How do game industry executives look back at 2025 and what do they think about 2026? We spoke to Dino Patti, CEO and co-founder of coherence, to find out.
GamesMarkt: What is your verdict as you look back on 2025?
Dino Patti: "2025 highlighted some clear structural shifts in the games industry. AAA development has come under pressure, with rising budgets, longer production cycles, and several high-profile releases failing to meet expectations. At the same time, player behaviour continues to move toward smaller, more frequent experiences, often driven by social play, word-of-mouth, and strong communities rather than brand power alone.
Another defining issue was discoverability. The number of game launches has reached unprecedented levels, particularly on digital storefronts, making it harder than ever for individual titles to stand out. This oversupply has changed how players browse and choose games and has forced developers to think about community building and differentiation much earlier in development.
Overall, 2025 showed that success is increasingly tied to creativity, strong execution, and sustainable engagement rather than scale alone. From our perspective, that reinforces the need for reliable tools that help studios execute well rather than gamble on size."
GamesMarkt: What are your predictions for the gaming industry in 2026?
Dino Patti: "In 2026, social connectivity and cross-platform play will continue to grow in importance. Players increasingly expect to play together regardless of device, and communities thrive when they are not fragmented. Live-service thinking and long-term engagement will remain crucial, even for games that are not traditional “service games.”
At the same time, we will see a flood of AI slop games enter the market. Generative AI has dramatically lowered the cost of producing content, and that will result in huge volumes of low-effort, automated games hitting storefronts. This will make discoverability even harder and raise the quality bar significantly.
The upside is that truly well-made games will stand out more clearly. Games created with strong artistic vision, solid design, and genuine passion will still win players’ attention. AI will become a useful tool in development, but it won’t replace creativity. In fact, the noise created by AI slop games will make craftsmanship and authenticity even more valuable."
GamesMarkt: How is coherence positioned for 2026?
Dino Patti: "With the support of Roundtable Interactive Group, we enter 2026 on solid footing, both technically and organisationally. coherence 2.0 is now in the hands of developers, and the focus shifts from building foundations to seeing more games ship using the platform.
We're already in active discussions with a wide range of interesting developers and publishers about upcoming projects, and there’s clear momentum around studios choosing coherence for their next games. Several teams that started integrating in 2025 are moving toward release, and we expect 2026 to be a year where more finished titles using coherence reach players.
We're optimistic, but realistic. The goal isn’t explosive growth for its own sake, but steady adoption driven by successful releases and positive developer experiences. If we continue supporting teams well and delivering reliable multiplayer technology, 2026 should be a year of meaningful growth and broader industry trust in coherence."
The idea of coherence emerged from conversations that founder and CEO, Dino Patti, had with other veteran developers at events in the gaming industry. coherence is a complete, all-needs-covered toolkit to enable multiplayer in Unity projects. "Our Multiplayer-as-a-Service platform empowers game developers to create, test, and scale multiplayer through our Unity SDK, Network Engine, and flexible hosting. coherence also offers full co-development services, providing multiplayer production from prototype to live launch and beyond," the company states.
