George's VGIM Update, August 2025
Power Play pre-orders open, freelancers carry on, and sponsorship opportunities aplenty
Power Play draft done and pre-orders open
George Young and Tom Regan to continue writing VGIM next month
Subscription, advertising, and event sponsorship sales galore to support the newsletter
Hello VGIM-ers,
It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
To those of you who’ve subscribed over the past few months and haven’t heard from me before, hello! And to everyone else, I’m so, so sorry.
Anyway, I’m writing to you all with a rare out-of-schedule newsletter to give you a quick update on the book, VGIM’s plans to the end of 2025, and how you (yes, I mean you) can support them.
Power Play update: manuscript ‘done’, pre-orders open
Let’s start with the good news.
After a frankly disgusting amount of writing in the past seven weeks, I’ve ‘completed’ the manuscript for Power Play: Video Games, Politics, and the Battle for Global Influence.
The book, which explains how video games have evolved into a channel of political influence capable of transforming the world, has taken almost every waking hour of my life since I jumped on the train home from last month’s Develop Conference in Brighton.
But earlier this week, I submitted the ‘final’ chapter of the book to my publisher. I also printed out a full version of the manuscript and waved it around my office in an undignified manner to celebrate, as seen above.
This doesn’t mean the work is over. I have a few weeks to give the manuscript a polish before we formally submit it, presumably in a ritualistic manner.
There’ll then be a steady back-and-forth editing process involving me, my editor, a copy-editor, and Some Lawyers to prepare it for printing (and, excitingly, read out loud for the audio version).
But the biggest chunk of writing work is over.
And I am happy to say that VGIM readers in the UK and Commonwealth (book publishing is weird sometimes) can pre-order Power Play ahead of its June 2026 release by hitting the button below.
You can pre-order it in hardback or eBook form via Amazon, or by searching for the book on a non-Bezos-owned store.
There will also be more news on the final front cover, international pre-orders, and the audiobook version in the months ahead. I’ll update you as those happen.
VGIM: a quick change of plan until October
So hooray, the worst of the hard work is done.
But it has been a tough summer. I still need to do a lot of work over the next few weeks to proofread the manuscript. And, good lord, I need a holiday.
To that end, I’m making a couple of small changes to my short-term plans for VGIM to i) preserve my sanity and ii) make sure you keep receiving great newsletters while I avert complete mental collapse.
I’m extending my ‘leave’ until October - I won’t be writing the free version of VGIM until October. I will still be editing VGIM and penning Insider emails during that time. But instead of making myself return in September as originally planned, I’ll continue to be ‘away’ until I’ve hit my deadline and had a couple of weeks off in the sun.
George Young and Tom Regan will extend their time with the newsletter - To cover my absence, I’m delighted to say that George and Tom will continue to write for VGIM throughout September. It has been a pleasure to work with them throughout the Summer, and I’m grateful that they’ve agreed to grace these pages for another four weeks.
I will be back in the hot seat on Thursday 2nd October, in time for the Nexus conference in Dublin.
I’ll then resume usual VGIM service from then, with a couple of fun twists that I’m looking forward to telling you about at the start of that month.
Supporting VGIM to the end of 2025 (and beyond)
I am really proud of what we’ve achieved with Video Games Industry Memo since it launched a couple of years ago.
I am also enormously thankful for your support for the newsletter through your supportive words, by sharing our newsletters, and backing our work with your cash.
And I am pleased to say that the newsletter continues to grow, with paid subscribers up 10% since the start of the summer and free subscriptions screaming past the 5,000 mark last month.
But if you did want to lend even more support to VGIM between now and the end of 2025, there are three ways you can help out either personally or through your business.
Become a VGIM Insider - Buy a VGIM Insider membership for just £25 per year (or £3 a month) as part of our summer sale. As well as scoring you extra newsletters, early access to events, and a discount on everything we flog, your cash gets reinvested into growing our work - turning every VGIM subscriber into a tiny media baron in the process. Cool, eh?
Sponsor the newsletter - Your company can also buy a sponsorship of the newsletter to get your brand, service or business into thousands of inboxes across the video games world. If you’d like to talk about ad campaigns and costs, email george@videogamesindustrymemo.com. There’s a special discount for Insiders to say thank you for your ongoing support, too.
Sponsor our end-of-year meet-up - Finally, I’m putting together plans for a VGIM end-of-year meet-up to bring the community together again. If your business would like to get involved as a headline or partner sponsor for our end-of-year event, hit me at the email above. A discount, once again, is available for Insiders.
Finally (and technically a fourth way you can support VGIM), I will be taking meetings in November to talk about our super-secret, very cool plans for 2026.
If you’d like to find out more through a call, coffee, or over lunch, get in touch.
I’ll be back (soon)
That’s all from this mini update from me.
George Young will return to inboxes next week for VGIM’s free subscribers. I’ll be sending Insiders a newsletter next Friday, which will ‘Debrief’ some of the big stories from the industry over the past couple of months.
In the meantime, thank you again for all of your support for Video Games Industry Memo, for the team, and, frankly, for me.
It has been a privilege to be trusted by so many of you to write engaging, interesting, and (very rarely) funny newsletters about the politics and business behind games.
We will keep doing what we can to repay your faith in every way possible. And I very much look forward to doing that properly from October onwards.
Yours, a little sleepily,
George
P.S. Here’s that Power Play pre-order link again, just in case you fancy locking in next year’s beach read nice and early.
P.P.S. Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2 is great. Pass it on.