Things of note for the week ending Saturday October 21st, 2023

INTRO

Well it’s been maybe five days since the last one, let’s go again shall we?

I promise they’re not usually these common. Honest. One might begin to think this was a regular newsletter!

Happy Friday weekend, fam.

I am starting this week’s edition in the early hours of Thursday morning (My youngest has been up coughing all night and after carrying them back to their own bed twice, I gave up around 530ish and came to the desk to start writing) in the hope that I’ll get it done and out and scheduled for Friday but let’s see how we go.

[EDIT: lol, that did not work at all did it?]

How’s your week?

It’s been hectic here. The agency is in peak pre-Christmas craziness. Back to backs, client checks for this [redacted] thing, drumming up excitement for that other [redacted] thing, lining up stuff for other [more redacted] things – updates to come soon, promise – and a linkedin message box going nuts (thanks?!) and yet looking out the window here… the rain hasn’t stopped.

It is definitely October.

The snails are out in force and the plants are getting their annual soak.

But hey, the grass is always greener when you water it, right?

Tonight (Thursday night) I’m getting suited and booted and all dolled up for the annual GamesAid Gala. Now in its sophomore year, last year’s inaugural event raised nearly £30,000(!) for GamesAid charities and I cant’ wait to see what the UK games industry can do this time around… (EDIT: hello!)

Speaking of FUNDRAISING. I forgot to update you last week! Two Five things on Fridays ago (FToF #353) I was out with cap in hand to support Team Diva and help us raise money for War Child UK as we prepared to run TOUGH MUDDER.

Well, last week I forgot to mention that – we did it!

And thanks to you generous lot, we raised over £5000 for War Child (£5127 to be exact). Thank you, thank you thank you – to all of you that donated and supported and shared. It was hugely appreciated.

Thank you.

And in a show of my appreciation I will gift thee FIVE THINGS ON FRIDAY.

Shall we get to them?

LET’S.

1. SERPENT D’OCÉAN

Let’s kick off this week with the bones of a giant snake because why not.

Just off the shore of the Loire estuary outside of Nantes, France, a slithering serpent rises from the water. Completed in 2012, Serpent d’océan is an impressive 425-foot (130 meters) sculpture by French Chinese contemporary artist Huang Yong Ping and is part of the Estuaire permanent public art collection along the estuary’s 37 miles.

A classic dip into My Modern Met this week yielded this absolute belter. I’ve not been to see this but imagine a) you didn’t know it was there and b) just happening upon it one night on a walk along the beach. Terrifying. But also: kind of gorgeous?

Read/see more.

2. DECONSTRUCTING LICHTENSTEIN

So here’s something I learnt this week:

Lichtenstein was a thief.

In a back and forth between some Neil Gaiman comic books fans on Threads earlier this week, I found out that a) Lichtenstein a pilferer of art from multiple comic books and the artists that did the original work and b) Neil Gaiman actually had the Museum of Modern Art update its description of ‘Drowning Girl’ to include the original artist.

I went deep on this one.

• Here’s a good piece of background on the overall mission to uncover all the original source material.

• Here’s a link to the Deconstructing Lichtenstein flickr page that serves to capture and document the original source material (mind. blown).

• And here’s Neil Gaiman being a god damn living legend.

I’m never going to look at a Lichtenstein the same way ever again.

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING

Friday October 20th is basically Barbenheimer for gamers.

If you’ve been under a rock for the past few weeks then you’d be forgiven for not knowing that the BOTH INCREDIBLY WELL REVIEWED MEGA HIT GAMES ‘Super Mario Wonder’ and ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’ were coming out today.

If you’ve got a Nintendo Switch, you should get Mario.
If you’ve got a PlayStation 5, you should get get Spidey 2.
(And if you’ve got an Xbox, you’ve already got Forza Motorsport and Starfield).

Basically, y’all spoilt. Which one are you going for? I’m already playing Mario and there’s no way my kids will let get through the weekend without picking up Spider-Man… dammit (as a useful aside, ShopTo or Instant Gaming are where I buy my console store credit from, you can regularly get 15% off the usual price from these websites).

What else can I tell you?

QUICK NEWS BITES

• The second edition of the Women in Games ‘Building a Fair Playing Field’ report is available now. This is a chunky report – with clear guidance, examples, and recommendations on how to not only improve the games industry for women but also attract more women into games. Leadership Leadership Leadership. Even if you’re not interested in gaming or games, I would recommend this to you anyway as a great example of what good looks like.

• Related – and to address some of the areas highlighted in the report above – Mastercard has launch the Mastercard Gamer Academy – with a specific focus on inclusion and inclusive gaming. I really like this. I’ve been noodling* for a while now on what OTHER WAYS brands can get involved more meaningfully in gaming and this effort from Mastercard is a great example of doing something DIFFERENT and with MEANING (not everything has to be a Fortnite island, you guys). Well done to all involved. *More on the noodling another time…

• Sony Pictures Core (previously known as Bravia Core) is now available on PlayStation 5. And it must be said: the quality on this thing is INCREDIBLE. The Verge reports on just how much of a big deal this is – basically due to the high bitrate stream, it’s significantly better than anything Netflix or Amazon can deliver in terms of performance. PlayStation users get some perks on this as well. First off, Plus Premium subscribers get access to a bunch of older films (I tried this out and booted up the original Hellboy movie – again, incredible quality). Second, Gran Turismo is available on Core first and if you buy the $20 edition you get in-game credits to spend too. Not bad. More of this cross-entertainment synchronisation please Sony, thanks.

• The Analogue 3D was announced. Basically a new console from Analogue that promises to play EVERY N64 GAME IN FULL 4K. No images yet, just a tease on the website but I can see this coming in at around $149-$199 and is definitely one for the ol’ nostalgia nerds. Speaking as someone who still has his fully working N64 in the cupboard, I don’t know if the 4K attraction is enough but I’ll keep an eye on it and update you as and when.

• ‘What’s the matter babe? You’ve not touched your… £875 Elden Ring Bomber jacket’ – wtf.

• I really like this new ad from Xbox – ‘Wake up and Dream’

• Finally, The industry layoffs show no sign of slowing. I properly hope this is an inflection point for the industry. New studios, smaller more agile teams, better financial management… something has got to give so this doesn’t happen again. It’s brutal.

WHAT AM I PLAYING?

Don’t get me wrong, while Spider-Man 2 will be downloading at some point this weekend and Super Mario Wonder literally dropped through the letterbox yesterday (I played it on the train into London last night and if you don’t laugh like a child at the singing piranha plants in level two then you are dead inside), I must confess between this edition and last, I completely crumbled and picked up ASSASSIN’S CREED MIRAGE and sheeeeeeeeee’s a beauty.

It’s going to be hard to put this down for Spider-Mario Weekend but hey this year is NUTS for killer games. How do you choooooose?!

4. FIND YOUR DAYLIST PLAYLIST

Got Spotify?

Open the app, go to search and type ‘Daylist’ – et voila, one instant personalised playlist based upon what you normally listen to on that day.

I love this.

Thanks to Paul W for the tip x

5. THE META GLASSHOLES ARE COMING

This is a long edition already so I won’t go mega long on this however what with Meta Quest 3’s pass-through being seriously fantastic, some people (in guess where: America!) have started wearing them… out.

Completely normal behaviour.

I’m still umming and ahhing about an MQ3 but IF I do end up pulling the trigger on one, I will NEVER wear it outside, let alone to the ACTUAL COFFEE SHOP YOU MENTALISTS.

The Verge has [even] more.

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. THAT PART LIKE MOST OTHER NEWSLETTERS WHERE PEOPLE JUST LINK TO THINGS THEY’VE LIKED THIS WEEK BUT INSTEAD OF IT BEING RUBBISH, MY VERSION OF IT IS ACTUALLY QUITE GREAT.

ENJOY.

• On Monday I found out I had been made a ‘Top Gaming Industry Voice’ on Linkedin. A Linkedin rep slide into my DMs a few weeks ago and asked if I wanted to contribute to some articles – I did, and people liked my contributions and so then I got my badge. Lovely. It turns out, eventually you could a topic-based specialist voice too. It’s not difficult to trigger apparently but if you’re going to do it, do it in a way that adds value, thanks x.

• The three Doctor Who showrunners being nerdy about the show’s music (among other things) is as nerdy as you’d expect it to be.

• Netflix is raising its prices to make its premium tier an eye-watering £18 a month here in the UK. Discussed it with the fam and some pals and I think that’s us out.

• Related, is good on Netflix’s most recent earnings call and more so because she links to this perfect letter from Emma Thompson that I think I somehow missed the first time around.

• The Meta Quest 3 is a seriously impressive piece of kit (still not committing – it might be a Christmas present. That or a Steamdeck, basically – which one though?!) – a better use, inside.

• WPP merged VMLY&R with Wunderman Thompson this week. Goodbye Wunderman, goodbye Y&R, goodbye JWT… so many dead advertising brands consigned to the bin of history – and they went and called it ‘VML’. It’s as dull as it is depressing.

• Reddit is killing its blockchain-based community points system. Shooketh, I am.

• Reuters is reporting Meta is laying off employees in its Metaverse silicon unit.

• Finally, if, like me, coffee is your thing, may I suggest the PACT COFFEE advent calendar? I’ve ordered mine and it’s an annual highlight (and this is not an ad – I just really like Pact).

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. HOLD TIGHT.

A couple of nice OREO things this week. The Xbox Cheat Cookies campaign picked up an astonishing 19 awards at the LIA London International Awards last week.

This is insane?

And the OREO Twists UK campaign (one of the very last things I touched on the UK team) has been shortlisted in the 2023 DMAs. Best of luck gang!

And that’s this week’s edition away. As I write this to you now it’s 4am on Saturday morning (and I’m scheduling this for 9am – I’m not a monster).

