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The one thing Donna Mills refuses to do on her OnlyFans page
Donna Mills, 85, explains what she refuses to do on her OnlyFans page
Cowboys fans render a decision on Brian Schottenheimer’s fate
Cowboys fans are pretty upset right now.
Auburn's Georgia Momentum Disappears in Ugly Loss to LSU
Auburn football suffered a 38-17 loss to LSU at Jordan-Hare Stadium, falling to 4-3 after upsetting No. 1 Georgia. Sam Leavitt torched Auburn's defense for 387 passing yards, while Byrum Brown and the Tigers' offense struggled to find rhythm ahead of next week's matchup at Ole Miss.
How to watch every ‘Rambo’ movie in order, from ‘First Blood’ to ‘Last Blood’
The ‘Rambo’ franchise spans five movies and more than 40 years, with a prequel on the way in 2027. Revisit Sylvester Stallone’s action-packed saga, from ‘First Blood’ to ‘Last Blood.’
Coyer Candle Co. nears $1 million raised for community groups
Coyer Candle Co., owned by Scott and Lisa Coyer, produces clean-burning candles with 100% soy wax and cotton wicks.
Netflix’s Leadership Shake Up…Explained
(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) Well, I had a simple article planned for this week. Called “Whoa, I Missed It!”, I’d take a gander at a few important-but-under-the-radar stories I didn’t cover while I wrote about all things “Skydance. (Formerly known as “the saga of Netflix trying to buy Warner Bros., but not Discovery, then Paramount-Skydance bought all of Warner Bros. Discovery”.) Alas, that article will have to wait. Netflix made news. Ironically, my “Whoa, I Missed It!” article would have mostly been about “content” strategy decisions, which is also what today’s article is about. But instead of the entire industry, this article will only cover Netflix’s decision to upend their film and TV content teams. Just that! So that’s the full topic of the day. I’m going to tackle the issue in the opposite direction of the way “stuff” flows: uphill. We’ll start at film, then move onto TV, and then onto the CEOs themselves, and the strategy questions that still remain. But we start with the numbers driving this. Let’s dive in. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - Netflix Upends Their Corporate Hierarchy I’ve got a lot of thoughts, but we’ll start with the most common response to yesterday’s article. Let’s Talk Stock Price More than one person, responding to what I published two days ago, pointed out that, well, actually, the thing driving Netflix’s actions is this: In short, stock price! Even if Netflix isn’t obsessed with their own share price—they probably are, but, for the record, my strategic advice to every CEO is to absolutely ignore stock prices, which will, ironically, probably help the stock price long-term—most everyone thinks they are. By the way, I prefer market capitalization to stock prices, because it’s a more apples-to-apples way to compare companies: But there’s an even better way to look at it, and it kinda casts some doubt on the entire push here: price-to-earnings. I have a long list of articles that I wish I had written, and chief among them is an article titled, “Am I Still a Netflix ‘Bear’?” meaning someone who thinks Netflix’s stock is overvalued. As of last summer, Netflix had solved their biggest problem—which for me (circa 2019) was the lack of free cash flow—but their stock was CRAZY overvalued. That’s this chart here: Why did Netflix’s stock price increase to a price-to-earnings ratio of 50 last summer? What financial metric changed so quickly? Nothing. Given that, historically, mature entertainment companies average 10 to 20, with 16 being the average, that increase made little sense. Netflix’s stock swoon these last eight or so months wasn’t irrational; the stock price rise last year was. So if you want a really hot Netflix take, here it is: Netflix’s stock price has been going down because the financial industry recovered its senses, not because of any strategic mistake. Yes, that would imply that cleaning house may have been a mistake. That’s why the charts yesterday are so important, because they show that Netflix did have a strategic problem (a lack of hits) and that’s what they moved to address. (One could also argue the industry drastically overrated Netflix’s growth prospects, but that’s a financial industry problem, not a Netflix strategy problem per se. Some growth estimates are just crazy. *cough* AI *cough*) Now, the last time Netflix’s stock price crashed—circa 2022—it gave them an opening. I’d argue Netflix insiders knew they needed to expand post-COVID-19 crisis, adding advertising, cracking down on password sharing, and dabbling in sports. But if they had done that when their stock price was high, it would give folks a reason to second guess their strategy. (Arguably, last year, when Netflix pursued the Warner Bros. merger, it gave the industry a chance to review their business.) Instead, after the 2022 fall, they had the opening to make strategic changes. We may see Netflix pivot again following this latest slide. For example, the “binge versus weekly” conversation is alive and well again. Same for expanding into theaters even more. And adding both linear channels and streaming bundles. And maybe more either social, user-generated, vertical, or creator content. But the first shift came with who is making the content calls. A Message from Our Sponsor Last winter Pulp Fiction was on Netflix. For those same 90 days, it was also free, with ads, on Pluto TV and the Roku Channel. That is not a glitch, and it is not rare. The title has run on 20 different US streaming services since 2019, across 80 separate windows, and