Compare / Markets / Media vs Gaming & Interactive

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Media vs Gaming: the publishers beat the game studios

Media providers outscore gaming by 6.9 points and are nearly twice as agent-ready. Much of the gap is our coverage.

Media

24.4 average
emerging on average
Agent readiness 14.6 · agent-aware
597 scored providers · industry
VS

Gaming & Interactive

17.5 average
emerging on average
Agent readiness 7.7 · agent-aware
644 scored providers · industry

Each sun is drawn from the cohort's averages: six facet rings, the mean Kin Score and mean agent readiness.

Check this first: the gap is partly our coverageMedia scores 6.9 points higher than Gaming & Interactive AND is the better-enriched cohort: 5.7 points less catalog_gap and 6 more artifact directories on the median member. The market difference and our coverage difference point the same way, so this delta cannot be attributed to the markets on its own. Close the enrichment gap, or report both figures together.

The 597 scored media providers average 24.4, against 17.5 for 644 gaming and interactive companies. Agent readiness splits the same way, 14.6 against 7.7, and media is twice as likely to ship a first-party MCP server (13% against 6%). Media holds 44 strong providers to gaming’s 19.

The facets show it across the board: contract quality (20.7 against 10.4), access clarity (26.4 against 18.5) and operational transparency (14.4 against 9.5). Gaming’s best facet is developer ergonomics at 20.4, against media’s 25.2. Game studios publish SDKs and engine plugins more than they publish HTTP contracts, and the rubric reads contracts.

This is one of the most depth-confounded pairs on the page: 5.7 points less catalog gap and six more artifact directories on the median media member. Gaming companies often document in engine portals and SDK repositories our crawl reaches less well. Read the 6.9 points as a coverage gap as much as a market one.

The distributions

MediaGaming & InteractiveDelta
Kin Score, mean24.417.5+6.9
Kin Score, median20.410.9+9.5
Kin Score, highest72.167.7
Kin Score, std dev18.115.3
Agent readiness, mean14.67.7+6.9
Agent readiness, highest65.360.4

Delta is Media minus Gaming & Interactive, as the tool returns it.

Where the providers sit

Media

exemplar 6strong 44developing 92thin 114emerging 151minimal 190

Gaming & Interactive

exemplar 1strong 19developing 56thin 93emerging 151minimal 324

Facet averages

FacetMediaGaming & InteractiveDelta
Discoverability 58.5 55.8 +2.7
Contract Quality 20.7 10.4 +10.3
Contract Governance 7.3 4.1 +3.2
Operational Transparency 14.4 9.5 +4.9
Developer Ergonomics 25.2 20.4 +4.8
Access Clarity 26.4 18.5 +7.9

What they publish

Share of each cohort's providers publishing each artifact. mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.

ArtifactMediaGaming & InteractiveDelta
First-party MCP server13%6%+7
Any MCP artifact (incl. derived)14%7%+7
OAuth scopes14%7%+7
Spectral rules19%10%+9
Arazzo workflows2%1%+1
Agent skills0%0%0
Security artifact99%99%0

How well we know each cohort

The coverage behind the averages. A cohort with a higher catalog gap and fewer artifact directories has been enriched less, so part of any difference is our coverage rather than the market.

