Activision Blizzard's Jonathan Stringfield on how advertisers can attach themselves to gamers' loyalty to specific franchises and how to find community in gaming.  Episode TranscriptPlease note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.DAMIAN (00:01):I'm Damian Fowler.ILYSE (00:02):And I'm Ilyse Liffreing. DAMIAN (00:04):And welcome to this edition of The Current podcast.ILYSE (00:10):This week we're delighted to talk with Jonathan Stringfield, VP of Global Business Research and Marketing at Activision Blizzard.DAMIAN (00:17):Activision Blizzard made headlines in October. Microsoft closed its $69 billion deal with the gaming company, the home of legendary games like Candy Crush, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Activision says it's ready for the next chapter as part of the Microsoft family,ILYSE (00:34):As well as being a VP at the company. Jonathan is also the author of Get In the Game, an Essential Guide for Marketers and Execs who want to integrate their brands with Modern Games and eSports published in 2022 by Wiley.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (00:53):Sure. Well, so first of all, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to, uh, to be here today. Um, and, and again, I think the book is realistically a reflection of where we are in the greater marketing agency as it pertains to gaming, that I think there's been a lot of opportunities that have existed over the years. Um, certainly the marketplace has matured in recent years, but overall the level of investment in gaming is considerably lower relative to I think the amount that the fans are investing in it, the extent to which that this is consuming a greater amount of their time. And that on the whole, there's a lot of questions from marketers in terms of what's the right way to integrate and realistically no good resources in terms of how do we start to get folks to understand what is ostensibly not just a a form of entertainment. It's a new way in which people are increasingly interacting with media more generally. So the book was in some ways kind of a starter, what I was hoping to be a bit of a foundational educational piece to really kind of advance this conversation forward in the broader marketing industry. Yeah,DAMIAN (01:51):There's definitely intense interest and I've noticed even in the last 12 months it's picked up incredibly. Can you give us a sense of the scale now of gaming worldwide to sort of establish that, that context? Yeah,JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (02:05):For sure. I mean, you know, I think the latest estimates are the total gaming population will be about three and a half billion by next year. So somewhere between a third and a half of the population on the planet plays games, right. Substantial. Right. So, you know, I, I think that alone is, you know, kind of one of these light bulb moments for folks that, you know, when we think about what it means to play a video game more generally, again, you kind of get that classic view of like someone with a controller or maybe at a PC or what have you. But realistically, one of the biggest segments of gaming fans out there is, is mobile. Right? And since everyone has, or virtually everyone has a mobile device globally that can handle games like Candy Crush, what we found is that the surface area for people that enjoy games is just that much bigger. So, you know, when you look at the stats and see that, you know, conceivably the revenue that's attributed to gaming dwarfs things like film, movies, music, or what have you, it's because of the scale of the industry first and foremost in terms of how many fans have proliferated certainly in the last decade or so.DAMIAN (03:06):Yeah. What's interesting is people have certain preconceptions about gamers and gamers have changed over the years. I remember when I was coming about, I had an Atari 800 and I used to play Frogger. I don't really consider myself a gamer anymore, but could you give us a little insight in terms of who are gamers?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (03:25):Yeah, so even the term gamer is kind of interesting in so far that it already kind of attributes a label that then kind of sparks preconceptions that are mine, right? So, you know, if we take a step back, we don't talk about, you know, folks that are watching movies as cinephiles per se, right? Or folks that are really into music with, with very specific terms. So in that world, even just thinking about gamers themselves, that kind of just entails someone who has or really kind of pulls some degree of identity from it, which is certainly the case. There are folks that like readily identify as a gamer and are, you know, very into it. And one of these, you know, spend multiple, multiple hours and lots of investment in the ecosystem and so on and so forth. But then there's just as many, actually many more folks who don't necessarily consider themselves a gamer, but they definitely play video games, right?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (04:11):And a lot of it is on mobile phones, but then some of these same folks do on consoles and PC and what have you. And one of the biggest trends we'll continue to see in the gaming industry broadly is that we're really looking at a world where we're trying to make sure that the experiences that we provide can be accessed on virtually any device. So I think by that metric, what we'll find is that the, the, the definition is gonna continue to expand. So going back to your question, like who is a gamer? I mean, it, again, it's it's a little bit hokey and we say it a lot, but it is kind of everyone to a certain degree. And it's just, it is the different ways that folks are entering what is an ecosystem, not just an individual channel that kind of differentiates them.DAMIAN (04:50):Yeah. So it's not a sort of niche thing and the, the definition of gamer has here, the two maybe been a sort of niche thing, but what you're saying is it's definitely not that.