for more than 600 of those days it sat on a paid subscription service and a free ad-supported one at the same time. Almost nobody can see this, because when a title leaves a service, the record that it was ever there tends to leave with it. Reelgood keeps that record, dated to the day rather than the month: 4MM+ movie, show and episode titles across 300+ services globally, with timestamped arrivals, departures and moves across SVOD, AVOD, TVOD and vMVPD. Licensing teams price against every prior window. Rights teams check what a licensee actually delivered, and when. Pick a title you think you know: data.reelgood.com/title-availability Film - Dan Lin Want to know why I don’t opine on individual film or TV executives, especially new hires? Dan Lin. As I always caution, it’s really, really, really tough to predict which executives will succeed in new roles and which won’t. The successful head of co-production/finance partner, Rideback, Lin was considered for the head of DC Studios job before taking the job as the head of Netflix. By all accounts at the time, this was a smart hire. (That’s my read of the news coverage anyways.) But now that Netflix has fired Dan Lin, we got a slew of news stories about how he was doing a terrible job. In sports media, Bryan Curtis, new Substack writer/podcaster from The Ringer, calls this the “now you tell us” story, when you only hear the bad news after a star athlete leaves a sports team. In this case, now they tell us that Dan Lin was bad with talent after he got kicked out the door. So was Dan Lin a flop? It’s actually tough to say. While film moves faster than TV, even two years isn’t really enough time to evaluate a person’s output. The new head hasn’t really taken control. As Emily Horgan noted, it takes much longer than two years to produce animated films, so yeah, it’s definitely too early to judge in that domain. As for live-action films, I just published an article by Brandon Katz called “Netflix’s Summer of Bummer”, but I’d point out Netflix had a bad summer two years ago too. Arguably, their best summer came from KPop Demon Hunters last year and Happy Gilmore 2, the latter of which I saw credited to Lin. Then, the stories came out that Dan Lin clashed with talent, both Ben Affleck and Greta Gerwig, classic “now they tell us” factoids to explain his firing. This may have been true, but also should have been expected given that he was given the mandate to bring budgets back in check, especially after Rebel Moon. So if he made folks upset, well, that’s what he was hired to do! But also, he was described as “well-liked” at his hiring! In that case, I’m a bit sympathetic to Lin, since he may have been undercut by senior leadership, as often happens. Basically, a CEO hires a subordinate to be their “bad cop” and keep budgets in check, but then when talent complains, the CEO ends up undercutting them. That’s how I think you end up with a Narnia movie as expensive as any of the other flops, along with a film executive the town no longer likes. As a result, I think that Netflix is now executing a classic “hire the opposite” move by hiring Peter Rice. This phrase comes from my experience following football and basketball coaching decisions, where teams generally hire the opposite of who they just had. If you have an offense-minded head coach, hire the defensive guy. Or in college football, if you have a strong recruiter, then you pivot to an “X’s and Os” type of guy. Or in pro basketball, if you have a very analytically minded coach, you hire the player-friendly guy. I see that here. After dropping Scott Stuber—arguably a talent-friendly executive with lax budget control—Netflix hired the business guy to keep costs in check. Now Netflix is pivoting back to Peter Rice and presumably a more talent-friendly regime. (Disney, by the way, has done this twice: hiring business guys to succeed talent-friendly Bob Iger. It didn’t work out last time.) When it comes to Peter Rice…we’ll see! Maybe he works out, but maybe he doesn’t. I’d actually say the biggest problem is that Netflix still hasn’t solved its “IP Problem”, in that they don’t own much IP, so they just have a lower hit rate. The new executive won’t solve that. (Though buying Lionsgate would help.) Share “Content” - Bela Bajaria I almost published yesterday’s article after this column, but ended up flipping the order, because it told the story so well. So if you want the data for why Netflix is looking at TV to fix their problems, it’s in that article, this graph in particular: I know I just wrote that it’s often hard to judge executives, but Bajaria ran TV for six years and film for three and a half more. That’s more than enough to judge hit rates, and Netflix needs more hits. That’s the story. Since 2023, Netflix hasn’t had as many hit shows as it used to, and many of its previous power house TV shows have ended their runs (Stranger Things most of all). Also, many shows from 2020 to 2022 probably pre-dated Bajaria’s tenure. (That said, one thing may have been outside of Bajaria’s control, which I explain below.) Let’s lump some content strategy thoughts about Netflix and TV into one place: We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… Why I partially blame Squid Game for Netflix’s latest troubles… What is “the football trap”... Why it might not be the TV shows or films’ fault at all… What change I don’t think Netflix will make... How Bela Bajaria evolved Netflix’s TV strategy in smart ways… Whose departure likely submarined Bajaria’s final few years… One sneaky explanation for Netflix’s content struggles... And a whole lot more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.
