Pixel P&L: Clair Obscur Sweeps Game Awards as Industry Unveils Star Wars RPG, Divinity, & More

Welcome to another Pixel P&L edition. This issue takes 5 minutes to read. If you only have one, here are the 5 most important things:

• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swept The Game Awards 2025 with 10 wins including GOTY.

• The Game Awards unveiled major franchise returns including Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, Larian's next Divinity game, and Resident Evil 9. Catch the highlights below.

• Valve tightens Counter-Strike sponsorship rules, banning gambling and skin trading site logos from tournaments.

• Rockstar Games reiterates that it fired 34 employees for allegedly leaking unannounced game details in a Discord server.

• Live-service games are plateauing while Roblox bucks the trend through user-generated content, BCG reports.

Let's get into it.

Clair Obscur Dominates Game Awards as Industry Unveils Major Franchises

French studio Sandfall Interactive swept The Game Awards 2025, with debut title Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 claiming Game of the Year and 10 total awards at the annual ceremony in Los Angeles.

The turn-based RPG secured wins including Best Narrative, Best RPG, Best Art Direction, and Best Performance for voice actor Jennifer English. The sweep marked one of the most dominant showings in the event's history, though the game lost the community-voted Player's Voice award to Chinese RPG Wuthering Waves.

The ceremony served as a launch platform for several major announcements. BioWare veteran Casey Hudson revealed Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, a spiritual successor to Knights of the Old Republic developed by his studio Arcanaut. Larian Studios announced its return to the Divinity series following Baldur's Gate 3's success, calling it the company's "biggest game ever."

Capcom dominated trailers with Resident Evil 9: Requiem showcasing returning protagonist Leon Kennedy, while Pragmata received an April release window with a demo. Crystal Dynamics revealed two Tomb Raider projects: Legacy of Atlantis, a 2026 remake of the original, and Catalyst, a new adventure for 2027.

Other notable reveals included Total War: Warhammer 40,000 featuring actor David Harbour, Remedy's Control: Resonant focusing on protagonist Jesse Faden's brother Dylan, and Mega Man: Dual Override scheduled for 2027.

Arc Raiders won Best Multiplayer despite launching recently, while No Man's Sky took Best Ongoing Game. Baldur's Gate 3 earned Best Community Support. Grand Theft Auto 6 unsurprisingly won Most Anticipated Game.

Wildlight Entertainment, founded by former Respawn developers, announced Highguard, a free-to-play fantasy shooter launching in seven weeks. The show also featured appearances from filmmaker Werner Herzog promoting Warframe and musician Lenny Kravitz revealing his villain role in IO Interactive's upcoming 007: First Light.

Valve Tightens Sponsorship Rules for Counter-Strike Tournaments

Valve updated its Tournament Operation Requirements this week, restricting teams and organizers from displaying sponsors related to gambling and skin trading sites during Counter-Strike events.

The amendments to Valve's Limited Game Tournament License now require both ranked and unranked tournaments to comply with section 2.4.e, which prohibits content violating Valve's intellectual property or Steam Subscriber Agreement. This includes "game case opening sites or skin trading sites" on team jerseys and broadcasts.

The changes create immediate complications for the Counter-Strike esports ecosystem. Several top-tier teams maintain lucrative sponsorship deals with skin gambling platforms, as do smaller organizations and tournament operators.

The move reflects growing industry pressure to distance esports from gambling-adjacent sponsors. Valve's decision follows years of controversy surrounding unregulated skin betting markets that operate in legal grey areas across multiple jurisdictions.

⚡️Quick Bytes

Rockstar Defends Mass Firing Over Alleged Leak of Game Details

Rockstar Games says 34 employees dismissed for gross misconduct "distributed and discussed confidential information" including unannounced game features in a public forum, breaching company policy. The dismissals reportedly followed discussions of Slack policies in an invite-only Discord server linked to unionization efforts. Rockstar denies terminations were union-related, calling such claims "entirely false."

Live-Service Games Plateau as Roblox Bucks Industry Trend, BCG Reports

Boston Consulting Group says live-service titles including Fortnite and Call of Duty are declining after years of dominance, while Roblox continues growing through user-generated content. Recent live-service launches like Concord and Suicide Squad flopped despite major investments. However, BCG predicts subscription models (like Xbox Game Pass) will grow as millennials and younger generations show strong preferences for accessible, cross-platform gaming over traditional purchases.

Team Falcons Promotes Savelli to Global Esports Director

Saudi Arabian esports organization Team Falcons promoted Jordan Savelli to global director of esports, replacing Grant Rousseau who departed in October for NIP Group's COO position. Savelli joined Team Falcons in January 2024 as general manager after executive roles at Prodigy Agency and nicecatus.

⚔️Side Quest

🤣Laugh:

📺 Watch: The Game Awards 2025 opened with a tantalizing glimpse at Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, a spiritual successor to KOTOR, with a fantastic teaser trailer. While early in development, the teaser promises a narrative-driven single-player RPG where you'll shape a Force user's journey toward light or darkness through meaningful choices, rekindling the magic of classic Star Wars storytelling in a galaxy on the edge of rebirth.

🎮 Play: Epic Games is giving away Hogwarts Legacy for free until December 18. Explore the Wizarding World in this 2023 open-world RPG where you attend Hogwarts as a fifth-year student with unique magical abilities. The game is honestly a love letter to Potterheads, and while it may not be the Hogwarts acceptance letter fans dreamed of, it's the next best thing.

📚 Read: Elijah Gonzalez examines how SEGA's Yakuza 0 Director's Cut exemplifies gaming's preservation crisis by replacing the beloved original with an inferior version featuring unnecessary cutscenes that undermine the story. The piece connects this to broader industry failures in treating games as disposable software rather than art worth preserving for future generations.

💡Did You Know

Kazuki Takahashi, the visionary creator of Yu-Gi-Oh!, died in July 2022 while attempting to rescue three people drowning off the coast of Okinawa, Japan. The 60-year-old manga artist noticed a mother and her daughter struggling in the water alongside a US Army officer. Takahashi dove in to help, ultimately saving all three lives before being swept away by powerful currents. His body was discovered days later. 

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