I’ve been up since about 2am with a rotten headache and snotty nose (I think getting caught outside in the rain after the GamesAid Gala has given me a horrible cold) and I thought before I give up and just play some video games, I’ll see if I can get FToF finished and scheduled – and here we are.

I hope you’ve got a decent weekend lined up and if you haven’t, then maybe do what I’m going to do and put your duvet on the sofa and play a shed ton of Assassin’s Creed Mirage / Super Mario Wonder / Spider-Man (delete where appropriate).

Until next time,

Whatley out x

PS. Do me a favour this week would you? Share this newsletter with someone you think might enjoy it. Or if you’ve enjoyed something specifically from this week’s edition, please share either on social, or in an email to your team. All shares and recommendations are really appreciated – and it helps this Substack grow. Thank you x

Things of note for the week ending Sunday October 15th, 2023

INTRO

Hey friends, how have you beeeeeen?

It’s been a couple of months, I know but I often taken the summer off this newsletter and this year, seemingly, was no different. The sunshine making a last hurrah in the early days of October (along with a last minute weekend jaunt to Milan – more on that later) meant the restart date of was pushed back a touch however as a dear old boss of mine was wont to say: we are where we are.

And here we are: Five things on Friday (on Sunday) #354. Arriving late, as noted and as per [the small print] but here all the same.

Welcome, one and all – oldies and newbies together. Welcome.

I hope you like this week’s edition. I’ll be honest, I’ve not opened the ‘#5things’ tag in my inbox yet so I have no idea what we’ll find – a lot has happened since we last spoke and as ever the challenge is always to find the right balance of things you might not know about, things that I really want to write about, and bringing a fresh perspective on both. I try.

Shall we find out what’s in there then?

Let’s (and make sure you stick around for the bonuses).

TO THE THINGS!

1. MARKETING IS IN DESPERATE NEED OF A REALITY CHECK

“Marketers operate in an alternate reality, Marketingland, where they are far removed from the lives of the people they’re meant to understand and reach. The industry can do better, says Richard Huntington, CSO, Saatchi & Saatchi. He calls for The Marketing Reality Movement, a movement that turns the tide on aspirational marketing, one that better represents and serves the real needs of real people.”

This is an excellent read.

And bang on.

2. WHERE ARE YOU ON SOCIAL THESE DAYS…

(bear with me this might work, it might not)

…JAMES?

Look, I know I’ve done this before but it’s been a while since a) we last spoke and b) I posted on the toxic far-right disinformation platform formally known as Twitter (basically, if you’re still there, you’re part of the problem).

Since then I’ve had a couple of months to figure out the vibe and while I’ve flirted with a bunch of platforms, it’s currently bottoming out like this:

• Posting life/game stuff on Threads, primarily.

• Work/marketing stuff on Linkedin. Like, daily – who even am I?

• And then just messing about with an occasional bursts on Bluesky – because why not?

That’s it, that’s the thing.

I felt like I should say it all again because I would argue all of the platforms named above have gone through bursts of user/engagement growth of late and that growth may have included you.

Irrespective of your reasoning for giving the platform up (for those of you that actually have at least (vs say, those of you that have said you have but then posted twenty-eight times since and still embed X posts in your newsletter – lol what)) you might be on the search for the rest of the diaspora – so I thought I’d remind you: this is where I am.

Where are you?

You can add me on any or all of the above. See you there

…NPR?

‘Six Months Ago NPR Left Twitter. The Effects Have Been Negligible’. You may have seen this headline floating around your feeds over the past week and even if you have the slightest interest or influence over social content, it is genuinely worth your time to read it.

A memo circulated to NPR staff says traffic has dropped by only a single percentage point as a result of leaving Twitter, now officially renamed X, though traffic from the platform was small already and accounted for just under two percent of traffic before the posting stopped. (NPR declined an interview request but shared the memo and other information). While NPR’s main account had 8.7 million followers and the politics account had just under three million, “the platform’s algorithm updates made it increasingly challenging to reach active users; you often saw a near-immediate drop-off in engagement after tweeting and users rarely left the platform,” the memo says.

Speaking as someone who felt for a long time that being good at my job was linked to my presence and preoccupation with the platform, it’s really actually quite amazing to have it removed from my life and still be good at my job. Crazy, huh?

I laid out the platforms I’m present on at the start of this section but truth be told I’d wager that my output on all three of those combined probably still wouldn’t match up to how I spent my time on Twitter and having that time back? It’s kinda great!

So yeah, if I can do it (and walk away from 20k+ followers – happily), if NPR can do it (with negligible impact), then you can too.

‘The numbers confirm what many of us have long suspected — that Twitter wasn’t worth the effort, at least in terms of traffic’

Indeed.

…GAMING COMMUNITIES?

And finally for this section, I’ve never really been a big fan of the vanity metric (aka: metrics or statistics that look spectacular on the surface but don’t necessarily translate to any meaningful business results) so it was strikingly odd to me when I first moved into the games industry to suddenly start seeing briefs that said things like ‘20k Twitter followers in the first three months’ – like it was 2012 all over again.

And don’t get me wrong, I don’t deny the power of ‘the golden cohort’; for the first part of any new game’s early community development and buy-in. However, it’s hard to rationalise building your first and most important community on someone else’s platform while also giving away any hope of building a first party database.

Nuts! And yet it still exists.

Anyway, I tried to write about it ON LINKEDIN. I’d be interested to know if you find it useful.

Speaking of gaming…

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING

Well, there’s been a lot.

Everyone else has written about the Microsoft x Activision decision finally going through (at last!) so all I’ll do to add to that is perhaps direct you to the UK Government decision page to read more about it.

‘Microsoft concession a game-changer that will promote competition’

It’s interesting to note that Ubisoft put out an article on the same day, outlining its vision for the next 15 years of Activision’s streaming output. With Ubisoft+ being a new destination for Cloud Gaming (as well as potentially being licensed out to others). We live in interesting times.

There’s lot of opinion out there but it’s always good to read the source.

Go the extra click.

As an aside, I do wonder about the costs of AAA title development and the future of ‘the Netflix for games’ – I wonder about that a lot…

What else can I tell you?

Oh yes, the other big news happening in games right now is the sheer amount of lay-offs happening across the industry. Some are calling it a belated post-covid realignment. Others are calling it a wake up call for bad business management.

Either way it’s pretty bleak out there for many people in games. If you’re looking or if you know someone looking, direct them to Amir Satvat on Linkedin, he’s doing God’s work.

BRANDS IN FORTNITE & ROBLOX

Not really a regular section but enough changes to happen this month to warrant its own little breakout. This week: strange trains and automobiles.

First we’ve got SHELL’s abominable attempt at fossil fuel propaganda with its ‘Ultimate Road Trips’ Fortnite Island.

Nothing much else to be said aside from congratulations on demonstrating a true absence of any moral backbone to literally everyone that touched this. The agency that built it, the media that sold it, the platforms that advertised it and the influencers that pushed it.

This is so utterly gross it’s beyond reproach.

And it’s gone down about as well as you’d expect.

There’s a launch film here that gives you the overall gist of the thing but honestly, given the amount of effort that must’ve gone into this – what a lost opportunity.

I guess you can’t be done for greenwashing (again) if you’re not hiding your commitment to fossil fuels, right?

Meanwhile, on the right side of automotive category’s history, here’s BMW with its own foray into Fortnite: Hypnopolis – all about the launch of its brand new and fully electrified BMW iX2.

This BMW effort is interesting in that it makes an attempt to be actually something people might want to play. It isn’t AMAZING but it definitely isn’t terrible – it’s just a shame some comms person decided to spaff the words ‘Web 3’ all over the press release. If you need reminding: Fortnite is absolutely not Web 3.

I wrote more about the whole experience over on Linkedin – your thoughts and opinions are welcome (there or here).

And then we get to this absolutely mental National Rail’s Young Person’s Railcard thing in Roblox.

Part standard media buy, part in-world activation this Roblox piece is both a point of difference on brands that have activated on the platform before and a puzzle.

The point of difference is that National Rail opted out of building its own Roblox world (where literally no one would visit) and instead built a brand extension in a handful of pre-existing uber-popular Roblox worlds such as Apartment Tycoon. This is smart. Better to join someone else’s more popular party than start your own and try and get people to come (this is basic social strategy from the late noughties btw – truly groundbreaking).

The puzzle is just how effective it’ll be. Like, this is the global distribution of Roblox audiences worldwide as of December 2022, by age group (source):

I’m slightly of the opinion that everyone over 25 is a 9yr old lying about their age but still. Of that audience, how many of those are a) in the UK and b) playing Apartment Tycoon? Is the ad-buy region locked somehow? How do you know if the ad-buy was successful? I get that it’s a new way to speak to this audience and I applaud the different approach. I’d just love to know more about it as a while (did you work on it? Hit reply on this email – I’m fascinated).

Related: what do brands get out of video games?

…/-

All of this er… analysis (?) aside, what has been genuinely pleasing/fascinating – from a work perspective at least – is the uptick we’ve had at Diva in non-games-focused brands and agencies getting in touch for an expert opinion on how to make these things compelling.

‘Hi, we’re building something but don’t actually know how to make it attractive to players – can you help?’ – it’s as flattering as it is welcome.

So if that’s you as well, by all means get in touch. You can’t just build these things and hope they’ll work – they won’t.

QUICK GAMING NEWS BITES

• Gaming is a valid form of entertainment. Let’s treat it as such.

• Idris Elba says actors in games is a sign of the times. Expect more, basically.

• The FT on EA’s rebrand of FIFA to FC (regular readers will know I’ve been talking about successful this will be since it was announced – so it’s good to see the mainstream catching up).

• More updates on Netflix Games (gently gently catchy monkey).

• Stand back, fam. I think they’re onto us.