Reality TV star Anika Rashaun dead at 34
Reality TV star Anika Rashaun, who appeared on ‘The Real World’ and ‘The Challenge,’ has died at 34.
South Texas Health System (@stxhealthsystem)
1 likes, 1 comments - stxhealthsystem on October 24, 2026: "Lower Your Risk, Prioritize Your Breast Health: Breast cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers among women worldwide. While some risk factors, such as age and family history, can't be changed, there are lifestyle choices that may help reduce your risk and support overall breast health. ✅ Maintain a healthy weight ✅ Stay physically active ✅ Eat a balanced, nutritious diet ✅ Avoid tobacco & limit alcohol consumption ✅ Talk with your doctor about hormone replacement therapy Just as important, don't delay routine checkups and recommended screenings. When breast cancer is detected early, treatment is often more effective and outcomes can be significantly improved. For more on breast cancer, watch the latest South Texas Health Minute on ValleyCentral.com at the link in our bio.".
Who’s coming back for ‘Shrinking’ season 4? What’s next for the Apple TV dramedy
The hit Apple TV dramedy ‘Shrinking’ is moving forward, just like its characters. We unpack everything we know so far about season 4, including who’s returning.
Jonathan Lipnicki didn’t warn his family about ‘Primetime’ nude scene: ‘I’m sure they were quite surprised’
‘Jerry Maguire’ child star Jonathan Lipnicki tells EW that he didn’t warn his family about his full-frontal nude scene in ‘Primetime’ before they went to see the film, which stars Robert Pattinson as ‘To Catch a Predator’ host Chris Hansen.
Jenny McCarthy says Derek Hough told her ‘there’s no hope’ for her on ‘DWTS’
Jenny McCarthy remembers ‘Dancing With the Stars’ judge Derek Hough saying ‘there’s no hope’ for her on the dance floor.
Key matchups: Saints vs. Steelers
The Saints need to capitalize off these key matchups to leave Paris with a win.
Michigan State Starting QB Out Against No. 9 UCLA
With both teams forced to start inexperienced backups, true freshman Kayd Coffman makes his first career start as the battered Spartans seek a Rose Bowl miracle.
‘Wicker’ stars explain why women are ‘going slightly feral’ over Alexander Skarsgård’s character
‘Wicker’ stars Olivia Colman, Elizabeth Debicki explain why women are ‘going slightly feral’ over Alexander Skarsgård’s character in their new movie.
Xbox's first chief operating officer Helen Chiang leaves Microsoft just three months into the job
Helen Chiang is leaving Microsoft just three months after becoming Xbox's first chief operating officer, according to a memo from CEO Asha Sharma.
🚨 No Calafiori, here's Arsenal's starting XI against Everton
Arsenal are hoping to capitalise today on a possible slip-up by Manchester City against Everton, who have drawn all their away league games.Here are today's line-ups at the Emirates Stadium: Arsenal: ...
Cracking a Smile Regularly May Be Good Not Just for Your Mood but for Your Health
Reminding yourself to smile often can not only make more friendships but it can also make you feel better. And rather than wait for a reason to smile, just making the physical change of literally turning that frown upside down could impact emotions, according to experts. Research backs up the fact ...
Missouri Doesn't Need More Marijuana Business Licenses, State Study Says, But Questions Remain About Ownership Concentration
“Ownership-based analyses would provide a more comprehensive assessment of market structure by evaluating concentration across common ownership groups.” By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent Missouri regulators say the state doesn’t need to issue more licenses to grow, manufacture or sell marijuana because the legal cannabis market is meeting consumer demand. But the statewide study behind that conclusion couldn’t […]
Sixers vs. Bucks preview: How to watch, lineups, broadcast info
The Philadelphia 76ers will play host to the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday to begin a back-to-back.
