Five things on Friday #393
Newsletter tips. Smartwatch clicks. Sarcastic tricks.
Things of note for the week ending Friday January 31st, 2025
#393
INTRO
Well well well, here we are again. At this rate anyone would think the newsletter had some kind regularity. Ha! The fools!
How's your week been?
Hectic? Hurried? Cold? (I’m cold).
I took a couple of days off last week to help project manage The House Stuff™️ and we ended up abandoning it completely and taking the kids to stay at a hotel for a few days.
Christ, we needed it.
We managed to get a last minute deal at Pendley Manor in Tring and, aside from an unfortunate 'miscommunication' regarding the other half's allergies on the first night, broadly it was a net positive trip. And we'll probably go back again at some point. Probably.
Anyway. No sooner had we returned on Sunday afternoon was I packing my bag to head out again on Monday morning. This time to Barcelona for a few days to run a workshop for an upcoming game partnership I've been leading brand strategy on (there's a clue on the box). And so it is from Barcelona that I am write to you now.
Hello. How are you?
With the second bit of international travel under my belt, a building site of a home, and a short stint in hospital lined up next week (I'm fine), things are… hectic?
Remember a couple of editions ago when I said I was taking bookings for coffees etc and I made a joke about March? Well, it might have to actually BE march.
Absolute joke of a human.
So yeah, that's where I've been. I might have my living room back at some point too. We'll see.
What else can I tell you?
Things are pretty grim out there at the moment. Ian Betteridge wrote this on Bluesky recently -
- and I immediately both reshared it and actioned it.
I recommend you do the same.
As Ian goes on to note, as humans we are not built to be in a constant state of threat of fear. It is phenomenally bad for your mental health. I appreciate that this is a privilege. I am a white cis-het male and I don't live in the US. Being able to 'switch off' is a privilege but it is also my right. I choose to focus on my family, my mental health, my physical health, and my loved ones. I am batting for everyone in my own way - just not on social media (it’s also worth nothing Bluesky remains the only social media app on my phone - Linkedin ain’t coming back y’all).
As the woman said on the plane literally on the way here on Monday, 'Secure your own mask before helping others' - Right? RIGHT?
Friends are deleting Facebook. Friends are muting words. Friends are focusing on themselves.
And again, I recommend you do the same.
With all that in mind, please know that I try to keep this newsletter a relatively threat-free environment. There might be some challenging stuff in it from time to time, and very occasionally dark and quite hard issues to talk about but when it comes to the new US president and his cadre of cretinous cockwombles, well, I'm going to try and keep them out of here (for the most part).
You can get all that from literally any other channel, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. On FToF? No thank you.
Dunno why I had to say that but felt like it was necessary.
Privileged? Yeah, a little.
Intentional? Absolutely.
Does it mean I don't care? Don't be daft.
And if you don't like it, you are welcome to unsubscribe.
Cool? Cool.
Right then.
Shall we crack on?
Let's.
—
TO THE THINGS!
THING 1. ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT A NEWSLETTER?
There must be something in the water.
"should I make a newsletter... I'm afraid only ten people will subscribe or something 🥲" babe that's ten whole people who love you so much they want to receive emails you write. social media sucks. make that newsletter
— adrienne (@insertdisc5.com) 2025-01-22T19:57:57.662Z
Since we last spoke four separate people have reached out to me for advice on how to start/write a newsletter.
And I thought ‘Y’know what, I should write about that’.
Here are are my top ten tips on how to start/write a newsletter.
NEWSLETTER TIP ONE: Write it.
Look, I know it may seem obvious but you can fiddle around with your belly button as long as you like. I don’t mind. But if you don’t actually sit down and write the damn thing you will never have a newsletter. JUST. WRITE. IT.
TWO: Understand who you are writing it for.
Me, I write for myself. I think that’s clear. But some people write for a distinctive audience. They might write for editors. They might write to find people like them. They might even write for future employment prospects. The point is: figure that out, and stick to it.
THREE: Seriously, just write it.
Don’t worry about all that horse manure about FiNdInG yOuR vOiCe, and don’t get caught up with thinking about what your distribution strategy might be once things get going… if you haven’t written anything, then you haven’t got anything to talk about. To just write it, yeah?
FOUR: Pick your platform.
Me, I use Buttondown (more on that at the end). I’ve tried Wordpress, Mailchimp, and Substack - and now I’m here. Figure out the one that works for you and go for it. And hey, if it doesn’t work out - just move. I have, three times now, and you’re all still here (mostly).
FIVE: Don’t stress about it.
