Major League Baseball looks to rekindle interest with new rules, new ad campaign
Major League Baseball has been pushing back against the narrative that “baseball is boring” with a new set or rules for the 2023 season and a brand-new marketing campaign to attract both lapsed and new fans. Last year’s World Series was one of the least watched in the sports’ long history, drawing only about 12 […]
Esports competition still matters even as content creation drives revenues
Profitability in esports has been elusive for quite some time, with even Riot Games’ massively popular LoL Esports business not quite achieving profitable status. It’s one thing for a behemoth publisher to list esports as a loss on a quarterly P&L statement, but for individual esports orgs, failing to generate net income can sink an […]
Nintendo emerging as cross-media powerhouse with theatrical blockbuster, theme park
Nintendo is flexing its IP muscles outside of the video game world as it develops its top brands into cross-media franchises. With the opening of Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood and the theatrical release of The Super Mario Bros Movie, Nintendo seems finally poised to push its strongest video game franchises across the […]
Mario’s future in mobile gaming in doubt, but should it be?
While the Nintendo Switch has had a fantastic run on the market over the last six years, selling over 122 million units and becoming the Japanese company’s third-best-selling console in its history, there’s simply no comparing the penetration of Switch purchases to the billions of smartphones owned worldwide. Mobile gaming remains the biggest market opportunity […]
Mobile carriers increasingly purchasing energy from renewable sources
Climate change has become, and undoubtedly will continue to be, one of the most important issues of the 21st century. Time and again, experts have been warning the world that decarbonization may not be happening quickly enough to meet a goal of preventing global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius. And while individual consumers […]
Smart home DIY is a market Vivint should not ignore
NRG’s $2.8 billion cash acquisition of Vivint Smart Home, announced in December, was completed this March. The combination of companies equips NRG, an energy provider to many markets in the US and Canada, with a leading smart home and home security platform and forms a platform for essential home services to be offered from a […]
PlayStation’s new “Playmakers” campaign taps celebrity influencers
The Sony PlayStation marketing team has a long history of creating unique campaigns, including some divisive ad spots. For the PlayStation 5, Sony has keenly looked at the growing presence of celebrity influencers across sports, music, and entertainment and has decided to tap into this trend for its brand-new “Playmakers” campaign, which leverages “a group […]
Interpret: Esports interest growing among Olympic viewers
In 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) took a step towards embracing competitive gaming with its Olympic Virtual Series, which took place in May, ahead of the Summer Games in Tokyo. At the time, the IOC acknowledged a need to reach a younger demographic and decided that esports and digital engagement would be key to […]
Will Apple TV+ be the next streaming platform to introduce an ad-based tier?
While no formal announcements have been made, Apple is signaling possible plans for a lower priced ad-supported tier of its digital streaming service, Apple TV+. After it raised the price of its premium streaming service to $6.99 in October – its first price increase since it launched in November 2019—Apple introduced the hiring of ad […]
VR’s existing base likely to upgrade, but convincing first-time buyers is the hard part
It’s been seven years since the Oculus Rift VR headset debuted, and despite wild proclamations from industry pundits at the time, general adoption for virtual reality has been far more gradual. The technology, largely focused on immersive gaming, has made some inroads in the past few years between Sony’s PSVR (over 5 million sold) – […]