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (04:59):And, and, and I think there's no better example than what's been happening in recent years, right? So that even that concept of a gamer kind of implies that this is a different group of folks. This is an abnormal group of people that is doing something other folks do, don't or don't do. And again, that's just not the case. Right? And again, look at things like the extent to which you see gaming IP in major movies, television shows. I think there's some, last I counted, 40 or 50 individual projects for TV or movie being developed from game IP right now.ILYSE (05:29):Wow, that's a lot. .JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (05:30):It's a lot. And, and the, the other thing, and, and again, it's good now. So like there, there is this world where, you know, if you think about, you know, how games have been portrayed in movies like maybe in the early nineties, like wasn't that great, right? Mm-hmm. and like kind of left a bad taste in people's mouth, not just folks that weren't fans of the games, but candidly even the fans of the game. And that's really changed in recent years. And I think, again, we could talk a lot about why that happened and partially it's, you know, Hollywood, I think taking the stories in these games more seriously, but then also understanding that there's a big established fandom here. And if they want to bring this experience to a different screen, they need to resonate with that. So what that means in general is that it's just becoming not something that's an offset of culture. It's popular culture. And I think what we'll see in coming years is that already it's the case with even generations as young. And I'm definitely throwing up air quotes 'cause I'm in this generation as millennials, they spend most of their time gaming relative to other forms of media. And I don't think the marketing world has caught up with that fact.ILYSE (06:28):Do you happen to have a favorite gaming movie?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (06:30):My favorite gaming movie? Oh, I mean, you know, honestly, at this point I do have a lot of heart for the old ones from the nineties just because, you know, that's what I grew up with was were those, and, and for me it was just so cool to kind of see them even be represented on screen like that. So like the original Super Mario Brothers movie and Street Fighter and things like that, like all really cool projects. I think the one that really kind of spoke to me personally, um, and again, it feels like this is gonna be like a bit of a pitch for the company, and I promise you it isn't is actually the Warcraft movie UhhuhILYSE (07:01):.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (07:01):Because at that point, by the time that movie came out, I'd been playing Warcraft for a decade at least. And again, I'm not alone that that's a very common behavior you've seen. So again, think about Super Mario Brothers, any of these other movies, you know, folks are coming to this with the intention and with the knowledge that they've been engrossed in those worlds for 10 years, 20 years, some times, 30 years, they're gonna have expectations in terms of how that's portrayed in that media. Yeah.ILYSE (07:25):And you know, you mentioned it's very much like a family kind of affair. Um, one of the most interesting insights we saw on your site is that actually like one in five gamers are actually made up of women with children. So would you say mom's got game ?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (07:40):Mom definitely has game and, and parents have game and, and you know, it it's, it, there's, I think again, with that whole concept of how gaming is increasingly encroaching upon modern culture is that you now have folks that grew up gaming, and again, I'm, I'm definitely in this vanguard who have basically been playing video games their entire life, have kept up with the hobby throughout, and now we have homes and mortgages and kids and a bad hip and things like that. Like we are the principal shoppers in the household, and then we share that with our children, right? Like, and again, it's like anything else you think about how like, sports team, fandom, proliferates, that doesn't happen in abstract. Like kids don't come outta the womb being, you know, rooting for the Cubs or something like that. It's because of a shared connection with their, with their family. Same thing here. So both of my kids, they are big time gaming fans. And again, probably a lot of my influence on that, but even now I have one that's off to college and we can still hang out, right? Because we can hang out in virtual worlds. And again, I think there's something powerful about that.ILYSE (08:37):Activision has some of the world's most iconic, most played games, candy Crush, call of Duty, world of Warcraft. I know myself, I'm a big Candy Crush player. I play it every day on the subway. , can you give us a sense of how and why these games prove so compelling?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (08:54):I mean, I I, I think there, there's a couple things we could look at, right? So on the one hand, almost all of the, like the games you just mentioned have been around for decades, right? So just as it stands now they're popular because there's been something about them that has kind of hooked someone into that. And again, whether it's like really novel and interesting mechanics, like Candy Crush, whether it's something like social connectivity from a game like World of Warcraft, whether they're just really interested in the story of the world, like something like Diablo, there's been something within those games that speaks to folks, right? And it speaks to 'em in such a way that, you know, again, when you think about media in general that we get engrossed in, that we come fans in, it's something that we develop a lot of affinity for.