Pixel P&L: NODWIN Gaming Expands Comic Con India

Welcome to another Pixel P&L edition. This issue takes 4 minutes to read. If you only have one, here are the 5 most important things:

• NODWIN Gaming brings Comic Con to Gurugram in March 2026, expanding pop culture access in NCR.

• Krafton expands its College Campus Tour to 128 campuses across Tier 1, 2, and 3 cities with BGMI and Real Cricket tournaments.

• Amazon Game Studios chief Christoph Hartmann exits as the company pivots toward Luna cloud gaming.

• NetEase cuts QA staff at its Montréal studio, adding to nearly 1,000 gaming industry layoffs in 2026.

• GOG faces backlash over AI-generated sale banner.

Let's get into it.

NODWIN Gaming Brings Comic Con to Gurugram in March 2026

NODWIN Gaming will bring Comic Con India to Gurugram on March 14-15, 2026, at Gymkhana Club Grounds in Sector 29. The debut event, presented by Maruti Suzuki Arena and powered by Crunchyroll, expands the festival's footprint in the National Capital Region.

The two-day convention will feature comics, anime, cosplay, gaming zones, and live performances. Tickets are available through District by Zomato.

Gurugram's tech workforce and gaming cafés have created consistent demand for pop culture events. Fans previously traveled to nearby Comic Con editions, prompting organizers to establish a local venue.

"Fandom here thrives quietly—in apartments, gaming rooms, Discord servers, and weekend mall meet-ups," said Shefali Johnson, CEO of Comic Con India. "What's been missing is a shared moment where all of that energy comes together."

Akshat Rathee, Co-founder of NODWIN Gaming, noted the city's active gaming community. Now in its 13th year, Comic Con India has featured DC Comics, Marvel, anime fandoms and Indian creators while becoming a platform for cosplayers and artists nationwide.

Krafton Expands College Esports Tour to 128 Indian Campuses

Krafton India announced the second phase of its College Campus Tour, expanding esports tournaments to over 128 colleges across India's urban and smaller cities.

The program brings Battlegrounds Mobile India and Real Cricket competitions to college festivals with prize pools. Student teams compete at campus level before advancing to zonal rounds. The top 16 teams qualify for higher-tier tournaments.

The tour targets colleges in Tier 1, 2, and 3 cities, aiming to extend competitive gaming access beyond major metropolitan areas.

"India's esports growth will be defined by how early we create access and structure for young talent," said Karan Pathak, associate director of esports at Krafton India. "College campuses are where aspiration, competition, and community intersect."

⚡️Quick Bytes

Amazon Game Studios Chief Christoph Hartmann to Exit

Christoph Hartmann, head of Amazon Game Studios and former 2K Games president, is departing the company, according to Bloomberg News. The exit comes as Amazon shifts focus from PC and console game development toward its Luna cloud gaming service. Hartmann joined Amazon in 2018 to build its gaming division.

NetEase Cuts QA Staff at Montréal Studio

NetEase has eliminated multiple quality assurance positions at its Montréal studio, based on LinkedIn statements from former employees last week. QA project manager Scott Killingsworth and senior leads Stefano Magnabosco and Pavlina Rahneva confirmed their departures. The cuts follow NetEase's closure of three studios in late 2025 and contribute to nearly 1,000 gaming industry layoffs globally in 2026.

GOG Faces Backlash Over AI-Generated Sale Banner

GOG used AI-generated artwork for its New Year Sale banner, featuring a distorted Nintendo-style console despite being a PC storefront. A GOG team member confirmed the banner was "fully AI" on the company's forum, adding personal opposition to the practice. The controversy follows GOG's launch of a patron program and a job posting requiring "AI-assisted development tools," raising concerns about reduced employment for artists.

⚔️Side Quest

🤣Laugh:

📺 Watch: Good Game Club's debut podcast episode reframes gaming as the defining consumer medium, not a niche hobby. Nearly 3.5 billion people play daily, Gen Alpha spends three times more time in Roblox than on social media, and the fastest-growing demographic is 80+. Bergmann explains why every company needs a gaming strategy and how psychological profiling beats demographics for authentic engagement.

🎮 Play: Forestrike turns beat-em-up combat into a puzzle by letting you foresee fights before executing them, like that iconic duel scene in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Each encounter becomes a tactical challenge where you arrange your fighting skills to clear enemy patterns. The roguelite structure and story hooks kept me replaying through multiple martial arts styles. A clever genre hybrid that rewards both planning and execution.

📚 Read: Mathew Kumar pairs two coin-flipping games to expose how fake RNG and ranked ladders keep players hooked in video games. Unfair Flips strips the treadmill bare in minutes. Q-UP buries the same critique under eight hours of ironic complexity. Both games reveal tricks you already suspected but never confronted directly.

💡Did You Know

A Super Mario Maker level called "Pit of Panga: U-Break" holds the record as one of the hardest user-created levels ever made. Its completion rate once sat at 0.0076%, meaning only 367 players beat it out of nearly 5 million attempts. Created by a player known for brutal precision platforming, the level demands frame-perfect jumps and split-second timing throughout. Most players die within seconds of starting.

📜 Quote of the Day

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