• FaZe Clan went from $1billion to almost worthless. I am Jack’s lack of surprise.

• Google is bringing back a key Stadia feature via YouTube. INTERESTING.

WHAT AM I PLAYING?

Right now, a lot. I played the hell out of Starfield when it first dropped, completed all/most of the side missions (easily some of the most compelling content in the game) but haven’t actually yet finished the main game.

I will go back to it at some point I’m sure but for now I am playing…

• FORZA MOTORSPORT
  This is sublime. You have to spare a thought for the talented team at Turn 10. Between Starfield coming out and the Activision purchase finally going through (plus, y’know – every other massive game coming out this month), Motorsport hasn’t had the oxygen it deserves. And that’s a shame because it’s a cast-iron banger.

• COCOON
  From the devs behind Limbo and Inside – Cocoon tells you nothing and lets you figure it all out with a single action button. It’s gorgeous too.

• ASSASSIN’S CREED ROGUE: REMASTERED
  No, that’s not a typo. I went to play the latest AC, MIRAGE, the other day but then got into a deep conversation with some pals about all the Assassin’s Creeds and realised I hadn’t ever played ROGUE – which is remiss of me given how much I proclaim to be such a fan of the series. So far it’s great – and I’ve missed the excellent ship sections. Nice to be back in that world. I will play MIRAGE at some point just not yet (everything I’ve heard and read says it’s classic AC and that’s what I want thanks).

• FORTNITE
  Don’t get me wrong, while I’ve been jumping in and out a lot looking at work-based stuff (see above), I recently took the brakes off my son playing this and we’ve been playing together – and I’m kind of loving it. The years of Destiny 2 PvP paying off with many a Victory Royale – gold in solo build ranked mode? I thank you).

• WALKABOUT GOLF
  Played this for the first time last night with my mate Dave. Him on Meta Quest 3 and me on my PS VR2. Full cross-play and it was brilliant. We’ll definitely be playing more. Can’t wait.

For what it’s worth, with the exception of Walkabout Golf, all of the above is available on Game Pass. I should also get back to Destiny 2 at some point. I still raid from time to time but I’ve fallen off the PvE main storyline completely.

TOO MANY OTHER GAMES DAMMIT.

And that’s even before we get to Alan Wake 2, Super Mario Wonder, Spider-Man 2… etc etc etc. Eesh.

What are you playing?

4. ZEALANDIA

The hidden eight continent is no longer lost.

I did not know this was a thing.

Turns out it is.

5. OK FINE, I KNOW SOME OF YOU LIVE FOR THIS PART OF THE NEWSLETTER: LET’S DO SOME ‘METAVERSE’ BITS

We’re quite deep on this issue on FTOF so I’ll TRY and keep this brief?

First thing first: Meta Quest 3 got officially properly announced and launched. I haven’t got one (yet) but it’s the first headset from Meta that has made me actually take notice properly. A few gamer pals have gone all in and are loving it (see Walkabout Golf VR link above).

Is it the metaverse? No! But then if you watched the keynote, everything from meta quest 3 through to snoop dog being an AI-driven dungeon master in your Messenger app is part of the metaverse, according to Zucko. So… y’know, if it used to be called ‘digital’ it’s now called ‘the metaverse’ – sorry, Zuck makes the rules (this was predicted at least 18mths ago btw — utterly mental).

Second thing: On a related note, the Lex Fridman/Zuckerberg interview is definitely something you’ve already seen.

Buuuut this shorter segment (and this link will jump to the bit you need) basically specifically says ‘this is not the metaverse’ – because this is a (don’t get me wrong a REALLY FANTASTIC) demonstration of new technology called ‘Kodak Avatars’ which involves full facial scanning and encoding before you put the Meta Quest Pro anywhere near your head.

Again, this was yelled as ‘The first interview in the metaverse’ – but it’s not in the metaverse, it is instead a striking example of what can be achieved when technology combines together to create a photo-realistic (kodak avatars – geddit) video call.

But like I said, according to Mark Zuckerberg – everything is the metaverse. AI chatbots. Kodak avatars (exclusive to Meta Quest Pro?). Walkabout VR. All of it.

CHIEF METAVERSE OFFICERS: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

The Drum did an amaaaaazing ‘Where are they now?’ look back at the much heralded ‘Chief Metaverse Officer’ leads of yesteryear – literally, 2022.

You’ll be STUNNED at the findings (you won’t be).

My main takeout from this article? If the so-called ‘Godmother of the Metaverse’ no longer has the word literally anywhere near their Linkedin, I’m guessing the hype is over.

BTW, it was free to read when I found it but that’s no longer the case – I think there’s a non-paywalled version available here.

—

And here’s an NFT section:

Longtime readers will know of my absolute lol-a-tron disdain for all things NFT. I think in May 2021 someone asked me what NFT stood for and I said:

No way am I ever letting any of my
Effing clients
Take part in this criminal waste of time/energy’

Turns out I was right?

• Monkey Laundering by Ed Zitron is great

• Buyers of Bored Ape NFTs are suing – lol

• Your NFTs are worthless

• Crypto games – savage

—

Back to the Metaverse for one final bonus section:

This ‘immersive experiences’ insights piece from GEEIQ is a good read and stat fodder too but unfortunately the accompanying commentary makes a classic mistake. Can you spot it?

‘Brands are now approaching platforms like Roblox, Fortnite or Decentraland as new, 3D communications verticals – a natural evolution of social media, which is itself a natural evolution of print, TV and radio.’

Did you spot it?

I’ll show you: Roblox has a DAU of 66.1m users. Fortnite around 30m. Decentraland (if you believe their numbers at least) has around 8,000 DAUs. That’s not a typo. And yes, that really is an idiot putting Decentraland in the same bracket as Roblox and Fortnite. Anyone that does this should not be allowed near a laptop let alone your marketing budget.

…

LASTLY: I spent a week alone in the metaverse is genuinely a great watch. Enjoy.

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.

ENJOY.

• Two men thought they had unearthed a stash of Roman gold coins (turns out they hadn’t).

• Extinction Rebellion organised a ‘die in’ at Havas London’s offices in protest at its Shell account win. I wonder how long it’ll be before clients start to die off too.

• A lot has been in your feeds about THE SPHERE. Two things for you. One read about how they did it – two, follow the Sphere on threads.

• The walled city of Kowloon

• Campaigns ‘talent to watch’ is out – a great place to hunt new talent for your agency. Off you go!

• GUTS by Olivia Rodrigo has not left my Spotify in a month. This is a good review.

• I personally enjoyed Ahsoka (YMMV) and thought it felt like PROPER STAR WARS in ways that ANDOR didn’t. ‘They can’t all be Andor‘ is a great thought piece on how both can and should co exist in the universe .

• Peep Show is 20yrs old. This is a great read.

• Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy – what have you done?

• The bailong elevator is the tallest outdoor lift in the world. I never knew.

• ‘I’m just Ken‘ – because I Ken never get Kenough of this bange.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

It’s nice to get this thing out and back inboxes once more. I hope it’s not too much of an intrusion -unlike WGSN who put this monstrosity in mine earlier this week – and I hope wherever you are reading this you are restful, breathing – and your jaw is unclenched… (go on, stretch it out).

Me and the Mrs managed to get away to see some friends in Milan last weekend (by all means yell if you want any reccos). It was exactly the break we needed AND I got to try out my 140-day streak Italiano I’ve been learning on Duolingo.

The weekend before that I spent three days in Birmingham catching up with my gamer pals some of whom I only ever see once a year (but chat to on mic at least once a week, if not on messenger daily).

And then last week I made sure to make time for my old OREO London crew too.

The point is: make time for your friends.
Fill their hearts and let them fill yours.

And skip everything else.

Until next time,

Whatley out x

Things of note for the week ending Friday August 11th, 2023

INTRO

What is UP Five things on Friday-ers?

…

Sorry. No.

That’s horrendous.

Let’s try again.

Hello friends, how have you been? 🙂

I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you but contrary to recent weather reports, yes indeed it is August (edit: this is no longer funny- the Sun literally came out TODAY).

We find ourselves in that time of year when FTOF gets a thousand bounce-backs from the US saying ‘I’m on leave for three days, I’ll reply to by the end of the day’ and from Europe ‘The office is closed for eight weeks, perhaps we’ll speak in September’.

Funsies.

For me, well, we took a holiday in May for us (Italy – was lovely) and then travel wise I’m catching the train to Germany in a couple of weeks for Gamescom – and after that? I think a few BBQs in the garden (see above) with friends and family.

Yes. A summer well spent.

It’s been a while since we last spoke and to quite honest I thought I might take a bit more time off from the newsletter this summer but it’s 21:13 on a Wednesday evening starting this draft to you and, well, as I often say – if the words are there, let them flow.

So let’s get into it; I’m going to open up the inbox of THINGS and see what falls out.

Two small pieces of admin before we proceed:

Admin 1:

Saturday August 12th (this weekend) is TOUGH MUDDER day. Me and 14 other Divas (pictured) are taking on 15k of 30 obstacles and so far we’ve raised over £3500 for War Child.

Thank you so much to all of you who have already donated. If you haven’t and still would like to, you can sponsor me £10, $10, €10 directly right here or you can sponsor (or choose someone from) the entire team via our group page here.

All donations are welcome and if you’re reading this on a Saturday around 1pm UK time, think about how much pain I’ll be in and SPONSOR – thanks x

Admin 2:

Tuesday August 22nd – Friday August 25th me and four other Divas will be attending GAMESCOM in Cologne/Köln, Germany (here’s what we’re doing differently this year). We have a packed schedule but strangely, no one seems to be biting on the breakfast meetings. I can’t think why.