Opinion | Attempted Coups. Aging Left-Wing Incumbents. Which Country Are We Talking About?
The Brazilian echoes of American politics have become too eerie to deny.
‘Avengers: Doomsday’ preview drops during game 1 of MLB World Series
The ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ preview was revealed during the MLB World Series broadcast of game 1.
Molly Ringwald posts rare photos of daughter Mathilda on her birthday
Molly Ringwald posted rare photos of daughter Mathilda on her 23rd birthday. The ‘Pretty in Pink’ star and husband Panio Gianopoulos have three kids.
Open Thread World Series Game One
We get game one of the World Series tonight. I guess I’m sort of cheering for the Brewers but really it doesn’t matter. But in games three and four, Ernie Clement will be ‘providing player-first coverage’, which should be fun. Lineups: Today’s Lineups RAYS BREWERS Yandy Diaz – DH Jackson Chourio – LF Jonathan Aranda […]
Cambridge Sees Historically High Science and Math MCAS Scores, But Racial and Socioeconomic Gaps Remain
Cambridge Sees Historically High Science and Math MCAS Scores, But Racial and Socioeconomic Gaps Remain
Harvard’s Institute of Politics Ends Off-Campus Retreats, Plans Staff-Led Trainings
Harvard’s Institute of Politics Ends Off-Campus Retreats, Plans Staff-Led Trainings
Sylvester Stallone addresses his daughter joining him on ‘Tulsa King’: ‘Of course it’s nepotism, you idiot’
Sylvester Stallone is addressing accusations of nepotism as his daughter costars with him on ‘Tulsa King’: ‘Of course it’s nepotism, you idiot. That’s why we’re parents. We want the best for our children.’
The story behind that ‘Clayface’ cameo you probably missed
‘Clayface’ director explains the story behind that surprise cameo you probably missed.
Focus groups: Their candidates lost in the Michigan and Texas primaries. Now what?
Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Ken Paxton in Texas are looking to convince backers of their primary opponents to support their campaigns.
4 Key Matchups to Watch in Bengals-Ravens
As division rivals clash for AFC North dominance, elite playmakers like Ja’Marr Chase and Derrick Henry face daunting individual tests that will decide this high-stakes showdown in Baltimore.
Kate Gosselin defends relationship with her children amid renewed abuse allegations from son Collin Gosselin
Kate Gosselin said that her kids know her character after Collin Gosselin suggested that she was ‘leveraging’ money and his siblings against daughter Hannah Gosselin.
Google Messages is working to finally clean up its messy settings menu
Between organizing options into groups and adding some useful illustrations, Google Messages is working on major changes to settings.
How much do the Real Housewives spend on glam? Staggering numbers revealed
A new report from InStyle revealed how much some of Bravo’s ‘The Real Housewives’ stars spend on their hair and makeup while filming.
As devastating Xbox "reset" continues, Dishonored studio Arkane Lyon reportedly only has until November to find a new buyer before it's closed
Microsoft previously said it was reviewing "potential strategic options" regarding the much-loved developer.
Constance Wu shares new details on ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ TV show
Constance Wu is sharing new details on the ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ television show, confirming that she’s read a script for it already and ‘it’s really funny.’
IPS school board candidates raise over $150,000 from political action groups
Political action committees for education groups gave over $150,000 to candidates seeking one of five spots on the Indianapolis Public schools board.
‘The View’ cancels fan-favorite cohost Halloween costumes for 3rd consecutive year
‘The View’ cohosts will not dress up in Halloween costumes once again in 2026, marking yet another year the panelists won’t participate in the historically fan-favorite episode.
"This was not a Creative Assembly developed game": Total War boss points the finger at external partner for Shogun 2 Complete Edition disaster
"We are a craft studio": Creative Assembly clarify that they don't AI-generate art following Shogun 2 CE disaster, and are "investigating" an external partner.
SpaceX's Launch Business Wasn't Profitable Last Quarter, but Here's the Hidden Upside
The space segment is doing more for SpaceX than its raw revenue numbers indicate.
AMD FSR 4.1 beta drivers for Xbox Ally, Xbox Ally X, and Xbox Ally X20 have rolled out and are ready for download
AMD's FSR 4.1 upscaling technology for boosting Xbox games' resolution and performance has come to Xbox Ally handhelds, albeit in beta form
‘Gentlemen’ season 3 casting shocker: Major star exits, 2 ‘Lord of the Rings’ stars join for reunion
‘The Gentlemen’ season 3 announcement reveals cast shakeup as Daniel Ings exits show, while Orlando Bloom and Elijah Wood will hold a a ‘Lord of the Rings’ reunion as stars join, without Meghan Markle.
