Delightful's Game Research Starter Pack

The platform and genre maps. 38 platforms — storefronts, consoles, livestreaming and UGC — with who owns each and where its data lives. 30 genres with definitions, subgenres, example games, and the terms actually used in Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Read the genre map before comparing two datasets: the industry has no shared taxonomy and this records where the vendors disagree.

How to research one of 12 games markets, and the profile behind it. It opens with before_you_start, the research notes for that market: which national annuals are paid and what is free, which venues are closed or could not be verified, which figures overlap or are published on a basis that will not compare, what a weekly chart does and does not count. Then known_gaps, what the directory does not hold for that market and where to go instead. Then a sourced narrative built from claims that each carry the link they came from, a market-size figure with the basis it was published on, a player-population figure with the definition of who was counted, and where that market's data lives. Only these twelve have profiles — for any other market code, search_sources with a market filter is what exists.

Retrieve one source by its slug, with everything recorded about it. Slugs come back from search_sources and are permanent — the same slug names the same source across releases, so it is what to cite.

The 50 conversations currently moving the games industry, each with what it is, why it matters, the markets it lands in, its stage, how old the row is, and where it sits on the Three Horizons: H1, the current system running down, H2, the transition and its four groups, H3, the emerging future, or perennial ground. The placements are an editorial reading, not a score, and every answer carries the key to them in horizons. A routing map rather than a synthesis: it names arguments and points at where they are happening, and takes no position on any of them. Filter by horizon, group, market, stage, category or a free-text query; every filter narrows the list and none of them ranks it. Rows come in the order /trends reads them, 14 to a page: page with offset. Name one by slug to read it in full, with its further reading and its claims: a dated timeline, figures, status, consequences, objections, talk and what to watch, each with the link it came from. A claim marked talk: true cites a player community: it shows what players are saying, which moves this industry, and weighs less than reporting. Never quote it as an event or a figure. A claim carrying retired came off its page on that date and is kept as the record: true when written, no longer part of the reading. This is the fastest-decaying data here — every row is dated, and anything older than about six months needs a refresh.

Search 999 curated sources on the video games industry: press outlets, trade associations, datasets, analysts, podcasts, books, YouTube channels and communities across 26 markets. Every one was opened and read before it was described, and each result says what it lets you find out, who owns it and what it costs. This answers "where would I look for this?" — it is a directory of sources, not a source of facts, and nothing in it is ranked or scored.

44 search techniques for games research, each with a query you can paste, what it surfaces and why it works. Includes local-language strategies for researching the Japanese, Korean and Chinese markets without reading the language. Use this before searching the open web on a games question — these are the queries that reach material a plain search buries.