(VOTING OPEN) Golden TWIG 2025: the Most Honest Awards in the Industry

Every year we’re handing out Golden TWIGs for 2025’s biggest wins, loudest failures, and most absurd corporate theater, with zero PR polish and maximum operator honesty. If you have strong opinions about what actually mattered this year (and what should’ve been quietly buried), this is your moment. Vote for the winners (2 min) The Golden TWIG nominations show: CAST YOUR VOTE , because in this awards show, it matters!

>> VOTE NOW The Talk of the Year Roblox quietly kept compounding while the industry argued whether it’s a platform, a genre, or a safe haven for child molesters. Meanwhile, AI dominated every conversation despite producing incremental gaming outcomes at best. Ubisoft’s implosion turned into Succession style content.

And looming over it all was EA choosing the nuclear option: cash out at the top. Nominees: EA going to the Saudis · Roblox’s continued dominance · AI everywhere · Ubisoft’s collapse · Tim Sweeney vs The World (Apple & Google) Last Year’s Winner: Mass Layoffs Get weekly game insights — Join builders who want to know what's working. Subscribe 2.

Correction of the Year (What We Got Wrong) This is our annual ritual of humility. We believed Enzoi could meaningfully threaten The Sims. It didn’t.

We assumed Call of Duty’s downside was capped. It wasn’t. We worried Switch 2 pricing would stall adoption.

Turns out fandom beats spreadsheets. And Apple’s long-awaited Games App? Five years of work for… vibes.

The correction of the year reminds us that confidence ages faster than data. ” 3. Most Damage Received Ubisoft continued its transformation into a French corporate soap opera of the worst kind.

Xbox struggled to justify scale post-Activision. Warner Bros. Games effectively got valued at zero by the acquirers.

Lilith’s portfolio bled despite genre tailwinds. Amazon Games capped a decade-long spending experiment with no breakout to show for it. Money was spent.

Value was not created. Several MOBAs and MMOs that nobody asked for were shipped. Nominees: Ubisoft · Xbox / Activision · Warner Bros.

Games · Lilith Games · Amazon Game Studios Last Year’s Winner: Ubisoft 4. Most Disappointing Game Disappointment is about expectations meeting reality. Mind’s Eye burned hundreds of millions to land a sub-40 Metacritic and refunds.

Black Ops 7 shattered the myth of franchise immunity. Rainbox Siege X proved rebrands don’t fix core fatigue. Borderlands 4 felt creatively stranded.