Poll: Low-information voters have turned hardest against Trump and the GOP
In 2024, the voters who knew the least about politics were some of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters. A Data for Progress poll released just before the election found Americans who didn’t consume any news at all said they’d vote for Trump over Kamala Harris by a 20-point margin, 60%1 to 40%. In February, we reported that many of these voters had soured on Trump. Voters who couldn’t name the party in control of Congress moved away from Trump at about twice the rate as high-information voters. But approval isn’t vote choice. With the midterms less than two weeks away, it is worth asking if these voters are turning against the president’s party in federal elections, too. In our October Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll, conducted Oct. 13–19 among 2,028 U.S. adults, we asked respondents two factual questions about politics: which party has the most members in the House, and which has the most members in the Senate. I classified anyone who got at least one of these questions wrong as “low-knowledge.” About 30% of adults miss at least one question, including 25% of 2024 Trump voters, 22% of Harris voters, and more than half of people who didn’t vote in 2024. In this article, I do two things with this data. First, I repeat my February analysis and compare how these two groups feel about Trump’s job as president; then I look at each group’s voting behavior in the upcoming House midterms. Register for free to read the rest of this piece.
AMD FSR 4.1.2 Now Runs On Intel Arc XMX Cores, Delivering Better Image Quality Than XeSS Upscaling With Similar Performance
Modding community brings AMD FSR 4.1.2 to Intel Arc GPUs, showing superior image quality and efficiency with upscaling times as low as 0.59 ms.
Bravo casts controversial ‘Big Brother’ star Aaryn Williams on Texas-based reality show
The new reality show ‘Small Town Trouble: Texas’ is set to follow a group of women living in Boerne, Texas, including controversial ’Big Brother’ alum Aaryn Williams, who was known as Aaryn Gries during season 15 of the CBS show.
Half-Life 3 is back in the news again as Valve developer accidentally sort-of references it in public, reigniting hope once more
After a flurry of Half-Life 3 rumours last year, the codename HLX has resurfaced once more; this time straight from the mouth of a Valve developer.
Auburn football's latest bowl projections following upset win over UGA
How much did Auburn football's postseason trajectory change following its win over Georgia?
9 former celebrity couples who say divorce actually brought them closer
Who says divorce can’t have a happy ending? From Gwyneth Paltrow to Courteney Cox, these stars say splitting up actually brought them closer to their exes.
What will Trump do if Republicans lose the midterms?
Jonathan Freedland and Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan answer your questions about the midterms.
16 celebrity couples you had no idea dated
Celebrity romances rarely stay secret, but some manage to fly under the radar. Revisit 16 surprising Hollywood couples, from forgotten flings to relationships you never knew existed.
Scary Business Trick or Treat set for Sunday in Crestline
CRESTLINE – The Crestline Community Development Team (CCDT) is hosting Scary Business Trick or Treat from 4 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25 in downtown Crestline. The costume contest will take place at 5:15 p.m. on the patio at The Hub. Contest age groups are 0-2, 3-5, 6-10, 11-13, and family/group. “Downtown is always full […]
Political, union groups endorse Minnesota school board candidates
A handful of political groups and unions are endorsing Minnesota school board candidates in what have traditionally been nonpartisan races.
Managing the farm: What’s your Business IQ?
High-performing farmers master costs, cash flow and marketing. Low scorers are less likely to know their numbers.
Bat mothers' hearts beat faster when they hear their pups
They can even pick out their offspring’s distress cries amongst thousands of bats.
With a congressional seat on the line, political groups race to win over undecided Colorado voters
‘Halloweentown 5’ is officially in development at Disney
Grab your witch’s broom! ‘Halloweentown 5’ is in development at Disney.
The 30 best conspiracy thrillers of all time, ranked
From paranoid classics like ‘All the President’s Men’ and ‘North by Northwest’ to later standouts like ‘Michael Clayton,’ these are the 30 best conspiracy thrillers of all time.
Democrat running for Stefanik's seat says 'my identity is not in politics'
Upstate New York congressional candidate Blake Gendebien (D) joins Meet the Press NOW to discuss his campaign in New York's North Country and where his priorities fit into the Democratic Party's agenda.
Hilary Swank reveals how she kept her pregnancy at 52 a secret
Hilary Swank says it wasn’t that difficult to keep her third pregnancy a secret thanks to people in her life being so ‘respectful of my privacy.’