If you’re attending and you fancy a coffee and a croissant on or near to the Ukie stand, do get in touch (you can hit reply to this email or send me a note to james dot whatley at diva dot agency) and we’ll get something sorted 🙂

Right then, that’s that sorted.

Shall we move onto the THINGS?

LET’S GOOOOOO.

1. WHY WOULD YOU FAKE A CASE STUDY FILM?

Let’s talk about Pringles.

Specifically, let’s talk about Grey’s award-winning Pringles NPC campaign.

‘Win a job as an NPC in Train Sim World 3’. Great stuff.

Here’s the case film. Please watch it.

EDIT: a few days after this post went live, GREY seemingly pulled every record of the ad from the internet (the YouTube link is now private and the Vimeo page, the same). I wonder if the two things are related? PS. You can still see the ad here.

A few weeks ago, after the madness of Cannes subsided, my lot at Diva – along with many others I’m sure – gathered in our cinema room over some pizza and beer to have a collective look at this year’s winners. The best of the best. The cream of the crop.

Our ambition? To watch, examine, and discuss those winning cases and see what we could learn from the ones that managed to bring home some coloured metal (here’s the full list of cases we got through that night).

The evening was great. Lots of chatter about purpose and percentages (one is a trend the other is obfuscation). But then we got to Pringles.

About 45s in to the film, the voiceover tells you ‘there was a recruitment campaign in games’ –

– and it shows you, along with some actual ads that did appear in Train Sim World 3, the above in-game billboard ad in a racing game.

There you are, racing along a dusty highway, with a HUGE Pringles QR code for people to pause and scan so they can apply for the job.

But this is completely fake.

The first clue was the fact that no one in the room recognised the racing game in question. And the thing is, at Diva, we pride ourselves on being ‘gaming native’ – which means we are in games and we are of games.

Everyone in the office has played, seen, or heard of an unbelievable breadth and depth of releases and we thought one of us would recognise it. Especially as it seemed like a AAA racer that offered this level of brand integration.

So when we dug deeper (and fair play to our motion lead, Ben – hi Ben! – for spotting this), the same ‘game’ turned up in a Panasonic ad.

Same car. Same road. Same game? Well, as it turns out – yes. It is the same game. You know how I know? Because this week I learned you can actually buy fake video game footage on Shutterstock.

For real!

As a reminder, here’s the image from Grey’s case film:

Aaaaaand here’s the video clip on Shutterstock.

Fake video game mate? Overlaid with your client brand assets? For a case film to hoodwink judges you say? Easy. To you mate, £59. Lovely jubbly.

Let’s get one thing super clear:

I DO NOT KNOW WHY YOU WOULD DO THIS.

Some of you might be sitting back and thinking ‘Oh whoop-di-do, ad agency fakes case film – tell me another one’ – well, I’m not that much of a cynic I’m afraid (quiet at the back).

I’ve judged awards and I’ve chaired judging for awards. This year I’ve judged the 2023 WPI Impact awards, and last month I finished up my judging for the Lovies as well.

My point is: Judges really take this stuff bloody seriously.

We all work hard enough as it is and putting in the effort to ensure the best work gets awarded on merit is fundamental to improving the overall output of the industry.

Faking stuff like this is proper bottom tier. It makes a mockery of the people that worked on it, it makes a mockery of the (excellent!) campaign, and it makes a mockery of the judges that awarded this work on the basis of this case study film.

Grey might have a perfectly good reason for doing this. But what I don’t understand is this: the case study is good enough. The activation itself wasn’t just good enough, it was actually super fun – and got a ton of coverage.

Why put a fake asset into a case film and risk getting disqualified for falsifying an award entry?

I just don’t get it.

Disclosure: I used to work on Pringles, years ago – and they are super hot on their gaming knowledge and genuinely have an interest in the category. I doubt very much this got signed off client-side. Eesh.

2. THE TRUTH ABOUT GOING BACK

One of my favourite writers, Justin Myers – aka The Guyliner – writes a Substack called .

A week or so ago, this beauty dropped into my inbox:

“It’s the curse of the bored and the unfulfilled to imagine that their lost loves hold the key to happiness. Exes perhaps hold an allure they lacked entirely when the relationship was current. It’s a similar feeling when you visit again a city you once loved and called home. Like exes, we sometimes expect the places we’ve loved to remain frozen in time during our absence. But they have moved on without you, the timbre of their laughter has changed, they glow from the inside. Being a tourist in a city you could once navigate blindfolded is somehow worse than being lost somewhere completely new.”

It’s a gorgeous read. Do find the time.

And for what it’s worth, it reminded me of my home town, Canvey Island.

So different now to how it was then.

I remember going home one Christmas and seeing Nigel Farage’s face on the side of a bus – I knew then there was no going back. I never felt like I truly belonged there if I’m completely honest.

But I did grow up there – and that much, no matter how ugly or changed it might be since – I’ll always be nostalgic for.

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING

Sup Gamers! (this actually works here). We’ve already had quite a gamer-y opener this week so I’ll try and keep this brief? Maybe?

This week in game news.

1. Roblox’s numbers hit I guess it is an unstoppable machine now?

The numbers [PDF] in question:

• Revenue: Up 15% to $681 million

• Bookings: Up 22% to $781 million

• Net losses: $285 million, compared to $179 million in the same quarter last year

And if you think that’s nuts, check out this quote in the shareholder letter:

“Given the geographic and age diversity of our user base, along with investments in our product, we are confident that we are building a platform that could, over time, grow to support one billion DAUs,”

One billion DAUs – 50% of Facebook – on Roblox. There’s a power shift coming y’all (it’s already here) and with these kinds of numbers? Legislation will soon follow.

I guarantee it.

2. Roblox x Meta Quest

While we’re on Roblox, I mentioned a couple of editions ago that Roblox was coming to Meta Quest headsets in beta. Well, it arrived – and downloads shot over a million pretty quickly. Whether those downloads convert to regular users is another thing (my money is yes but we’ll see).

3. Ralph Lauren did a thing in Fortnite.

I liked this because it takes a different approach. As in, instead of just building another branded world to explore, RL actually made a game – a racing game at that – that people can play.

Of course you can buy the boots on show (limited IRL, unlimited in the Item Shop – with about a $235 difference between them).

What this does for the business I have no idea. But hey, Vogue Business got to put the vomit-inducing portmanteau ‘phygital’ in a headline, so y’know, there’s that.

Like Nike/Airphoria before it, I’ve taken a bunch of screenshots and dumped them in a free to use folder, feel free to cut and paste into your decks – credit ‘@whatleydude’ x

—

Quick links / news bites:

• Animal Crossing Lego you say? GOODNESS.

• Someone found this amazing Tron arcade machine ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.

• Feminist Frequency is shutting down. This was/still is important work. We’re losing a powerful voice with its demise. Rubbish.

• We lose one amazing female voice in gaming but we gain another, AOC being interviewed for the Washington Post about Twitch and the politics of gaming is great (also, Yay Gene).

• The best video games to help you/your kids survive the summer holidays.

• Meta is finally admitting its metaverse ambitions are probably best served via gaming (if only someone had said something).

• In laugh out loud hilarious news, Decentraland is now so dead that it is looking into using ‘AI’ to help make the worthless wonderland ‘feel more alive’ – truly, unwritable satire.

• Armored Core VI is out soon. Of course we did a bus wrap.

• A wonderful read from Adrian Hon about why the end of the Star Wars hotel doesn’t mean its the end of immersive gaming experiences.

• Most publishers announce their delays with text-heavy images in social media posts. But Devolver is not most publishers. Check this out. It’s outrageous.

• After losing Lance Reddick earlier this year, the future of Commander Zavala in Destiny 2 was left hanging in the balance. Yesterday, Bungie announced that the character would carry on – and the new voice actor is a perfect choice.

What is James playing this week?

I finally got around to booting up JEDI: SURVIVOR and I am really really loving it. Look at it!

Action packed, great in-canon story and most brilliantly of all – it doesn’t do that thing that most sequel games do which is ‘welcome to the sequel, we’re taking away all your weapons so you start over’ – which is a huge breath of fresh air. If you enjoyed Jedi: Fallen Order you will enjoy Jedi: Survivor. Give it a shot.

While I’m at it, may I also recommend to you the utterly perfect train game, TREN (gym bunnies will find this funny, I have discovered).

It’s SO gorgeous and SO PERFECT I really can’t recommend it enough.

Tren is available in DREAMS, and DREAMS is available for free on PlayStation Plus this month.

You can read an interview with the game’s creative director right here.

What are you playing?

4. THING 4

Quite.

via Gary Whitta, on Threads.

5. IS THE OPPOSITE OF YOUR CHOICE STUPID ON ITS FACE?

I love this question.

So I found this article a few weeks ago while researching a Strategy is Sacrifice talk I was giving for a client.

And I just keep coming back to it.

As Roger Martin so eloquently states:

“We have all seen countless strategic plans asserting that the organization’s strategy is to be ‘customer-centric’ or to be ‘operationally effective’ or to ‘invest in its talent.’ But these don’t meet my test for strategic choices — even though they may actually be the most frequently proffered choices in the world of strategic plans. My test for whether a stated choice is actually a strategic choice is whether or not the opposite of the choice is stupid on its face.”

We’ve been doing a fair bit of brand work of late at Diva towers (more on this another time) and really digging into the specifics of what strategic choices are and what actual real words mean when you get into them is fundamental to getting things right.

‘We want to be authentic.’ – oh, so the opposite would be to inauthentic right? Roger would call that ‘stupid on its face’ – it’s not a choice if there’s only one choice.

Distinctive choices matter.

Read it. Learn from it. Apply it.

WELCOME TO THE BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.

ENJOY.

• ‘The five meetings every CEO should lead’ – I liked this. I like rhythms in the workplace generally. Planning for deep work becomes easier when you know the rhythm of the week – and the work. But the linked meeting cadence feels good, CEO or otherwise.

