Matthew Ball's 2026 Report: Attention, Not Enemies

Epyllion slide — gamers face a barrage of notifications from interactive substitutes — Epyllion · State of Video Gaming in 2026 — attention competition.

Matthew Ball report in a nutshell: TikTok, online gambling, OnlyFans, China and Roblox. (aka the usual boogeyman).

While I agree with the spirit here, I don't think TikTok / OF are "the enemy." It's more like rice vs pasta at your local store: different products competing for the same limited shelf space, attention/time.

The report basically reinforces that — people didn't stop loving games, people just have more "Friday night options" than ever.

Epyllion slide — player loss is a compounding problem (6 steps) — Player loss compounds — Epyllion, State of Video Gaming 2026.

And many of those options are designed to be ambient (scrollable, multitaskable, constant notifications). Games are usually the opposite: full presence, both hands, brain ON.

So the real question isn't "how do we beat TikTok?" It's: how do we make players yearn to come back to our game?

My take: the winners will be the teams who treat community as product, not decoration.

Epyllion slide — Love and Deepspace revenue by region, $1.52B from China — Market-specific creations like Love and Deepspace defy Western conventions.

Community is a bandwidth problem

And YES, expanding into new markets and building real communities is always a smart move, but it's also a bandwidth problem. Localization, moderation, regional content, cultural context… that's real headcount and real budget. Not every studio can run a "one channel per region" machine without burning out.

Epyllion slide — non-Western markets prioritize different players (Fortnite, COD vs PUBG, Free Fire events) — Non-Western markets invest in content made for them, not for the West.

Also: not everyone scrolling is your audience. Some people will never be your players and that's fine. But they can sit in a funnel.

The funnel

Cold: "I've seen this game meme 67 times."
Warm: "Okay, I get the vibe."
Hot: "Downloaded."

The goal isn't to convert everyone. It's to convert the right people, and then give them a world and community worth sticking around for.

Full report: https://www.matthewball.co/all/presentation-the-state-of-video-gaming-in-2026

Originally published on LinkedIn ▸