Tom Skerritt, ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Picket Fences’ star, dies at 93
Tom Skerritt, the Emmy-winning actor known for his roles in projects like ‘Picket Fences’ and ‘Top Gun,’ has died at 93.
Inside Trisha Yearwood’s Weight Loss Journey: Everything the Country Singer Has Said About Her Health
Trisha Yearwood has been candid about dieting and weight loss over the years. Here’s everything to know about Trisha Yearwood’s weight loss journey.
Jenna Ortega details her most intense and specific OCD symptoms
Jenna Ortega is opening up about the repetitive actions that she performs as part of her struggles with obsessive compulsive disorder.
Michigan State at No. 9 UCLA: Score Prediction
Fresh off a near-upset, the injury-riddled Spartans travel to Pasadena seeking a trap-game stunner against an undefeated Bruins squad missing its starting quarterback in a pivotal conference clash.
Kristen Bell says she cries weekly over challenges of family life: ‘It’s brutal’
Kristen Bell admits she cries weekly over the challenges of family life and marriage: ‘Do not think because I am on your television that it is easy for me.’
How well have past GOTY winners sold?
We’re less than two months away from 2026’s The Game Awards, and what a year it’s been for fantastic games, including Resident Evil Requiem, Forza Horizon 6, Slay the Spire II, the Blood of Dawnwalker, and Control Resonant – just to name a few. So as we approach the end of the year, we thought we’d look back on our estimates for the GOTY winners of the past four years. In terms of revenue, Elden Ring (2022 winner), Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023), Astro Bot (2024), and Expedition 33 (2025) have generated a combined $3.8B via 73M copies sold: Let’s have a look, then. Elden Ring has generated $2B in revenue Elden Ring is a phenomenon in every sense. It’s sold a whopping 36.4M copies across Steam (50%), PS5 (35%), and Xbox (15% across console and PC). Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Elden Ring also just passed an astronomical milestone: $2B in revenue. While PlayStation and Xbox account for half of Elden Ring’s copies sold across these three platforms, they account for 57.5% of revenue. This – as ever – is due to regional pricing and the higher relative share of PC gamers in lower-priced markets. For example, around 17.4% of Elden Ring’s Steam copies sold were in China, where the game costs about 26% less than the price in the States. There’s an … interesting narrative going around these days that console gamers are only interested in ball-and-gun games and have the patience for little else. Well, Elden Ring’s impressive sales prove that is simply not true, and across all platforms. What’s more, over 9.8M people have played Elden Ring for over 100 hours, with nearly 3.5M people getting all of the achievements and trophies. For reference, 10.9% of Elden Ring’s PlayStation players have the platinum trophy, while 10.5% of players on Steam and 3.9% of Xbox players unlocked all the achievements. Git gud, Xbox players! Of the 1.5M people who played Elden Ring on PlayStation last month, 4% also played Dark Souls 3 last month, 4% played Bloodborne, and 3% played Sekiro. There’s those Soulsborne diehards for you. By many accounts, including my own, Elden Ring is one of the best games of all time. It’s an evergreen seller that will continue to be a cash cow for Bandai and FromSoftware for years to come. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Elden Ring has sold another 2M copies across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox this year, generating almost $110M. This means it’s outperforming many of this year’s high-profile releases. Even Elden Ring’s standalone run-based PvE spinoff, 2025’s Nightreign, has sold 7.8M copies and generated $282M in revenue. Baldur’s Gate 3 is another billion-dollar-plus banger Another cross-platform phenomenon is Baldur’s Gate 3, which has sold 23.2M copies and generated over $1.2B in revenue. About 18.7M of these copies (80.6%) are via Steam, 2.9M via PS5 (12.7%), and 1.6M (6.8%) via Xbox. Around 1.3M folks on Steam bought BG3 before it hit 1.0. The PlayStation version launched about a month after the PC 1.0 release, while the Xbox version came four months later due to technical issues around developing local co-op on the Series S. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Across platforms, Baldur’s Gate 3’s monthly active users have never dropped below 2M, including 2.2M MAUs last month (68.5% on Steam, 21.9% on PS5, and 9.6% on Xbox). And it still regularly brings in 280K to 400K players every day: About 1% of BG3’s Steam player base has played for over 500 hours! That’s a little under 200K people. Astro Bot is also an evergreen seller, albeit a more niche, family one Astro Bot, 2024’s winner, has now sold 4.7M copies and generated $291M in revenue. The budget, including marketing, is almost certainly under $100M, given the small Japan-based core team and three-year dev timeline. You can really see why the tides are changing toward less expensive hubs. Astro Bot is the only first-party winner on this list, but follows other first-party winners of The Last of Us Part II (2020’s winner), God of War (2018), and Breath of the Wild (2017). Around 46.6% of Astro Bot’s copies sold have been physical, which is far higher than the typical game. This makes sense for a couple of reasons: There’s a large family audience for this one, and