• Swiftogeddon sounds wholesome af (and reminds me of Hot Dub Time Machine – ever been to that?) – related: I miss Planet Angel.

• I’ve been enjoying ‘Poolside Chillin’ on Spotify. You might too.

• Japanese euphemisms for periods are completely fine and normal and… oh wait.

• ‘Brand imitation is flattery’ smart cookie Ella Munn talking up the trend of brands playing into and making a virtue of their myriad copycats. Well researched, well written, and well worth a read.

• ‘I burned out at McKinsey’. Ugh.

• Secret Invasion director ‘won’t read bad reviews’ – I mean, good? It might take a while. Did you watch it?

• Won a Clio. Can’t remember if I mentioned.

• If you missed Mark Ritson on ‘Defending Differentiation’, you can catch it here.

• ‘I’m pretty sure I broke Linkedin’ is a fun read.

• Meta is just outright refusing to use the ‘m’ word now, it’s amazing. 12mths ago, they would’ve spaffed ‘metaverse’ all over this BMW/AR/VR announcement – but a cmd+f tells you its nowhere to be seen. Can’t think why.

• Disney’s metaverse head has left the house of mouse.

• Another proper hands on with Vision Pro.

• Carousel videos on Threads are a yet to be fully realised creative canvas. Pete Halvorsen shows the way. Again. Again.

• I didn’t know Suki Thompson, I think maybe we met a few times in the early years but not recently. This moving tribute makes me wish that was different.

BONUS BONUS SECTION FOR ALL THE TWITTER/X BS I’M TRYING TO IGNORE

Basically a place I can dump all the interesting/better links and articles I’ve read about the whole Twitter/X debacle. You can skip this section if you want, I don’t mind. It won’t be back.

Reminder: I am no longer on Twitter. It is now quite literally no longer what I signed up for. The news about it burning hard to the ground is hard to avoid (seriously, if you’re a journalist reading this – why are you falling for it every time?), so here’s everything related to that.

• ‘Twitter/X is no longer the place to start news careers’ – this Bloomberg article from a young up and coming Gen Z journalist about how Twitter is for the oldies is frankly wonderful. You should read it.

• Yaccarino did an interview. Lol, what?

• Related: Australia’s national broadcaster is closing almost all accounts there.

• Related related: an Australian parliamentary hearing dragged the company for reinstating accounts that shared images of child abuse. (Seriously, why the hell are you still using it?)

• Esther Crawford (the sleeping bag woman from Twitter) did a video and Twitter thread about her experiences working there. Featuring some of the most quietly savage burns I’ve ever witnessed – it’s actually worth signing in for.

• While looking for something else, I found this excellent (I am a Dad) Knock Knock joke.

• On Bluesky? Use this Chrome plug in to find your old Twitter pals. It’s a bit on the manual side but it works well enough.

• The bird is dead. Here’s how it was born.

• Is social media dead? from the brand new to Substack,

• hitting us with ‘A better internet for readers’ stirs memories of Google Reader. I wonder…

• The Drum asked some people if brands should drop Twitter/X as a customer service channel now that it’s been rebranded. 1. It’s not the rebrand, stupid. 2. Brands stopped using it as a serious CS channel years ago. It’s a redirect, at best.

• ‘Preparing my X-it’ by John Scalzi captured a lot of how I’m feeling.

• Andy Piper with ‘Goodbye to my life on Twitter’ equally so.

As stated – this section will not return. Avoid it while it lasts x

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

Last weekend we saw Barbie (Cried. Twice.) and TMNT: Mutant Mayhem (standing on the shoulders of Spider-Verse). Not quite Barbenheimer but still, all family members were happy. Both are excellent and well worth seeing.

On the TV we’re working our way through S3 of both The Witcher and Succession (behind on both), then ideally Foundation S2 and The Bear.

What are you enjoying at the moment?

As I sign this week’s edition off to you, it’s 20:55 on Thursday night. I’m downstairs in the living room. The mrs is at dinner with friends, the kids are in bed sound asleep and the lithest urban fox I ever did see just sauntered past the window.

I’m off to Bristol in the morning. Working from the Diva offices for the day before Tough Mudder (sponsor me, please). So I’m going to schedule this for mid morning UK time tomorrow – 10ish, shall we say?

Yeah, sounds about right.

Wish us luck for Saturday.

Until next time,

Whatley out x

Things of note for the week ending Friday July 21st, 2023

INTRO

It’s Thursday as I start this newsletter. 21:45. Kids break up from school tomorrow and I’ve got a few days off to hang – and we have no plans.

There is no way this newsletter is going out tonight.

Reviewing the links this evening I mean, they’re good (they’re ALWAYS good, right?) but there’s a particular lengthy noodle I’m still tugging on that I don’t think is ready yet. I might change my mind. We’ll see.

Sorry. Rambling.

Actually, no (it’s now Friday. I’ve slept and) I’ve changed my mind. Let’s do this now.

Here’s the thing:

I keep coming back to the same question:

‘What do we want from social media?’

I’ve asked it a few times here and I’ve asked it across multiple platforms since. I’m still sorting through – and looking for more – answers.

You can reply on:

• Bluesky

• Facebook

• Twitter (you can still reply there, I will see it)

• Threads

• Mastodon

• and on Substack Notes.

If you read FTOF via email then hit reply and tell me your answer. If you read this in the Substack app, then leave a comment.

The point is: I’m still looking for answers. Gia Milinovich comes close to one of the best answers I’ve read in a while (see Thing 5) but I’m about 500 or so words into another noodle that I might finish this weekend – with your input please – that I’ll post or publish here when it’s done.

Your input is wanted. Your input is welcome.

What else can I tell you?

Yes. That’s right – you can still find me on Threads. It’s my main platform of choice – Linkedin is for work stuff, Bluesky is intermittent for now and so I’m going all in on being a Thread-head.

Twitter is [still] done for me. The owner is an edge-lord. He uses money from your advertising to pay accused sex traffickers to continue using the site. So I’m out.

And when it comes to the game of which billionaire I like the least, Threads is where I’d prefer to be.

Shall we check back in three months?

I’ll see you when you get there.

PS. Threads Pro Tip of the week?

If you’re looking for people to follow, head to the search function and scroll aaaaaall the way down. The recommendations get better the further you go. Try it!

—

Right, where were we? Ah yes, THE THINGS!

1. LET’S START WITH SOME GORGEOUS ADS FROM MAYNARDS

Look at these!

The simplicity!

The anticipation!

The implied ‘these are for kids but we’re using old toys because they’re for big kids too – probably/mainly’ use of the little figurines!

I think they’re gorgeous.

Well done Maynard’s and VCCP.

Bonus points for breathing life into an old tagline too.

2. DO NOT EVER MISS YOUR CHILDREN’S SPORTS DAY FOR A PITCH

I mean I can’t believe I’m saying this but just don’t do this.

Are we really doing this?

Looks like we are!

Come with me on a journey of imagination.

Imagine you sit in a company that helps brands choose their advertising agency.

Imagine you have an ability to speak to brands and help them understand what it means for these advertising agencies to pitch in the ways that they do.

Imagine that because of this position you hold, your main selling point is that there should no concerns from any agencies of being mistreated or dealt with unfairly.

You know adland likes to pull out all the stops for the big pitches. But you’ve also heard the stories about burnout. You’ve read about the recent high turnover of junior staff. And you’ve probably seen some stuff about ‘the cost of living crisis’ too.

Agency wellbeing should be important to you.

Now imagine you’re being asked for a comment about the toll pitching can take on an ad agency (and let’s be clear: when we say ‘an ad agency’ – we aren’t talking about the business, we’re talking about actual people. Real people with real lives).

Imagine this is your moment to talk about how brands can help agencies. With healthy timelines, reasonable asks, and even pitch fees.

What do you think you might say?

Well, when Campaign Magazine asked the question, the AAR Group thought it might be a good idea to say this:

“Pitch fees were never intended to cover an agency’s cost of pitching – the time, materials and resource costs,” Phillips says. “What pitch fees are, and how we describe them at the AAR, is ‘beer and pizza money’. 

“It’s a thank you to the agency team for having to miss their children’s school sports day, a thank you for coming back from holiday a day early to attend the final pitch presentation, it’s a thank you for staying late and working weekends.”

Right.

Before we get into it, let’s talk about some realities.

I have worked late hours and weekends on pitches. If you’re reading this and you work in advertising then you almost certainly have done the same too.

Doing extra hours or days from the office (I even took my kids with me once – I have a superb photo couplet of the Ogilvy great and good gathered in a boardroom at Sea Containers discussing some finer pitch details and behind us is my son, dressed like a pirate, who I couldn’t get childcare for when I needed it – we made a day of it), working from home, or even in hotel rooms overseas (running a London pitch while you’re in Sydney has its benefits) – you name it.

If the time was needed, we were there.

The working late bit is part of the job. Good agencies offer time off in lieu (aka TOIL) for that time spent. Others might just take the team out for a massive post-pitch lunch/dinner/piss-up to celebrate a job well done (win or lose). The best ones do both.

The nature of the job – or at least the jobs I’ve had – mean that the best work is done when the whole team can be brought together and left alone from other work to get on with the job in hand. On rare occasions, that happens during normal working hours.

The point is:

Is it right? Probably not.
Can it be done better? Absolutely.
Are agencies trying to fix it? In most cases, I would like to think so.

I have never had to cancel holiday a day early (although McCann once did that to a mate – ‘thanks pricks!’) and I have never missed sports day for a pitch. The agencies I’ve worked at haven’t asked that of me – and wouldn’t expect it either.

And even if I did, to think for one second that I personally would see any of that ‘pitch fee’ as a way of a thank you is so obscenely detached from any version of the truth of what working in advertising looks like, I am stunned the AAR haven’t rushed out a statement to correct the record.