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (09:34):And what's different, I think for something like a video game is that, you know, you're not just watching a protagonist in many cases, you are the protagonist. You are I impacting and have agency within that world. So the extent to which that you can form connectivity with that media, it's gonna be so much greater. And then again, you layer on other fans that are participating with it, your connection with them. And you know, you'll hear their stories about people that've been playing World of War crap that made lifelong friends, they met their wife, they got married through the game, they got married in the game. Even , like that's, you know, kind of speaks to how powerful this can be for folks that this is where they find common ground to talk with others about their passions. WouldDAMIAN (10:08):That getting married in a game, uh, would that constitute a premium gaming experience?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (10:14):? I would certainly think they think so. Right? And, and you know, and again, there, there's something to be said about like, you know, it, it's one of these things where folks will literally get married in the real world and then have a ceremony in the game, and like they buy each other rings or exchange items or whatnot. And, and you know, again, I think it's easy to kind of sit back and be like, wow, that's kind of weird. Like, but if that is the basis of your relationship, if you met your partner and participated and had adventures and shared stories with them for 10 years, 15 years, then yeah, it's meaningful. And, and, and again, I think these are the types of connections that folks are not quite in tuned with yet. But it speaks to again, how much this type of media tends to affect its fandomDAMIAN (10:57):From, from a marketing point of view, the what does it mean to have a premium access to premium gaming experiences? And what kind of research do you do around this to define that concept?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (11:09):I mean, I think the, first of all, I think we can take the step back that like premium is by far the most abused word in all of advertising, right? Like straight up, right? And again, I, I think that it's hard to find like hard and fast rules in terms of what does or does not constitute it. But in my mind, what I think will, will always tend to be the case is like, you'll see that on the one hand it's these games that have large followings and they have large followings for different reasons. Again, whether it's engagement, the mechanics, the story, social connections, or what have you. And realistically, one of the parts that I find most satisfying about my job is that, you know, these are household names, right? Like even if you don't really play video games, you have heard of Call of Duty, you have heard of Warcraft, you have heard of Candy Crush.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (11:48):So there is definitely a qualitative and quantitative difference for games of that type relative to, to others where there might be experience. And again, that isn't to say that there's, you know, a big differentiation or that like folks shouldn't explore all kinds of places within the, in the gaming environment. But I think it is important to understand that, particularly in these premium experiences, one, a lot of love and care goes in on the development side. And then two, the fans have a lot of love and care for those environments as well. So what we've found in terms of research that we've done, both as it pertains to how our, um, you know, our players think about these experiences or what have you, is that they realistically see that brands when integrated into these titles that are kind of like the more household name premium games, they start to associate the same type of feelings that they have for the game to the brand, which is again, almost entirely the point, right? Like they're try like the, the, the high bar I think for brands is to kind of be able to participate in some of that equity and have it shine on their brand. And we try to facilitate that in a way that's both efficacious for brands, but then again also works well with the expectations of our fans in the game environment.ILYSE (12:56):How do you make it possible for brands to actually engage with like, active users of the game? I know there's so much, so many possibilities these days compared to like even a decade ago mm-hmm. .JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (13:07):See? And yet I think, so you, you hit on an important PO point that there have been opportunities in games almost since games existed. There was some form of advertising. The issue was that back in the day, it was tough and it wasn't super flexible and it, it just wasn't how marketers liked to buy things, right? It was basically you had to be hard coded into the game experience and you lived there kind of in perpetuity. And that's not really how media buyers think. So the big shift that's happened over say, we'll say the last 10 years, but I think we, we could quibble over like, you know, what the exact dates are is that internet connectivity on these games, you know, programmatic, um, technology things have made it a lot more turnkey. So as it stands now in the ecosystem, there's kind of two polarities in terms of opportunities, again, speaking at a very, very high level.