2026 Halfway Point Update
Client work
I hit the ground running this year, starting work with no less than 5 studios in January that received funding from the Dutch Creative Industries fund to work with me. Besides that, I've been working with 3 long-term clients, implementing the Long Game Operating System one workshop at a time, and providing support for their quarterly meetings.
Next to my own clients, I've also been coaching executives at some of our industry's top studios alongside my colleagues at Valued Cultures. Our clients span a wide range of AAA developers, and I've personally had the pleasure of coaching some of the wonderful folks at Bethesda Game Studios, MachineGames, and Zenimax Online Studios. We'll see how these studios come out of the Xbox restructurings, but I'm hopeful we'll be able to continue supporting these studios to become even better versions of themselves.
Definitely a full first half of the year, especially during a particularly busy two-week period where I hosted 3 full-day workshops and 8 individual coaching sessions for 7 different clients across 2 countries. As some of these engagements wind down over the coming weeks, I'm allowing myself some more downtime, so that I'm properly rested and prepared for some of the exciting projects I've got lined up for the second half of the year - more on those later.
FIRM 2.0
In January, I released a completely reworked version of the FIRM notion template for indie studio management. It now looks better, flows better and has better structure and explanation, all so you will have an even easier time using it to run your own indie studio with more confidence, less friction and better results.
Most read pieces
During the first half of 2026, these were the most read editions of The Long Game.
Events
With the cancelation of Reboot, I ended up visiting just two events so far, namely Nordic Game and INDIGO.
It was great to meet so many of my international industry friends at Nordic and get a feel for how the industry is doing (tl;dr everyone's still looking for money) and to take the stage to talk about all the preventable ways founders mismanage their studios in a talk titled Dumb Ways To Die: 30 Ways to Accidentally Kill Your Studio. It is by far my best received talk to date, and to honor that response I'm currently working on a free ebook that expands on each of the 30 mistakes, which I'll release some time after summer.
INDIGO is a much more local affair, though I was happy to see that the event had managed to attract more international attendees again compared to last year. It's the key Dutch industry event, and I never miss an opportunity to catch up with my Dutch industry colleagues (tl;dr everyone's still looking for money).
I’ve got a couple more events lined up for the second half of the year, so if you want to meet up in person you can find me at:
- Gamescom
- DICE Greece
- Probably one more; TBD
And don’t worry, if you follow me on Linkedin you’ll see copious reminders of this 😉
Best stuff of the year so far
📕 Best book: There Is No Antimimetics Division by qntm
Think Remedy's Control, but in book form. That's all I'll say.
🎵 Best music: Fujii Kaze Tiny Desk concert
I discovered Fujii Kaze last year, but only really got into his music in the last couple of months, which is a blend of jazz, R&B and J-pop. This video is really showcases his chops as a musician.
📺 Best movie/TV: Widow's Bay
Widow's Bay manages to blend horror and mystery with comedy in a way I've never seen done before, and that I never imagined would work as well as it does.
🎮 Best game: Caves of Qud (Switch 2)
This is such a weird game. It's a procedurally generated turn-based roguelike with minimal graphics, set in a world that effortlessly blends elements of fantasy and sci-fi in some of the best writing I've seen in games. If you like exploring rich open worlds with plenty of surprises, this one's for you.
Goal Accountability
For those of you that are interested in how I run my own little business:
At the start of the year, I declared my goals for 2026. Here's a stoplight indication of how those things are progressing so far, green being "on track" and red being "off track":
🟢 Revenue goal: +25% YoY
🟢 Key measurable: work with 18 clients
🟢 Write LGOS implementation workbook
🟠 Write LGOS employee handbook
🟠 Visit 5 events, and speak at 2
🔴 Send 25 newsletters > Send 15
🟢 Workout and meditate 200 times
🟢 Go on 4 date nights
I'm making good progress on all accounts except for the newsletter. Every time I get busy, this is the first thing to suffer. I've already missed too many to make it to 25, but I can still hit 15.
Overall I'm very happy with the way this year is shaping up, even as the current industry upheaval shows a different picture for so many of us. With everything that's going on, I'm not taking any of this for granted. I'm immensely grateful for the studios that choose to work with me, and will continue to do my absolute best to help studios become the best damn version of themselves.
Wishing you all a wonderful summer, and I hope to see many of you at Gamescom in August!
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Right Now
Playing - Hogwart's Legacy
I'm playing this with our daughter, who is super into everything Harry Potter right now. I'm loath to pay for anything related to HP so as not to fund the monster, but this one came free with PS+ so we gave it a go. Much more so than the story, Maya enjoys flying around on her broom, petting the magical creatures, and taking long swims. Go figure.
Reading - The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife by James Hollis
Look, I'm approaching 40, and I'd like to come prepared, OK? It's actually a really interesting book based on Jungian psychology, and therefore a really interesting companion book to The Courage to be Disliked, which is one of my favorite books ever.
Watching - The Bear Season 5
After a few meandering seasons, the final season feels as tight and controlled as the first, as the crew prepares for a final service over the course of a day where literally *everything* goes wrong. It's fantastic to see every character's growth throughout the show reflected in how they handle that chaos, and really makes you appreciate how far everyone has come.
Meet me at
- August 26-28: Gamescom, Cologne
- September 21-23: DICE EU, Athens
Until the next one!
Martijn