It’s a thank you to the agency team for having to miss their children’s school sports day.

A THANK YOU! Horrendous.

Honestly it makes me want to throw up.

If you’re recommending agencies that do this, you’re doing it wrong.
If you’re normalising this for brands, you’re doing it wrong.
If you think it’s an OK thing to put in the ad industry’s trade magazine then my goodness, you are doing it wrong.

You only need to look at the replies and quote tweets of the first tweet to clock this statement to see the whiplash from the industry.

Outrageous.
Outdated.
Out of touch.

A good time as any to re-read Linds Redding’s ‘A short lesson in perspective’.

My only question now is this: why would an agency trust the AAR now?

Update: it turns out the AAR did respond (but only to one of the more popular Linkedin posts about this). You can make of that (and the subsequent replies) what you will. Funny how it’s only been liked by people from the AAR.

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING

This week’s section starting with the author’s realisation that Street Fighter II Special Champion Edition (Mega Drive / Genesis edition) is now available on on Switch. Yes!

What is up, gamers.

Got a fair bit to cover off this week.

First up!

August 22nd through August 25th, a small number of us from Diva (myself included) will be in Köln, Germany for Europe’s largest games event, Gamescom.

Are you going? Want to grab coffee and a chat? Let me knoooooooow.

NEXT.

There’s a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie coming out…

(side: anyone remember the TMNT being called the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in the UK? They thought if UK kids heard of turtles being ninjas, they might actually start high-kicking each other and throwing ninja stars at school – absolutely mental)

…TMNT: Mutant Mayhem.

And while the film looks amazing (watch the trailer!) the Roblox ‘immersive trailer’ experience is… er… a novel way of watching a trailer I guess?

I mean, there’s some behind the scenes stuff and actor interviews in there and it says there’s more to come too (‘battle tycoon’ mode launches next month) but currently this doesn’t make much that much sense to me.

Don’t get me wrong, building it in Roblox means you automatically get more daily uniques than say Decentraland or Sandbox get in a month (combined).

But still. This feels lazy. I like it but I don’t love it – and I hope the game bit (launching August 2nd) is good. Or else it’s a wasted opp.

Check out the TMNT ‘immersive trailer experience’ on Roblox.

Game News Bites

• Ukie has published updated ‘guiding principles’ on lootboxes. Don’t know how I feel about this. I have a strong bias towards lootboxes being gambling. Are principles useful if they’re unenforceable? Don’t know don’t know. What I do know is that a lot of work into this and a bunch of well-meaning games people want to get this right so government doesn’t have to legislate but still. I gotta ask: why are we protecting lootboxes?
  Note: at the time of publishing Ukie’s website seems to be down. Hopefully up again by the time you read this.

• Related: funny how this scaremongering headline dropped around the same time huh? The numbers (when you did into them) are tiny. See here.

• I’ve been talking about Netflix in games for a while now (if you didn’t know, your Netflix mobile app has a games section – go look) and Netflix has quietly been building the offering (both licensing titles and buying up indie studios) while it holds fire on any kind of marketing efforts. I enjoyed this primer from The Ringer on the status of this project. You might too. Plus, there are some proper bangers on Netflix Games.

• Almost 90 percent of classic games are ‘critically endangered,’ say archivists – so how do you save them?

• Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 got a story trailer at SDCC last night (can’t do film panels if there are no actors eh) and it looks great. I also really liked the reveal trailer for the special edition hardware. Nice job.

What am I playing?

Well, it’s been quite a mental week at work. A Bristol trip by way of Leamington Spa, an RFI delivery and a day off thrown in for good measure (that’s today – hi), the only time I’ve had to game has been on FFXVI.

Having not played an FF since the GameCube, I don’t have much of an idea of what to expect so when I told a pal about a particularly epic battle (escalation after escalation after escalation) they were like ‘Yeah, that’s FF’ – the story is ace and if you’re playing it, I’ve just got to the bit that says ‘Press L3 and R3 to accept the truth’

IYKYK.

What are you playing?

4. GOODBYE META QUEST PRO, WE HARDLY KNEW YE

The Meta Quest Pro.

Announced in …checks notes… October 2022 and seen on TV screens as recently as April this year –

– seems like it might not be long for this world.

I wrote about the launch of this thing back in FTOF #339. At the time I said something like:

Let’s take a moment and pour one out for the agency reps at FB/Meta who have undoubtedly already been tasked with trying to sell this thing to literally any mug brand that will listen.

It’s not their fault, they have bills to pay, and virtual mouths to feed. Maybe ask them to blink twice if they need help? Which they’ll be able to do with the shiny new headset!

Keep an eye on the trades now as well. Who will stare back and do nothing and who will be first to wade into the dead-eyed swamp of the brands-in-the-metaverse bandwagon?

And hey. Here we are and ZDNet is reporting Meta’s flagship headset (along with plans for any second generation version) is dead.

Now this is not to say Meta is out of the headset market. Not by any stretch. The Quest 2 is also reportedly being discontinued. It just means that all bets are on the Quest 3 (and everything that comes thereafter).

Just do one thing really well, right?

We’ll see.

5. FAME AS PSYCHOLOGICAL MUKBANG

What is fame?

I’m paraphrasing a bit but I’m sure I heard someone – a celeb I think – say something like this recently:

‘Fame is a tasty poison. You can take a swig and swirl it around in your mouth but be sure to spit it out and move on. If you swallow it, it’s game over.’

One of my favourite writers and thinkers, and author of the substack, has been exploring the topic (for a good while but has revisited it again) and arrives at a grotesque if not worrying conclusion (see also: why I gave up Instagram – I didn’t like the reflection it made me seek).

From Hollywood to Twitter and every follower and fan-based platform inbetween, Gia’s writing is on point.

Reflective of our online culture of sycophancy or incendiary rage, ‘FAME’ is provocative af and my recommendation of the week.

Be sure to spit on your way out.

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.

ENJOY.

• The excellent this week is worth your time. The latest edition’s theme is psychological safety and features some corkers. The Roblox story is particularly awful.

• I’m going to go right ahead and recommend another substack, this time it’s . Their latest edition is about Regrets. Hearing the audio excerpts to go along with these insights really bring it home. Go read/listen.

• I nearly managed to get to the end of the newsletter without mentioning Barbie but stay with me, this isn’t about the marketing! It’s about the music. I really liked this culture piece from the Beeb about how the Barbie soundtrack was put together. You might too.

• ‘Threads is filled with dark patterns’ – no, it isn’t.

• ‘I tried to buy a post on TechCrunch.com’ – this is great.

• The Ghost Barge of Ironbridge.

• The pinnacle of Batman animation: the Mask of the Phantasm is getting a 4k rerelease. Relevant to some you, definitely.

• Kids built Croydon in Minecraft. Amaze.

• Advertisers want ads on Threads. Threads users want features. FIGHT!

• 20 years of podcasts – here are some of the best (any list that starts with ‘The Worst Idea of All Time’ – one of my personal faves – has to get a mention).

• Any excuse to spend more time with the brilliant Ms Marvel.

• Tracy Chapman and ‘complicated conversations’ in Nashville (they mean racist).

• What if the next big social media app is… nothing?

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

The OREO x Xbox campaign keeps winning. It picked up a bunch of awards at the New York Festivals awards this week – including its first Grand Prix of the year.

Massive.

I’m going to sign off and hit send on this thing. It’s 13:50 on Friday July 21st 2023 and Five things on Friday is going out on time.

I should take Fridays off more often.

Have a great weekend gang,

Whatley out x

Things of note for the week ending Friday July 14th, 2023.

INTRO

Hello and welcome to Five things on Friday.

‘A regular kaleidoscope of clever ideas and great links. An obvious labour of love. Highly recommended.’

Cheers for that, Darragh. I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s said about this thing in ages. And I properly love ‘An obvious labour of love’.

Might update the description.

How are you?

Good week?

I took a few days off at the start of the week to celebrate the Mrs’ birthday. Went down to Southampton and stayed at the Harbour Hotel. It’s blimmin’ lovely down there. Decent food, lovely staff, and overall just a decent mini break (sans kids, obvs). Then we came back and attempted five days work in two which… well… never works out well for anyone. I am tired.

What else can I tell you?

As I write this to you now, it’s 21:14 on Friday July 14th. The Things have been collated quite quickly this week. Mainly from Threads, which is a good sign but more on that in a bit. But I haven’t been able to find the time to write them up until now.

Shall we get on with it then?

LET’S.

1. ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER NEWSLETTER KICKING OFF WITH MORE UPDATES ABOUT THREADS

A week or so later, how we all feeling?

Let’s start with a breath freshener from Charlie Warzel over at The Atlantic:

Cool. Still feeling good?

OK! Let’s crack on.

As loathe as I am to admit it, my words from last week still ring true: in the game of ‘which billionaire’s platform I dislike the least’, I’m definitely landing more on the one where literal nazis don’t get to buy their way to the top your newsfeed (and then get paid for the pleasure).

But hey, that’s just me.

And while I’ve never made a secret of my distaste of Zuck’s big blue misery machine, with Threads I am actually having fun again.

It might be the fact that it’s pretty much stopped me using Twitter*.
It might be the fact that the friend/socialgraph actually works.
It MIGHT be the fact that it feels like a decent community (again).

Will it last forever?

Almost certainly not.

They’ll mess with the algorithm, stick Stories or Reels across the top and then, when the users hit critical mass, pump it full of ads – I’m sure.

All before the end of the next FY.

(side: if this FY for Meta is all about ‘Operational Efficiencies’, you can bet your hen’s teeth that next FY will be about maximising new ad revenue opportunities).

Until then though? Let’s have fun.

With that in mind, here are some…

THREADS PRO TIPS.

You want to make panoramic photos like a pro?