physical boxes are an item to wrap when giving Astro as a gift. Astro has collector value for the PlayStation core (this is nostalgia-fueled platformer celebrating PlayStation’s history) Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Astro is another one of those games that continues selling over time, regularly selling more than 100K a month. It’s sold around 1M more copies this year ($60M in revenue) and is a popular title with families. We can see this using the Alinea platform’s MAU crossover tool: Astro Bot’s top #2, #3, and #4 games by crossover in any given month this year are Minecraft, Fortnite, and Roblox – without fail. The #1 title every month, though, is Astro’s Playroom, a pack-in with all PS5 consoles. For every month this year, between 20% and 30% of Astro Bot players also played Astro’s Playroom that month. So the free pack-in is a noice funnel for converting players to a full paid product. Expedition 33 sells 8.7M despite Game Pass cannibalisation Finally, we have last year’s winner – Expedition 33. The turn-based-RPG banger has generated $366M via 8.7M copies sold, with 58.8% on Steam, 35.7% on PS5, and 5.5% on Xbox. Xbox’s share of copies sold is this low due to Expedition 33 launching on Game Pass, where 4.3M people across console and PC accessed the game. A little under 700K Xbox players used their subscription to play Expedition 33 this year. That said, the game’s 1.5-year Game Pass deal ended last week on October 16, and we’re already beginning to see a positive trend on Expedition 33’s copies sold via Xbox (but the jury’s still out!). There’s understandably a lot of French pride behind this one, as France is the game’s #3 market on both Steam and PlayStation. Vive la France! One thing that stood out to me is that the GOTY winners aren’t $300M Hollywood productions made in the US. They’re mostly mid-budget studios outside the traditional AAA cost centres. Lots to think about there. Also, good games sell well; who’d have thunk it!? And there’s a whole load of them this year, with GTA 6 still to come, too. GTA just made the cutoff point for the VGAs this year. What a coincidence! Loading... Cool links and other stuff Our physical games newsletter from Tuesday was picked up by GameSpot, Eurogamer, TweakTown, and a bunch of others. We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply right here on Substack/email, and we’ll set you up. Next week, we’ve got some exciting news regarding the future of our newsletter, so stay tuned! The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. Want to see why these companies (and many others) are subscribed to Alinea? Get a free platform trial! [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
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Introspection required if EU Inc fails, says start-up lobbyist
European start-ups have a new voice in Brussels. Startups for Europe, created from the merger of lobby groups Allied for Startups and the European Startup Network, is hoping to harness the momentum behind EU-Inc, a campaign that united start-ups and investors behind demands for a new pan-European company regime.At a launch event for the new association in Brussels on October 1, the mood was remarkably upbeat compared to a typical Eurobubble gathering, more Silicon Valley than Schuman roundabout.When asked whether this reflects a feeling that Europe is on the right track, chief executive Serena Borbotti-Frison said it’s a “scary” moment as the continent looks to boost its competitiveness amid a new technological arms race.“What is at stake is quite intense, and the way we can answer is by delivering, but also with hope,” she told Science|Business. “It’s what our industry does. It’s not about identifying a pain point and then saying it’s too hard.”For many in the start-up community, that sense of hope is dwindling. In March, the European Commission presented its proposal for EU Inc, naming its initiative after the grassroots campaign.EU Inc was meant to be a gamechanger: the ability to incorporate within 48 hours for less than €100 and scale up across Europe; a harmonised stock option regime enabling start-ups to compete for talent; and simplified insolvency procedures for innovative start-ups to reduce the cost of failure.However, haggling by EU governments has raised concerns that EU Inc will be stripped of the very features, including stock option harmonisation, that are meant to make it attractive for companies.“I fear we are proving to ourselves that the model doesn’t work,” Borbotti-Frison said of the policymaking process. “Everyone agrees we should have EU Inc. Everyone agrees it’s hard to scale and we need to scale to answer the competitiveness [challenge], and still we cannot deliver? [. . .] What does that say about ourselves?”The Commission has made EU Inc a cornerstone of its single market reform, and has agreed with the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to target an agreement by the end of 2026. However, several points are currently holding up an agreement, including national rules around employee participation in management decisions, and the provision that employee stock options always be taxed at the point of sale. Some EU governments have reportedly pushed back on the Commission’s choice of legal basis, contending that anything related to taxation requires unanimity in the Council.Trade unions have also protested against EU Inc, fearing it will be exploited by companies looking to undermine workers’ rights.