Alex Forbes-Calvin

Alex Forbes-Calvin is a freelance journalist, writer and author who covers the business and production side of video games for GamesIndustry.biz and other specialist games publications. His coverage is distinguished by detailed reporting on how studios, publishers and creators make long-term strategic decisions, framed through extensive interviews and concrete development timelines. He links individual projects to wider trends in labour, technology and publishing, giving readers a clear view of how business choices shape the games that reach players.

Long-form reporting on game development journeys

For GamesIndustry.biz, Forbes-Calvin specialises in long-form features that trace the full journey of a project from announcement to release, including the difficult decisions made along the way.

In his feature on The Wolf Among Us 2, he documents how Telltale Games and its partners scrapped years of work, restarted development, and moved the project to Unreal Engine 5, explaining why the studio chose a complete reboot rather than incremental fixes. The piece sets out the years-long delay, the switch in technology, and the decision to hold back a launch date until the team is satisfied with the final product, turning a headline delay into a clear account of production strategy. He applies the same approach when writing about Brighter Shores, revisiting RuneScape creator Andrew Gower’s return to MMORPGs by focusing on the engine work and design thinking that pulled him back to the genre.

His interviews often centre on founders and studio leaders who are rethinking how games are made and funded. When he sits down with teams building projects outside the traditional publisher model, he draws out their logic for rejecting standard funding routes, their view of the “publisher industrial complex,” and the structures they put in place instead.

Across these features, the emphasis stays on concrete decisions - choice of engine, production cadence, business model and scope - rather than surface-level promotion, which gives his pieces a clear utility for anyone tracking how studios manage risk over multi-year projects.

Labour, unions and workplace organisation

Forbes-Calvin regularly covers labour and workplace organisation within the games industry, treating unionisation and working conditions as core business issues rather than side stories. In his reporting on the Blizzard Albany union election, he follows the National Labor Relations Board process and explains what official recognition means for QA workers at a major publisher. The article sets out how the vote fits into a broader rise in games union activity, while keeping the focus on specific developments at the studio and the legal steps that enable staff to organise.

His labour coverage sits alongside broader reporting on workforce changes in games and games media.

Pieces on editorial leadership moves, such as an editor stepping up at PCGamesN, treat staff changes as part of the industry’s shifting competitive landscape rather than internal housekeeping. Together, these stories show a consistent interest in how people inside studios, publishers and media outlets gain representation, change roles and exert influence, and how those changes affect the projects and companies he covers elsewhere.

Publishing labels, leadership and market shifts

Beyond development and labour, Forbes-Calvin tracks publishing strategies and market moves, with a particular focus on how companies structure labels and portfolios. His coverage of My.Games launching the Knights Peak publishing label breaks down why the company is creating a new imprint, what kinds of games it plans to support, and how this fits into wider consolidation and growth plans in the sector.

Similar news pieces follow corporate decisions that directly impact developers and products, such as restructurings, new divisions and changes in leadership.

These articles are written in a straightforward trade style, but his framing keeps the emphasis on implications for partners, studios and staff.

He draws clear lines between publishing announcements and their practical outcomes: how a new label may change funding routes, how leadership changes might shift editorial direction, and where opportunities or pressure will fall in the value chain. This business-focused reporting complements his long-form features, giving a day-to-day record of the decisions that later surface in his deeper project profiles.

Experience across the games press and tie-in books

Forbes-Calvin has worked across both trade and consumer-facing games media, which informs the range and depth of his coverage. He started out at a weekly games trade paper before launching the specialist site PCGamesInsider, building a foundation in business reporting and industry news. Over his career he has written for mastheads including MCV, Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, The Observer, VGC and Esquire, moving between outlets aimed at industry insiders and broader audiences.

Alongside journalism, he has authored official books and art volumes on major games and franchises, including RuneScape, Assassin’s Creed, Dead Island 2 and Marvel’s Wolverine. These projects require close collaboration with studios and publishers and a detailed understanding of development history, which reinforces the archival and historical tone in his features. He also works as a photographer within the games industry, covering events and conferences, which keeps him close to the people and companies he reports on.

The combination of trade reporting, mainstream bylines, official books and industry photography gives his work a consistent through-line: he approaches games as products of complex organisations, and uses concrete detail to show how those organisations function over time.