Here are three ways to do that.

#1. On iOS?
You want to download the SERIES PHOTO APP, as demonstrated below by the generously creative (and major Threads inspo driver) Pete Halvorsen (give him a follow, tell him I said hi).

#2 On Android?
I can recommend an app called PhotoSplit that does the same as the above (but currently limited to three windows – I have paid for the Pro version and sent a feature request to the devs). That’s what most of mine are made in.

#3 On desktop?
Get yourself into Google slides, hit File > Page Setup > Custom > 4:5 and then make yourself some snappy panoramic stuff.

Like this.

Or like Rob. Or like Joe. Or Izzy (OK, maybe you can’t do it like Izzy in Google Slides but still – isn’t it great?!)

The only other thing I would add to my bumper book of Threads Pro Tips™️ is that you get in what you get out. So if you’re still on Twitter, use this search string to help find people you might like. Follow people. Interact. Mute crap brands/influencers… And why not use this as an opportunity to clean house and start over. That’s what I’m doing. Maybe I’ll see you there?

—

Oh and PS. Our studio team is already cooking up some fun client-based Threads stuff (coming soon) but if you’re looking for some creative fun on how to make your trailers, key art, or game announcements sing, come talk to Diva.

*At the time of writing, this was mostly true. Then Twitter announced it was paying a whole bunch of Far Right hate mongers for being monstrous hate machines and now that has confirmed it: I won’t be back on Twitter.

2. PACK YER BAGS

Welcome to the UK, where a ‘Let’s speak to young people about taking teabags on their summer holiday to Ibiza’ is a completely normal brief.

Yes, let’s how much we love tea.

And Yorkshire Tea (EDIT: and its agency, Lucky Generals – well done gang) have absolutely smash it out of the park.

You gotta watch this.

I love love love it.

Great job.

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING

Gameboy mailboxes. Amazing.

I found the above photo on Threads. Well, a version of it (without the watermark). A bit of googling and I found the source. Isn’t it lovely? I want one.

OK, where were we?

Ah yes.

Here we are.

In arguably the biggest news announcement to happen to the Quest VR platform since it launched, Roblox is arriving in beta on Meta Quest ‘in the coming weeks’.

For the those of you that don’t know, Roblox has around 66m daily active users (DAUs) – that’s 66 million uniques signing into their Roblox account EVERY DAY.

Meanwhile, Meta can barely get its own staff to login to Horizon Worlds – like, at all – let alone drive stickiness with its install base. The last DAU reported, back in October, was 200,000 and I would wager even that has dwindled since then (I mean, it’s gotta be a sick burn when the users for an app and hardware you’ve poured tens of billions of dollars into gets overtaken by a Twitter clone in like an hour).

So this is a huge deal.

Meta Quest has needed a killer app for its VR hardware ‘solution’ forever. And with Roblox – being played by tens millions of young people every day (albeit 70% of them accessing via mobile) – and Quests in living rooms and drawers gathering dust for months – then this hugely popular platform might be the unlock they’ve been looking for.

You can read the announcement on Meta’s newsroom pages however I would draw you attention to this section:

“Roblox on Quest will be available for people ages 13 and up. And parents can use existing Meta Quest parental supervision tools to help create a level of safety and supervision that’s right for their family.”

This announcement is dated July 12th. Less than a month before, Meta was also announcing another new ‘feature’ for its platform, ‘Parent managed families’”

“Today we’re announcing changes to give families even more ways to use and enjoy Meta Quest. Starting later this year, parents will be able to set up parent-managed Meta accounts for Meta Quest 2 and 3 for their children ages 10 – 12.”

So Roblox is coming out for Meta Quest.
You have to be 13 to play it but we’ll let the parents decide.
BY THE WAY, YOU CAN SIGN THEM UP WHEN THEY’RE TEN NOW!

Also note: ‘people’ vs ‘children’.

Really.

There’s a teeny tiny whiff of ‘Well, we did tell the parents that they had to be 13, it’s not really up to us how they monitor their kids’ behaviour once they’ve signed up them up after they turn 10. We gave them the tools senator…’

You tell me.

Entirely unrelated: ‘Mark Zuckerberg hides his kids’ faces on social media, and tech experts say you should do the same’

Given all of the above, and the glacial speed at which any kind of regulation moves through the US/EU: IF the Roblox beta goes well and kids people come running in their droves I wonder how long Horizon Worlds will survive…

OH YEAH, I did think of one good thing about this news.

At least when Roblox rolls out on Quest then this call to action FROM SEPTEMBER LAST YEAR (as covered in FTOF #337) for Walmart’s godawful Roblox world will actually make sense now 😂

‘Grab your headsets’, honestly.

I would’ve linked to the Tweet but for some reason Walmart has deleted it.

Muppets.

—

Quick Gaming News

• PepsiCo announced a multiyear partnership with EA, anchored around the incoming EA Sports FC (aka ‘FC’, aka ‘FC24’ aka ‘Not-FIFA’). You know the grown ups are in the room when this kind of stuff is announced. Talk about learning from your competitor’s mistakes.

• In a landmark case in the US, the makers of Destiny 2 (and soon, Marathon), Bungie, has managed to successfully hold a sociopathic troll liable for damages against Bungie and its staff. The culprit – one Jesse James Comer – is liable for nearly $500k worth of costs. This. Is. Amazing. Not only setting a new precedent for studios defending themselves against idiotic gAmEr but also HUGE KUDOS to Bungie for coming out to bat so hard for its team. I follow a bunch of Bungo folk across various social media and if you’re reading this @LegalMinimum, I salute you man. 🫡 Here’s IGN with the full story.

• Remember the amazing 100ft tall Lilith / Diablo IV graffiti project? This is how we did it.

• Gameplay trailers should include gameplay, right?

• New Hellboy (the game) trailer! RIP Lance x

• ARE YOU GOING TO GAMESCOM? Let me know. Reply to this, send me a Linkedin message, email me or whatsapp or whatever. I will be there. Coffee?

What is James playing this week?

I finished the Diablo IV campaign AT LAST (and what a story – I swear to God, that game has some of the best – if not the best – cut scenes I have ever seen in a game, ever (you can watch a supercut here spoiler alert etc – if you’re never going to play the game, watch this – if you’re on the fence about the game, just watch the first one) so that was fun to do. And the voice acting really is superb – special shout to Ralph Ineson. Anyway, go play it.

With Diablo out of the way, it was time to crack on with FFXVI but before I did that, a brief interaction on Threads on Wednesday reminded me that I’d downloaded Planet of Lana on Game Pass and hadn’t given it a go.

And wow. What a gorgeous game it is.

Take a dose of Limbo, add a healthy amount of gorgeous colours and paintwork (look at those trees – look at them!), toss in a phenomenally cute animal friend (it’s basically a cat called ‘mui’ but my youngest insisted on calling it ‘grey rabbit’) and you’ve got the best Diablo IV palate cleaner you could ever ask for.

I finished it in a day – and I’m so pleased I spent time with it.

PLAY PLANET OF LANA.

x

Next up: Final Fantasy XVI. Then Jedi: Survivor.

What are you playing?

4. IT’S JULY AND WE HAVEN’T TALKED ABOUT THE ORCAS YET

I mean, can you believe it took this long?

Yes, Killer Whales are attacking yachts in the med.

Yes, it is hilarious.

Yes, this article ‘The orca uprising: whales are ramming boats – but are they inspired by revenge, grief or memory?’ has got some banging paragraphs.

Such as:

“They’re very interested in us,” [says Philip Hoare, the author of Leviathan and Albert and the Whale,]. “Every whale I’ve met, and I’ve met thousands, they’re all interested in us. Because they know there’s nothing out there in their ocean – other than other whales – that is like us. We’re talking about all this now; there’s an equivalent conversation going on in orca society. Orca are podcasting. Literally podcasting. I’ll copyright that joke!” He sends me a 10-second recording of sound captured during his own interaction with the orca pod in Sri Lanka – a complex soundscape of clicks, rasps and squeaks that gives me goosebumps. “If you could only translate that, everything that has been written about this would be rendered defunct. We’ll all be proved wrong.”

Lovely. I implore you to read the whole thing.

5. LET THE MUSIC PLAY

OREO announced a new partnership with Mario and (it was nothing to do with me and whisper it the Xbox partnership was better – shh but) the announcement film is great!

What’s really great about it is that System1 group tested it and gave it a the prestigious title of ‘the best ad we’ve reviewed this year’. Gotta use those distinctive brand assets, y’all – and this is a lesson in how to do that well.

Can you imagine though, seeing the western internet go nuts for this partnership just as you are literally days away from dropping this amazingly similar piece for Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning?

Absolutely Brutal.

BUUUUT did you know the M:I xylophone ball thing was done completely in digital?

IT IS NOT REAL.

KAPOW 🤯

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.

ENJOY.

• When you build agencies on the crunched up bones of the youth, they will leave.

• Wake up calendar nerds, Google Calendar now lets users know where people will be working throughout the day.

• I think I’ve shared this before but the Wayback Machine has a way to archive your tweets (should you choose to delete your account). I did this last week, it took 10mins or so once I had the download of my tweets from Twitter. Once you set the upload, the process happens in the background. Me, with 200k+ tweets? It about 100 or so hours. Worth considering.

• Now’s the time to export your stuff out of Evernote.

• What do you know, losers – turns out the Barbie stuff works.

• Look at the absolute state of this MeTaVeRsE mess from L’Occitane. I saw it described on Linkedin as ‘visually beautiful & powerful #userexperiencedesign to bring in branded content in a new, engaging relatable way’ – shoot me into the actual sun.

• A Funeral for Chris Messina. I need Twitter for work (for the time being). But I am closer to the end of my Twitter account that I am to the beginning. By some margin.