“If this doesn’t work, it’s introspection time, on the way our institutions work, maybe the way our lobbies work, and maybe the way the cooperation between them works,” Borbotti-Frison said.“Is it in the national interest? Is it a gap between political will and technical ability to operate? Is it speed? I don't know, but something needs to be fixed.”Ahead of last week’s European Council meeting, EU-Inc campaigners tried a new strategy: appealing directly to EU presidents and prime ministers. In an open letter, they urged EU leaders to “step in and give your negotiating teams a clear mandate to change course and reverse their objections to the Commission’s original proposal.”Lessons from EU-IncLike its predecessors, Startups for Europe will represent national start-up associations, but it is also targeting investors. The founding sponsors are venture capital firm Atomico and EQT, the investor selected earlier this year to manage the €5 billion Scaleup Europe Fund.It also wants to harness the knowledge and cross-border experience of European success stories. “Take the list of the 100 biggest unicorns in Europe. We are speaking to all of them,” Borbotti-Frison said. The association plans to publish a full list of supporters following the Slush tech conference in Helsinki in November.Andreas Klinger and Simon Schaefer, two key figures in the EU-Inc campaign, are both on the board of the new association, and Startups for Europe wants to take the lessons from their campaign.What was unprecedented about EU-Inc was “how rooted it was, and how strong it was in bringing everyone on board behind one clear pain point and solution to fix it,” Borbotti-Frison said. “This is an inspiration for us, and then we need to turn it into something more systematic, more bridged in Brussels, more connected to the policymaking game, and to scale it.”If it’s possible to unite such a broad coalition, it’s because the European start-up ecosystem is now mature, she said. “Maybe it was not ten years ago. Maybe it was not five years ago. But now, it’s mature to speak with one voice.”Open and liberal EuropeThe association plans to campaign on files related to three “pain points,” Borbotti-Frison said: “start and scale in Europe, fundraise and invest in Europe, and making Europe the most innovative continent.”As well as EU Inc, she cited public procurement, the EU’s simplification push, the Savings and Investments Union, and files related to AI adoption and technological sovereignty as priorities for the coming months.What these files have in common is that they relate not to subsidies but to the framework conditions influencing the availability of mostly private, or in the case of procurement, public, funding.Related articlesEmployee participation disagreement delays MEPs’ vote on EU IncCommission urges EU governments not to water down EU IncEU’s ‘ultra-fast’ €5B scale-up fund is set up to win, says its fund managerThe budget dispute over the next Horizon Europe programme will also impact start-ups, which are supported notably through the European Innovation Council. But EU innovation funding is a drop in the ocean compared to venture capital and public procurement budgets.“If competitiveness and innovation are a priority, then the [EU budget] should reflect it,” Borbotti-Frison said. However, she added that the main question is not how much public money is invested, but “how do we create the right conditions for the market to solve the problem?”The Scaleup Europe Fund mixes both approaches, using €1 billion in EU funding to crowd in private investors and address Europe’s lack of large-scale, late-stage growth funds. “It’s a proof of concept. Ideally, then the market will do it itself,” Borbotti-Frison said.Startups for Europe is also focused on bringing an alternative political narrative. Amid competing visions for open, global markets on the one side and a protectionist Europe on the other, it wants to offer “a third voice, to say we can be proudly European and build a strong continent in a liberal economy, open to the world, and global.”It can be tempting, when thinking about how Europe can better support innovation, to look across the Atlantic. But while it’s important to compare statistics to see where Europe needs to catch up, that’s where the comparison should stop, Borbotti-Frison said. “On everything else, we need to do it our own way. We don't have the same history. We don't have the same political model. We don't have the same way of life.”Many of the key files that could benefit the start-up community, including EU Inc and the Savings and Investments Union, rely on closer integration within Europe, making it easier to operate across borders.While the Commission has made deepening the single market a political priority, support at national level is more precarious. The coming months will see pivotal elections in Spain and France, while the German government has also been coming under pressure domestically. In each country, far-right parties have been gaining ground.When asked if she was concerned the political situation could jeopardise this progress, Borbotti-Frison responded: “Of course. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t.” However, she continues to believe that cooperation is the only way forward. “Doing it alone is not the solution. It’s also not who we are, it’s not the model we are building, and it’s not the scale we need.”
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