Games industry arguments with receipts.
Deconstructor of Fun treats the games business as a contact sport. Its panels move from Roblox safety pressure to PC and console reports, shooter design, layoffs, social casino art, and mobile growth with blunt opinions and little patience for soft framing.
PRESS PLAY
Deconstructor of Fun is a games business show for people who can handle a crowded table. It moves fast. A segment may start with Pokemon marketing, jump into Roblox regulation, veer through platform safety, and land on what an under-16 restriction would do to the company’s numbers. The show’s default mode is debate, not explanation. Its weekly TWIG episodes treat news as an opening bid: Epic sale rumors, Unity cuts, studio closures, merge economies, Mario box office results, Take-Two AI reductions, Monopoly Go social features, and Roblox’s age problem all get pulled apart for incentives, timing, and strategic consequence. Roblox is one of the show’s recurring pressure points. The coverage looks at creator businesses, adult audience misconceptions, brand partnerships, revenue share, platform growth without traditional user acquisition, and the tension between massive reach and fragile economics. Market reports get similar treatment. A Newzoo PC and console discussion becomes a conversation about PC outgrowing console, Steam’s convergence with Roblox-like social play, and whether developers understand the audience they are chasing. The specialist feeds widen the lens. Shooter Monthly brings a more design-heavy view of Marathon, Deadlock, Fortnite extraction, Valorant, Marvel Rivals, Battlefield, Call of Duty, and the free-to-play lever studios keep reaching for when box sales look exposed. Interview episodes slow the pace without going soft. Peter Franco’s social casino art discussion, for example, turns assumptions about visual craft, AI, and production discipline into a practical argument about taking every format seriously. The show is often irreverent and occasionally rough-edged, but the noise usually has a point. Disagreement is how the analysis gets sharpened. The result is not a clean industry briefing. It is a working conversation among people who care about product, monetization, platform leverage, publishing, and the business consequences of taste.
Made for: For games professionals and serious industry watchers who want opinionated analysis of platform shifts, monetization, and market strategy. It assumes the listener already knows the basics.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by treating disagreement as the main analytical tool. It blends weekly news, specialist genre coverage, and interviews into blunt conversations about what actually makes game businesses work or fail.
Deconstructor of Fun podcast is created by games professionals for games professionals. We explore the business side of the games industry with the goal of bringing listeners content that is relevant, insightful, and entertaining on a weekly basis.Hosts:Michail Katkoff www.linkedin.com/in/michailkatkoff/Eric Kress www.linkedin.com/in/erickress/Phillip Black www.linkedin.com/in/phillip-black-economist/Jen Donahoe www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferdonahoe
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Sharp panel debate connects game design, platform shifts and player behavior to the business decisions shaping what gets made.
Deconstructor of Fun turns games-industry news into an argumentative roundtable where commercial logic matters as much as the games themselves.
Free-to-play gets cross-examined before you can call it a fix.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Roblox's age tiers run into lawsuits, safety scrutiny, and kids tiring of money-grabbing games.
Roblox's split of 144 million daily active users into three age tiers gives this single-episode review its firmest point of tension. The discussion tracks a games business caught between growth strategy and outside scrutiny, moving from AAA dominance into lawsuits,…
A sharp read on Newzoo's PC and console report, with Roblox adjacency doing real work.
Deconstructor of Fun spends the episode inside Newzoo's 2026 PC and console report, and that framing gives the discussion a useful sense of direction.
A brisk market check on Mario, Take-Two's AI cuts, and the platforms around them.
Deconstructor of Fun takes a practical look at the business behind the headlines, from Mario's box-office success to Take-Two's cut to its AI team before GTA 6, with Roblox, Friendslop, and other newer titles raising bigger questions about where attention is moving.
A sharp, slightly unruly read on shooter layoffs, economics, and risky business models.
Shooter Monthly #6 reads the shooter business through pressure points that rarely sit neatly together: Epic's announced cuts of over a thousand people, a murkier earlier layoff figure, regional hiring, and the uneasy logic behind expansion while teams shrink.
A loose, sharp debate about Epic, Unity, merge games, and the expensive limits of the metaverse.
The episode frames the games business as a run of bets that keep changing shape, from Disney and Epic speculation to Unity beating earnings while shutting down Iron Source and selling Supersonic.
A clear look at why brand partnerships often clash with game development timelines and expectations.
Brand integrations in games can sound simple in a pitch meeting, then become difficult once development schedules enter the room. That tension gives the episode its shape.
A compact games-business conversation on box office momentum, platform metrics, and Take-Two's AI cuts.
This two-person edition of Deconstructor of Fun has a looser, more intimate feel as Jen Donahoe and Misha Katkov work through a busy games-business week: Mario's box-office run, an Areem and Invest Game report, the tug between traditional games and platforms like Roblox, and…
Marketing war stories turned into usable playbooks.
Revenue leaders talking shop on AI, pipeline and value.
Bastian Bergmann, author of 'Press Play', joins Deconstructor of Fun to discuss the challenges and opportunities of integrating brands into video games.
Hosts Jen Donahoe and Michail Katkoff cover major gaming news in a solo episode.
Mishka calculates that inflation reduces the games market's apparent growth to roughly 2% annually in real terms.
This episode discusses recent gaming industry news including Roblox's age-tiered updates, Xbox Game Pass pricing concerns, and Pokemon's 30th anniversary collaborations.
Roblox sets the frame.
Jen Donahoe and Mishka Katkov run a Twig Light episode while the rest of the crew is away, and they make the most of the smaller bench.
This episode discusses Epic Games' massive layoffs and financial challenges with Fortnite, while also touching on upcoming shooter games like Bungie's new title and industry trends.
This episode explores whether Roblox can support sustainable businesses beyond viral games, featuring insights from a Roblox executive and a studio CEO.
Deconstructor of Fun #377 opens with Disney rumors around Epic Games, then pivots to Unity shutting down Iron Source and selling Supersonic after the $4.4 billion merger.
Peter Franco discusses the challenges and misconceptions of art directing in social casino games and the broader implications of AI in the creative industry.
This episode of Shooter Monthly discusses gaming industry news including Valorant's growth, Marvel Rivals' progression system, and features hosts with backgrounds at companies like Bungie, EA, and DICE.
This episode explores the critical importance of strong co-founder relationships in startups, featuring Appcharge founders Roei and Maor discussing why many companies fail due to founder conflicts.
This episode explains how loyalty platforms function as a user acquisition channel in gaming, differentiating them from traditional methods like offer walls and rewarded video.
This episode explores how AppSlyer implemented an AI-first culture across its 1,300-person organization through a combination of top-down management initiatives and bottom-up employee training and innovation programs.