Some of you (you know who you are) have hideous writing schedules. Some publishing 2-3 times a week (mad). And maybe that’s a professional choice (vs a hardcore hobbyist). But if you’re just starting out, try not to make it too hard for yourself. In my experience, you shouldn’t force it. Write when the words are there. If the words aren’t there, don’t write.
SIX: Tell people about it (when you’re ready).
Write it. Publish it. Then tell people about it. Or at least get a couple of drafts in the can before telling people so when you do get sign ups they’re not hanging around wondering when you’re gonna get off your backside and write something. If you’ve got a place to send them (eg: an archive page) then it shows you’re actually going to up your end of the bargain. So don’t rush on it.
SEVEN: Watch out for the stat trap.
This is an easy pit to fall into. When you’re starting out you might be hungry for MORE READER MOAR MOAR MOAR READERZZZZZ… Ignore that feeling. Ignore it! Write for the reasons you want to write, for the audience you want to write for, and then worry about the numbers later. My readership hasn’t gone up in ages (it floats around the 4000 mark) but then I haven’t done any promo for ages either. I’m quite happy with my lot. Open rate is something I keep an eye on but only because I know what the open rate is on some CRM campaigns I’ve seen and it always makes me grin (them: 0.05%, me: 67%). Point is: mind the stats. You don’t want to get obsessed. So don’t.
EIGHT: No one cares if you stop.
If you forget to write it one week, don’t kill yourself over it. Take breaks! Think about seasonality. I try to take Christmas off and 1-2 months over the summer. But that’s my choice. Figure out your own service level agreement and go from there.
NINE: Try writing yourself a brief.
This is one of my favourite things to do. I haven’t done it for a while but if you’re writing to express your thinking then challenge your thinking with a tricky brief. This is a bit more case-by-case but if you’re writing about, say, cars. What is the brief you could give yourself that looks at cars through a different kind of lens? It’s a bit contrived but sometimes having a brief to stick to (eg: ‘Five things that interest you’ - hi, welcome to FToF) helps bring focus.
TEN: Hit send.
I was tempted to write ‘just write it!’ again but in reality, you can write as much or as little as you want but if you sit staring at the ‘Send’ button worried what people might think then let me tell you the chances are people do not care. They don’t! And the sooner you understand that, the sooner you’ll be writing with freedom and the sooner you’ll be hitting PUBLISH or SEND before you’ve even checked for spelling errors.
And that’s that. Did I miss anything? You tell me. In fact, I’ve been meaning to write a NEWSLETTER THING for some time so if you’ve got one you want me to plug, then hit reply to this and I’ll share it at some point soon.
Plan? Plan.
Oh and PS: if you use this referral link to sign up for (my favourite email newsletter platform) Buttondown then one day we both might make some money.
One day 😅
THING 2. AIN’T NO PEBBLE LIKE REPEBBLE
It’s been a good ten years since I first got a Pebblewatch (well, that just aged me), and I think I still the OG smartwatch kicking around in a drawer somewhere…
Fast forward a year or so later and you could tell I was definitely IN. I think I even picked up the updated metal one (the Pebble Time Steel I think it was called?) way back as well.
Then, in 2016/17ish, said Pebble Time update crashed and burned (here’s a good overview of how/why that happened).
Then Fitbit bought Pebble’s IP then Google bought Fitbit and then…
Pull the ripcord on the time machine and bring yourself hurtling back to the present day and Pebble’s OG founder, Eric Migicovsky rightly points out that since the original kickstarter came out in 2012, smartwatches haven’t really come on that watch.
You’d imagine that smartwatches have evolved considerably since 2012. I've tried every single smart watch out there, but none do it for me. No one makes a smartwatch with the core set of features I want:
Always-on e-paper screen (it’s reflective rather than emissive. Sunlight readable. Glanceable. Not distracting to others like a bright wrist)
Long battery life (one less thing to charge. It’s annoying to need extra cables when traveling)
Simple and beautiful user experience around a core set of features I use regularly (telling time, notifications, music control, alarms, weather, calendar, sleep/step tracking)
Buttons! (to play/pause/skip music on my phone without looking at the screen)
Hackable (apparently you can’t even write your own watchfaces for Apple Watch? That is wild. There were >16k watchfaces on the Pebble appstore!)
And he has a point. That second point is the main reason why I wear a Fitbit charge these days - I get a food 4- 5 days of battery out of it on the reg. Smartwatches that need charging every day can get in the bin. Honestly.
All of this is a roundabout way to say: Eric is bringing Pebble back (try and write that without singing SexyBack in your head - YOU CAN’T). Thanks to the OS owners, Google, opensourcing PebbleOS - literally four days ago - Pebble’s dream of rebirth is possible.
Interested? Sign up here.
I am. I have.
