# Delightful's Game Research Starter Pack

> A free directory of the press, institutions, datasets, media, people and communities behind the video games industry across ten markets, plus the trends, platforms and genres that frame them. Built for strategists, researchers and journalists who have been handed a games brief, have a deadline, and have no vendor subscription. 873 sources, each one opened and read before it was described. Nothing sits behind a login or a fee. The directory data is CC BY 4.0: use it, publish from it, including commercially. Attribution is the one condition.

Compiled from a research workbook dated 2026-08-28.

Three limits, stated here rather than left to be inferred. This directory does not report, analyse, rank or score anything; sources are grouped and described, not graded. Market-size figures are NOT comparable across markets, because every market publishes on a different basis, in a different year, against a different definition of a player. The games industry has no shared genre taxonomy, so two datasets that appear to describe the same thing often do not. A number reached through this data carries exactly the authority of the outlet that published it and no more.

## Start here

- [Trends](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/trends): 37 trends currently moving the games industry, each with what it is, why it matters, the markets it lands in, and its stage.
- [Markets](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/markets): Index of the ten profiled markets, with what each is known for.
- [Industry](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/landscape): 33 platforms -- storefronts, consoles, livestreaming and UGC -- and 30 genres with definitions, subgenres, and the terms actually used in Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
- [Media](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/media): 59 YouTube channels, 48 podcasts, 42 books and papers and 23 newsletters that work as entry points into a market.
- [People](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/people): 59 analysts, critics and reporters who cover the industry, plus 66 wikis, boards and subreddits where players gather.
- [Resources](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/resources): Corporate investor relations pages, creator tracking platforms and research firms.

## Market profiles

Each profile carries a sourced narrative introduction, a market-size figure with its publishing basis, a player-population figure with the definition of who was counted, local trends, a market-specific source directory, and search techniques for that market. 255 inline-sourced claims across the ten.

- [Canada](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/market/CA): A country that makes games more than one that measures how it plays them.
- [China](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/market/CN): Regulation, playtime limits for minors, domestic studios and original IP. The state is a party to every game.
- [France](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/market/FR): Trade bodies, press and datasets for France.
- [Germany](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/market/DE): Europe's largest games market by its own trade association's account, and it barely makes any games.
- [Italy](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/market/IT): Market profile and source directory for Italy.
- [Japan](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/market/JP): Press structure, weekly sales reporting and data sources for Japan.
- [Korea](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/market/KR): Regulation, PC bang culture, press and datasets for South Korea.
- [MENA](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/market/MENA): The one market in this directory that cannot be sized.
- [United Kingdom](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/market/UK): Trade bodies, press and datasets for the UK.
- [United States](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/market/US): Press structure, trade associations and datasets for the US.

## Query it from an AI assistant

The whole directory is served over MCP, free, with no key and no account. Add
https://games.thisisdelightful.com/mcp as a custom connector in Claude, or point
any MCP client at it. Six tools: search_sources, get_source, get_market,
list_trends, get_landscape, search_techniques. POST a JSON-RPC tools/list to that
URL for their current definitions.

Every response carries the date the data was read, the CC BY 4.0 attribution, a
link back to the page it came from, and the standing caveats -- so a figure
quoted out of it arrives with the reason it cannot be compared across markets
attached to it.

- [How to connect it](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/doc/mcp): The page a human reads to set this up: the URL, the steps in Claude, what the six tools do, what every answer carries and what this endpoint will not do.
- [MCP endpoint](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/mcp): Streamable HTTP, stateless. POST JSON-RPC 2.0. GET returns 405; there is no event stream, because nothing here pushes.
- [Server discovery](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/.well-known/mcp-server.json): The registry document, naming the endpoint and the version.
- [Catalogue](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/catalog.json): What tables exist, how many rows each has, how many rows carry each field, and which market codes have a profile behind them. Read this before deciding whether to filter on a field.

## Download the data

Every table behind this site, as CSV and JSON, CC BY 4.0. These are static files and can be fetched directly.

- [Everything, zipped](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/games-research-starter-pack.zip): All tables as CSV and JSON, plus the README and licence.
- [One spreadsheet](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/games-research-starter-pack.xlsx): The same tables as a single workbook, one sheet each.
- [README](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/README.txt): What is and is not checked, the shape of the files, and a row count for every table. Read this first.
- [Sources CSV](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/sources.csv): 873 rows. Every outlet, institution, dataset, podcast, book, person and community, with what it lets you find out, who owns it, what it costs, which markets it covers, and what to watch for.
- [Sources JSON](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/sources.json): The same 873 rows as JSON.
- [Markets JSON](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/markets.json): Ten markets, nested. Every sourced claim under its section with the link it came from, and each player-population figure carrying the definition that says who was counted.
- [Trends CSV](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/trends.csv): 37 rows. Each trend with what it is, why it matters, its markets and its stage.
- [Trend reading CSV](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/trend-reading.csv): The further reading attached to each trend, one row per link.
- [Trends JSON](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/trends.json): 37 trends with their reading attached.
- [Platforms CSV](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/platforms.csv): 33 rows. Storefronts, consoles, livestreaming and UGC platforms, with who owns each.
- [Genres CSV](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/genres.csv): 30 rows. Genre definitions, local-language terms and subgenres.
- [Example games CSV](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/example-games.csv): The games named as examples of each genre.
- [Landscape JSON](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/landscape.json): Platforms and genres with their example games.
- [Searching tips CSV](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/searching-tips.csv): 39 rows. Search techniques with a query you can paste, what it surfaces and why.
- [Searching tips JSON](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/searching-tips.json): The same 39 rows as JSON.
- [Vocabulary CSV](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/vocabulary.csv): Every value each filter can take and how many rows carry it. Read this before building on the data.
- [Vocab JSON](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/vocab.json): The same counts, nested by facet.
- [Licence](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/downloads/LICENCE.txt): Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

## How it was made

- [Method](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/doc/method): Who this is for, where it came from, how it was assembled, what was checked and what was not. Includes the two problems found in the underlying data.
- [Get the data](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/doc/data-and-download): How the files are shaped, a field-by-field description of the source table, and which file you want.
- [Query it live](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/doc/mcp): The MCP connection written for a reader rather than a client. How to add it to Claude, what each tool answers, and the limits every response carries.
- [About](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/doc/about): Who publishes this. Written and maintained by Steve Bryant, published by Delightful, a research and content studio in Mexico City. The short answer to what this is; Method carries the long one.
- [Corrections and recommendations](https://games.thisisdelightful.com/doc/corrections): How to report something wrong, out of date or missing, what makes a correction actionable, and what is deliberately not a correction.