MediaGaming & Interactive
Declared members666751
Scored (in the averages)597 (90%)644 (86%)
Thinly covered514601
Median artifact directories126
Mean catalog gap (points we could add)75.781.4
The full compare_cohorts response
{"a":{"kind":"industry","slug":"media","name":"Media","members":666,"stats":{"kind":"industry","slug":"media","name":"Media","tier":"report","coverage":{"declared_members":666,"resolved_members":666,"scored_members":597,"agent_scored_members":597,"scored_share_pct":90,"unexamined_members":67,"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":75.7,"median_artifact_dirs":12,"n":597,"thinly_covered":514,"thinly_covered_of":597,"thin_coverage_note":"514 of 597 scored members had under half their catalog-attributable points satisfied at all (catalog_earned / catalog_max < 0.5). They are INCLUDED in the mean above. A large share here means the cohort mean is partly a measurement of how far our enrichment reached, not only of how these providers publish.","note":"Rubric points API Evangelist could add to the average member with no action by the providers, and the median count of artifact directories we hold on them. A cohort with a higher gap and thinner artifacts has been enriched less, so part of any difference between its mean and another cohort's is our coverage rather than the market. Compare two cohorts only when this figure is comparable. It is an upper bound on our backlog: it says who CAN close a gap, not who did."},"unexamined_note":"Excluded from the distribution: these carry a catalog-owned needs_work flag (never enriched, or no resolvable host). They are listed as members and keep their own page and score; they do not vote in the averages, because their score measures our coverage rather than their posture."},"sufficient":true,"kin_score":{"mean":24.4,"median":20.4,"min":0,"max":72.1,"stdev":18.1},"agent_readiness":{"mean":14.6,"median":6.3,"min":0,"max":65.3,"stdev":16.5},"band_distribution":{"exemplar":6,"strong":44,"developing":92,"thin":114,"emerging":151,"minimal":190},"facet_averages":{"discoverability":{"mean":58.5,"n":597},"contract_quality":{"mean":20.7,"n":597},"contract_governance":{"mean":7.3,"n":597},"operational_transparency":{"mean":14.4,"n":597},"developer_ergonomics":{"mean":25.2,"n":597},"access_clarity":{"mean":26.4,"n":597}},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":14,"mcp_first_party_pct":13,"mcp_note":"mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.","skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":14,"security_pct":99,"arazzo_pct":2,"rules_pct":19}}},"b":{"kind":"industry","slug":"gaming","name":"Gaming & Interactive","members":751,"stats":{"kind":"industry","slug":"gaming","name":"Gaming & Interactive","tier":"report","coverage":{"declared_members":751,"resolved_members":751,"scored_members":644,"agent_scored_members":644,"scored_share_pct":86,"unexamined_members":101,"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":81.4,"median_artifact_dirs":6,"n":644,"thinly_covered":601,"thinly_covered_of":644,"thin_coverage_note":"601 of 644 scored members had under half their catalog-attributable points satisfied at all (catalog_earned / catalog_max < 0.5). They are INCLUDED in the mean above. A large share here means the cohort mean is partly a measurement of how far our enrichment reached, not only of how these providers publish.","note":"Rubric points API Evangelist could add to the average member with no action by the providers, and the median count of artifact directories we hold on them. A cohort with a higher gap and thinner artifacts has been enriched less, so part of any difference between its mean and another cohort's is our coverage rather than the market. Compare two cohorts only when this figure is comparable. It is an upper bound on our backlog: it says who CAN close a gap, not who did."},"unexamined_note":"Excluded from the distribution: these carry a catalog-owned needs_work flag (never enriched, or no resolvable host). They are listed as members and keep their own page and score; they do not vote in the averages, because their score measures our coverage rather than their posture."},"sufficient":true,"kin_score":{"mean":17.5,"median":10.9,"min":0,"max":67.7,"stdev":15.3},"agent_readiness":{"mean":7.7,"median":0,"min":0,"max":60.4,"stdev":13},"band_distribution":{"exemplar":1,"strong":19,"developing":56,"thin":93,"emerging":151,"minimal":324},"facet_averages":{"discoverability":{"mean":55.8,"n":644},"contract_quality":{"mean":10.4,"n":644},"contract_governance":{"mean":4.1,"n":644},"operational_transparency":{"mean":9.5,"n":644},"developer_ergonomics":{"mean":20.4,"n":644},"access_clarity":{"mean":18.5,"n":644}},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":7,"mcp_first_party_pct":6,"mcp_note":"mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.","skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":7,"security_pct":99,"arazzo_pct":1,"rules_pct":10}}},"comparable":true,"delta":{"kin_score_mean":6.9,"kin_score_median":9.5,"agent_readiness_mean":6.9,"facets":{"discoverability":2.7,"contract_quality":10.3,"contract_governance":3.2,"operational_transparency":4.9,"developer_ergonomics":4.8,"access_clarity":7.9},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":7,"mcp_first_party_pct":7,"mcp_note":null,"skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":7,"security_pct":0,"arazzo_pct":1,"rules_pct":9},"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":-5.7,"median_artifact_dirs":6}},"depth_confounded":true,"depth_note":"Media scores 6.9 points higher than Gaming & Interactive AND is the better-enriched cohort: 5.7 points less catalog_gap and 6 more artifact directories on the median member. The market difference and our coverage difference point the same way, so this delta cannot be attributed to the markets on its own. Close the enrichment gap, or report both figures together."}

Result read 2026-10-27. Media and Gaming & Interactive each have their own page with the full roster and leaderboard.

Run this comparison yourself

Everything above came from one call to compare_cohorts. Swap in any two tags, industries, regions, areas or VC portfolios and you get the same answer for your own shortlist. It is an Understanding tool, included in the Understanding and Influence plans, or pay per call.

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{"name": "compare_cohorts", "arguments": {"a": "industry:media", "b": "industry:gaming"}}
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