THING 3. THIS WEEK IN… VIDEO GAME TRENDS YOU SHOULD PROBABLY BE AWARE TO LOOK SMART IN MEETINGS
Two big data drops for you this week.
First, the Matthew Ball mother lode:
It's quite nice to see that someone (possibly Ben Evans) has finally taken Matthew Ball to one side and said 'Hey, Matthew, about those 20,000 word essays... have you perhaps considered PowerPoint?'
Matthew Ball listened and, to his credit, uses the medium correctly (honestly, some of the ‘trend reports’ you see where it’s 800 words crammed onto each slide - I’m like, just write a sodding blog post). Does he still need an editor? Yeah, probably, but I’m a fine one to talk…
Anyway, here are two hundred and twenty-one slides (!) on The State of Video Gaming in 2025.
Having spent some time with this properly, I think it’s fair to say the deck is heavy on data - and therefore eminently stealable for slide fodder - but only occasional on insight (which is not critique, btw, more a note to the casual reader to be wary of mistaking well connected data points for king-making revelation).
I would wager anyone working in or near gaming would nod their way through this until around slide 124 when hypotheses for where the hockey puck might be moving to next start to come through - and even then it just isn’t that actionable.
Similarly to Ball's last missive, ‘The Tremendous Yet Troubled State of Gaming in 2024’ (essay, not slides) - this is good analyst fodder.
Some good stuff to pilfer for data and presentations (always cite your sources); a good primer of where things are AT.
For me personally, I'm in the nodding along impressively at the vast collection of data points and thinking about what might be useful at some point the future crowd.
Sample thoughts in my head: The dominance of Roblox is known. The sizing of those platforms against say, Netflix and Disney, is the right provocation (esp for a brand marketer still trying to quantify it all). And a welcome one.
And actually, as a side point, when I spoke on Google Firestarters last year, I brought up the theory of convergence and the brand opportunity that sits therein.
Seeing these data next to each other in Ball's slides, as well as eye-ing Disney's developing plans for the Fortnite platform (see Thing 1, FToF #360), it's hard to deny that convergence is slowly coming around the corner.
Entertainment IP is taking up space. And finding new places to secure eyeballs... well, gaming (and their related platforms) are hot stuff. Leaving not much room for actual gaming publishers and developers trying to develop new IP.
That, alongside everything from economic conditions, live-service games, and continually ballooning development costs… well, you get to thinking: something has got to give.
But we’ll come back to that shortly.
The tricky thing for me with the Ball deck is that it often uses interesting facts to make the wrong points.
Case in point: in the final section ‘How might player spend return to growth’, Ball notes that ‘AAA Mobile Gaming’ is a huge opportunity because by 2030, a billion people will own a device capable of producing these titles.
‘I too like to see the similarities between game versions on screenshots pulled from the famously low bitrate YouTube.’ - Matt Jones, on Wednesday.
Northern cynicism aside, you could read the slide above and be forgiven for thinking: ‘Oh my God! Everyone is going to be playing AAA PS5/Xbox games on their phones!’
Well, that’s demonstrably untrue.
While both titles shown on the slide are graphically on par, the sales… are not.
“Our calculations, based on Appfigures estimates, suggest that under 3,000 people have paid $49.99 to play Assassin’s Creed Mirage on iPhone since it launched on June 6.”
Under. 3,000. People.
Resident Evil 7 on iOS was even worse.
The point is: it’s all well and good putting some YouTube screenshots together but without the context of player appetite or, shock horror, sales numbers it’s meaningless.
And don’t even get me started on ‘Crypto, Web3, and NFTs’ being marked up alongside Cloud Gaming and New Game Genres as ‘Yet to drive revenue’ (slide 24) - mate, no one in their right mind thought this would happen.
Behave.
Any GDC report from the last three years could’ve told you that.
So yes, do read the Matthew Ball Games Report but read it with your eyes wide open.
And always go the extra click.
-
Speaking of GDC…
This leads nicely to DATA DROP NUMBER TWO: the annual GDC State of the Industry report [PDF link].
The GDC SOTI is my favourite bellwether for what is actually going on in [western] games. And to double underline the point I made above:
This ain’t new news, fam. And look, while the data certainly has its problems (it is heavy on the white male American focus), it’s a good/indicative note on where development is headed. Especially by platform, business model, and development engine.
Worth a peruse, at least. Same deal as Ball’s, mind. Go in with your eyes open.
-
Smaller news bites:
Lay offs continue. Ubisoft Reflections Leamington and Reflections. I know some people at these places. And for those reasons and others, this one hits hard. Pheonix Labs also decimated. Although word is this is down to broader crypto/Web3 mismanagement over and above anything else. And Bioware have also hit hard. As ever, Amir Satvat is here to help.