• Can you imagine being in a position whereby you could charter The Chairman’s Train? Lush.

• If you worked for the lawyers that helped ensure Musk bought Twitter, then maybe you could charter The Chairman’s Train. Here’s the FT on ‘The Anatomy of a Twitter Payout’ – genuinely fascinating.

• Ahsoka!

• 26 signs that creative strategy is still alive, from the excellent Tom Roach.

• Did you know that ‘Over and Over’ by Hot Chip features a low key burn to Jo Whiley? No, me neither.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE STEP.

Thanks for making it this far.

If you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, please consider passing it onto a friend. And remember the pitch: Five things on Friday, it doesn’t always come on Friday but you always get more than five.

I hope wherever you are life is being good to you. I’ve got a birthday party for a pal tomorrow afternoon and an afternoon of doing sweet FA on Sunday. I might play some video games with the kids.

Be kind to yourself. Show yourself some love.

And above all else enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.

Whatley out x

..

Last last last thing: this made me chuckle.

Things of note for the week ending Sunday July 9th, 2023.

Three hundred and fifty editions eh?

Not bad for what started out as a weekly exercise in writing discipline way back in 2011 is now a regular an occasional newsletter with over 4000 subscribers.

Absolutely nuts.

I know I always tend to start these things off with a thank you but I am truly so grateful that literally anyone takes the time out to read this thing.

Cheers to you.

Also, these stats are pretty insane y’all.

So yeah, THANKS. You’re all very beautiful and actually quite lovely.

x

What else can I tell you?

Ah yes, in last week’s edition I ‘swapped things’ with of . One of us had to go first and that was me. So a few hours after FTOF #349 went out, Rob published his edition featuring yours truly.

So if you want to read what I said in response to the brief ‘What quote or idea consistently helps you either slow down, or keep going’, then you just need skip over to this edition of Salmon Theory to find out.

More broadly, Rob’s newsletter is great. He is really good at articulating what it means to be a planner/strategist. And if you ever need to feel like you’re not alone in this job, go read Salmon Theory.

x

Right. With all that out the way, shall we get to this week’s things?

LET’S.

1. THE INEVITABLE POST THAT EVERY SINGLE NEWSLETTER HAS OPENED WITH THIS WEEK

Yes, I am on Threads.

It’s a sorry state of affairs when your preferred choice of social media* ultimately comes down to which billionaire you despise the least but alas, that seems to be where we are. Better the devil you know (Zuck) vs the devil you don’t also know but is probably actually an all out sociopath (Musk), right? 😬

Rumoured to be dropping for a while now, all hell broke loose earlier this week when the US + UK (and some VPN’d Europeans) had Threads teasers drop in their respective Instagram accounts. So heavy was the draw that I actually put the IG app back on my phone for the first time since 2019.

At the time of writing, Threads user #1 confirmed that the platform had already secured 70 million sign ups. Sign ups are one thing, retaining those sign ups into DAUs and MAUS, therein lies the challenge.

(want to know your user number? Head to your Instagram profile and look for the number under your profile photo. I’m user #56821. Not bad).

So far though, I’m liking it.

The onboarding was simple, the friend-finding algorithm is working well for me (YMMV), and as soon as it launches a few more things such as a decent search, trending topics, and a web interface well, that’s me done with Twitter for good I guess. Oh, I also like the carousel default for photos – (you can/brands will have fun with this). Guess all we need is a embed integration now eh?

For what it’s worth, I thought John Gruber’s take over on Daring Fireball – ‘Threads’, – was v good.

For me personally, I’ve been looking for reasons to give up Twitter for a while now. Not having a ‘home’ was one of the reasons I stuck around.

With the app/service closing in on 100m sign ups in its first week (!!!), I think this might be where I find my people again.

FWIW, given the meta-ownership, I’m also going to remain semi-active on Bluesky (it’s so chaotic, I love it) but for now, me and Threads are tight.

Give me a web interface to Threads and I doubt I’ll ever go back to Twitter again. I’m so done with everything it’s become. Advertisers are leaving/have left in their droves and the biggest man-baby in the world has destroyed everything about it that I loved.

Threads it is then.

See you there?

*where my friends and community are. Bluesky/T2/Mastodon et al, are all great – but the user numbers, and frankly the people I know and have followed for years just aren’t there. FWIW, I’m probably going to keep my Bluesky profile active. The community there is mega chaotic and seemingly just KIND. Again, YMMV.

2. THE BEAUTY OF HUMANITY WHEN WE THINK NOBODY IS LOOKING

It’s Nice That, writes:

Rachael Wright views the image as one that demonstrates the pull of the sea. “The sea is such a mysterious, powerful draw and the more I wonder why people stand and stare at it, the more possibilities I come up with.” Other moments that stand out for Rachael are moments of joy – like the image of Buddhists monks jumping into the waves; “a reminder that we all have an inner child who longs to come out to play.”

I love these.

They remind me of home.

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING

Not much to report this week. Honestly. Really. Truly.

Tell you what though, this piece ‘Opening a Cannes of Worms’, from my friend and pal, Jonathan Stringfield, on whether or not the 70th edition of the Cannes Festival of Creativity finally signalled the arrival of gaming in the marketing world is very good.

And I absolutely recommend you read it x

What else?

Oh yeah, I noted that Wimbledon launched a new version of its ‘Wimbleworld’ in Fortnite this year (vs Roblox last year) What with Nike doing the same (opting for Fortnite v Roblox for Airphoria) just last month well… 🎵 Times they are a-changin’… 🎵

UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite) is THE game-changer.

You just don’t know it yet.

(it’d be lovely for UEFN to be on Mac but well, they had quite the falling out)

Speaking of Fortnite, you’re a player of Fortnite – or Fall Guys (or another Epic Game that features an in-game currency) – and you’re in the UK, Canada or Mexico then you may have received an email like this:

That’s right, thanks to our good friend, inflation, the cost of in-game currency is going up. For Fortniters, that looks like this:

Like pretty much everything else right now, even the price of virtual currency is going up. If you’re smart (and have the dollar to spend), stock up on v-bucks now.

—

The last thing I think that’s worth a mention is, according to this redditor, Valve – makers (among many other things) of the Steam games platform – is not willing to publish games with AI generated content anymore.

reddit.com/r/aigamedev/comments/142j3yt/valve_is_not_willing_to_publish_games_with_ai/

I am pleased about this

PS. Headed to Gamescom this year? Me too! Catch up?

4. WHO KILLED GOOGLE READER?

My heart still weeps.

Can you believe it’s been TEN YEARS since we lost the world’s favourite web app?

It was so perfect. So so so so so perfect. Ach. I miss it.

The Verge has a fantastic if ultimately truly saddening reflection of a service that started off life as a happy accident but was ultimately killed by Google’s relentless obsession on apps that serve billions (vs millions).

If you’ve never even heard of Google Reader before, then I cannot ask you enough to please read this article. It’s a great glimpse into something that was so ahead of its time… us ex-GReaders still mourn for it.

5. THE ENCOURAGEMENT MANIFESTO

Substack is lovely. Last week, after sharing the growth successes of FToF with the Notes community over there, I got into a nice back and forth with . After some friendly exchanges, I inquired after which of their newsletters I should look into and they recommended this:

The manifesto newsletter.

And now I’m recommending it to you 🙂

PS. Why not read how it all started as well?

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO SUBJECTIVE REASONS ENTIRELY OF MY OWN MAKING ARE REDUCED TO LINKS AND PITH ONLY.

• Another Cannes thing, ‘If Cannes wasn’t about the work, it’s your own fault’ – I like this. Cannes gets a lot of flack but if you’re there, and you look past the crap, you can find gold in dem hills. But its on you to find it (or just shut up about it if you can’t be bothered to put the effort in)

• ‘I miss the internet’ – timely.

• Related: ‘So where are we all supposed to go now?’ from The Verge hit me right in the feels.

• Roblox wants to shed its ‘metaverse’ label.
  (IF ROBLOX IS SAYING IT THEN WILL YOU STOP SMASHING IT ALL OVER YOUR DECKS PLEASE MEDIA AGENCIES THANKS X)

• Related: the Metaverse Study for the European Parliament [PDF link] is some thoroughly mental reading. Mainly because under the page marked ‘Definition of Metaverse’ – it first just lists a bunch of them without committing to any but then, later, takes a full 145 pages to actually say ‘well, it’s everything really’ (!) – plus it quotes that ridiculous McKinsey ‘$5 trillion’ figure (you know the one), rendering the entire report utterly useless. What a waste of time.

• Related, again – everyone seems to be waking up to the metaverse being over. Reminder: I wrote this in MAY 2022. ‘The metaverse doesn’t exist, you’re talking about gaming’

• A great interview with the co-founder of Popbitch, Camilla Wright (made their first mobile app, y’know – years ago. On Symbian. That’s how long ago). Side: did you read THE EMAIL? Incredible.

• Claire Hollands and I did the Marketing Academy together (many moons ago). She’s now CEO over at Mullen Lowe and this is a great interview.

• The art of portraying power, wealth, and entitlement. From the FT. Excellent.

• Meta’s ‘System Cards’ are interesting.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

There is still time to sponsor me for August’s Tough Mudder. If you’ve ever found literally any value from this entirely free newsletter. Then please do express that value with real world money to help a real world cause – War Child.

Additionally, if you liked this 350th edition of Five things on Friday, then please do recommend it to a friend, colleague, or department. This thing has grown by word of mouth ALONE so the more people you tell about it, the happier I get.

That’s nice isn’t it? Go on then. Off you pop.

In the meantime, thanks for reading (thanks for donating).

And thanks for being awesome.

Whatley out x

PS. Last thing, promise. If you’re having a bad day, don’t worry. It could be worse. You could be that person on Linkedin that told me Google Maps was the metaverse.

I wish I was making it up.