world, another MMO, the land of Tyria, where they retained their end game powers and resources and became gods and rulers of the land of noobs, and many players joined their new found server

of course there's always guild drama

so dwayna had a son with another player and because dhuum was an asshole, her son partied with some other players to PK dhuum to show him who's boss, and it was kind of humiliating so dhuum's authority was stripped and grenth took his place as one of the six guild leaders

due to some more guild drama and conflict they started to break apart and Abaddon wanted to be guild leader and attempted to overthrow the others to be the servers admin but he ultimately failed and was banned by IP

by this time they had so much drama with plenty of players so toxic so they were like fuck this it ain't fun anymore and kind of retired from the game, but they still kind of lingered and watched from afar

many years later Abaddon apparently was figuring out how to get unbanned and kept pulling strings and making the server really toxic so kormir and friends had to end things once and for all, and thus, they hacked his account and kormir stole all his things to become a new guild leader joining the five others

you're welcome!

[PC Gamer @pcgamer]

A new MMO announcement is more exciting than all the other SGF news combined https://t.co/hd4q4W4Dcv

[Bob Holtzman @Calisker]

The reactions to the Guild Wars 3 announcement online have been so fun to watch.

Never enjoyed hearing a table being pounded more.

[Shroud Updates @ShroudUpdate]

Shroud reacts to the announcement of Guild Wars 3!

[Bob Holtzman @Calisker]

So we did a magical thing today.

Thank you all who watched, liked, commented, wishlisted, shared and enjoyed a truly epic moment today with us. It’s so fun to officially say, the Guild Wars franchise is expanding with Guild Wars 3 in development!

[PlayGuildWars3 @PlayGuildWars3]

It's official. #GW3 is a thing - we are developing Guild Wars 3! https://t.co/yKMu6euKg2

[Bob Holtzman @Calisker]

Is 2:13 to 2:20 in the seminal Chvriches track, ‘Clearest Blue’ the most cathartic seven seconds in music history?

[Guild Wars 2 @GuildWars2]

The winds quicken. Rise. Be ready. https://t.co/Qa9vGIrOzc

[Guild Wars 2 @GuildWars2]

Grab a free favorite in the GW2 Gem Store 💫
The Vibrant Wings are back for a limited time - fully dyeable so you can make them your own.

A small way to add some color and personality to your adventures. 🌈

[Guild Wars @GuildWars]

The winds quicken. Rise. Be ready. https://t.co/lJuTdwRfkr

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

Only Arsenal can.

[Guild Wars 2 @GuildWars2]

The wind stirs. The world shifts. Stand ready.

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

Passion ✊