Switch 2 specs accurately guessed (I needed this).
Road Craft looks nuts (if a little VERY MUCH WHAT IS EARTH TODAY).
Microsoft’s business model shift is happening right before your very eyes. Hardware is down, Game Pass is up, and long-time Xbox exclusive Forza Horizon 5 is coming to PlayStation 5 this spring. Hell hath indeed frozen over. Either that or Satya wants to see some ROI now.
What is James playing:
Travelling in the UK, I'm taking my PlayStation Portal everywhere (HADES is my drug of choice right now - can't wait for the sequel to get out of Early Access).
Travelling overseas, I'm back playing ARCO on Switch.
At home? Me and the kids have knocked over The Storm King in LEGO FORTNITE ODYSSEY three times now (technically this counts as a raid boss - and I'm taking it).
Of course there's a new NO MAN’S SKY update: Worlds Part II. And it is a MONSTER. So that’s next.
And sad as it is about the ongoing woes at Ubisoft, I am VERY excited about Assassins Creed Shadows.
What are you playing?
THING 4. A TAXONOMY OF SARCASM
I needed this this week.
You need to read the whole article to get it but do so. I think 4th degree sarcasm is deep friendship territory. And I love it.
PS. I think I picked this up from Fish Food, by Neil Perkin (but I can't find the edition). Either way, Neil's newsletter is a good read.
THING 5. IT’S CASPAR PHILLIPSON’S JFK UNIVERSE AND WE’RE JUST LIVING IN IT
I picked this up over dinner with colleagues in Barcelona this week.
Did you know that the Danish actor, Caspar Philipson, basically has the monopoly on playing JFK?
”That thatch of hair, those white teeth, the smile lines around the eyes — all very Kennedyesque.”
First appearing (for literally ten minutes in Jackie, back in 2016, Phillipson has gone to play JFK a further five times across TV and film. He has also given [re-enactments of] JFK’s speeches across the US and Europe.
Go on, google him. You’ll disappear down a wonderful rabbit hole.
Maybe start here, with this wonderful interview he did with the Daily Beast from late last year.
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.
I have extolled the brilliance of my friend Marshall’s ‘Professional Lunch’ newsletter before but having the opportunity to contribute to it has been a high point this year. So go on, go and read my review of Festive Lunch on the British Pullman over on Professional Lunch.
ANOTHER good pal, who writes ANOTHER excellent newsletter (this time it’s George’s Video Games Industry Memo) asked me for my Game of the Year nomination, and he only went and published it. I bet you can’t guess what I went for…
Gremlins 3 has been greenlit. I’m sorry, what?
'In house at Global' is code for 'Repurposing Mr President's creative', pass it on.
OpenAI accusing Deep whatever for stealing IP is god tier headlines. We're not even out of January yet. So many memes!
Sidenote, I was at dinner this week and a friend remarked on the sheer energy consumption needed to keep feeding the AI machines in return for very little and… well, it reminded me of No-Face from Spirited Away. Watch the movie, you’ll see what I mean.
Here’s a big list of Government Reforms since Labour came in.
Are media agency brands dead? - there are some cracking one-liners in this.
Here’s a bunch of FREE downloadable activities for kids from Bloombsbury.
Thanks to some utterly mental jetstreams, some Europe-bound flights are travelling faster than the speed of sound (without breaking the sound barrier) - fascinating.
This is old but it's still pretty timely. Why working at Facebook helped me lean out.
Run, don't walk, run to YouTube right now and watch Critters 4 for free (other movies are available).
This belonged in the last edition but still: ‘I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down - I just didn’t expect them to be such losers’ wins Headline of the Year with 11 months to go. Incredible.
Judging an economy's health by its satellite photo is some 21st century whizz y'all.
Tim Hawyward in the FT ‘reviewing’ McDonald’s is so on point it hurts. As someone who spent three+ years flipping Big Macs (from Canvey Island to Liverpool Street - I have STORIES), the slow and horrid lurch FROM interacting with people TO interacting with screens has been painful to watch. Tim captures that well.
YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.
Right, I think I’m done now.
As I hit send on this it’s just past 7am on Friday January 31st. The youngest woke me up at 0230 and I could not get back to sleep. I’ve got a cold coming on and I was lying awake thinking about how we might have to move out on Monday (nothing like low level anxiety to really put the kibosh on your sleep pattern).
In short: Today might be a struggle.
Be that as it may, thank Cat Stevens for bringing the chill vibes I needed to get this newsletter out to you and, as my mouse hovers over the ‘Send…’ button I realise I’ve got some unanswered replies from the last edition. Damn. Sorry.
I’ll get right on that.
Until next time,
Whatley out x
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