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (13:52):On the one hand you have integrated marketing. So this, these are the things that you see that are like the concerts, these in-depth integrations, you know, you know, Humvees and games like Call of Duty, things of that nature that really kind of speak to customized builds within the game environment. On the other hand, you have a lot of programmatic media opportunities that even occur in games like Candy Crush or what have you that are video spots and what have you, that we tie into the game environment again, in a way that kind of fits with the mechanics. And that's kind of more or less the, the high level answer to your question is that we really take a lot of time to understand, one, the design intent of our developers. And again, we are fundamentally a game company. So we work hand in hand with our developers to figure out where are the opportune places where brands can integrate, not just in a way that's not obtrusive with our players, but optimally in a way that can enhance the play experience. And whether that's providing them a reward or integrating a brand in a way that actually like increases the realism or the immersion of the actual, you know, game environment. That's kinda the bar we try to set.ILYSE (14:51):That's awesome. Uh, could you give us a few like, examples of brands that you guys have worked with in that kind of environment and way?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (14:58):I mean, I think, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll stop short of calling out any specific brand aside, but we'll note that I think one of the big misconceptions about gaming is that has to be like endemic brands. That is definitely not the case, right? So we see everything from C P G to restaurants to anything in between. And actually we did do a case study with, um, Prada recently where they were put their, one of their fragrances product candy within Candy Crush, right? Which, you know, kind of makes sense that there's already like some degree of continuity between the two. And interestingly for Product Candy, it is a fragrance that has existed for a while. So it's not a new extension. It had been out on market, but then they wanted to kind of reinvigorate it, they integrated a candy crush. We did like an interactive game for players to like, you look and search for the fragrance on there, and then it linked to their site where they could pull out a sample and they went through all their samples almost instantly, right? So it's something that like, because it resonated that well with the game, it's something that, you know, the fans were really attracted to and I think really drove great results for Product Handy in that case.DAMIAN (15:58):I wanted to ask you, you know, where I wanted to ask you, what does your research tell you about where people are playing these games? I know there's a split between mobile and console gaming.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (16:07):Yeah, so I mean, what you'll find is that, you know, again, I think when we were talking earlier about how the overall gaming market has expanded, you know, the vast majority of game activity happens on mobile. And again, as a game publisher, we paid attention to that. So it's not only that we have, you know, titles like Candy Crush, which have ostensibly been mobile since mobile gaming was, was a possibility. We're also bringing a lot of our other franchises to mobile environments. So Call of Duty mobile is a great example. Diablo Immortal. We really wanna take all these franchises that were historically console specific and bring them to mobile environments. Now, what's gonna be I think really interesting is that gaming is increasingly going to be a hobby that is divorced from gaming devices. And by that what I mean is through cloud technologies, through increasing speeds on mobile, what we'll find is that virtually anywhere that there's a screen that's smart, there's probably gonna be an opportunity to play a game. And that's where I think we'll continue to see kind of the, the overall rise of the ecosystem. And so far that the easier it is for folks to access these experiences, the more opportunities it gets to build that audience. So I think what you'll find is that, you know, some of the biggest franchises won't just be relegated consular pc, they'll continue to go more mobile, but then eventually they're just gonna go to any screen that has an internet connection. I think that'll be a really interesting shift for the industry. Yeah,DAMIAN (17:24):I see. Yeah.ILYSE (17:26):Cool. You know, Activision asserts that gaming drives community authenticity and engagement. How would you say that's possible and why does it matter to potential advertisers?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (17:37):I mean, it really gets back to that point of fandom. It's, you know, something that we, we've been talking a lot about that, you know, fans, you know, fandoms are created around shared love of a form of media, and again, be a sports team could be anything, right? But in this case, it is indeed some of these game titles. And on the one hand you have a group of folks that are substantively interested in a given form of media in this, in this case a game. Many of them with social features in them, right? So like World of Warcraft, call of Duty, these are all social games. You speak with your teammates, right? Like people are getting married and what have you through these games, but even those that don't actually have social con connectivity built in Candy Crush is a great example. There's still a huge fandom of Candy Crush fans that go to like web forums to talk about strategies in Candy Crush.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (18:22):So they will go and find their community no matter what. And again, that I think speaks to the power of it. So that's, you know, the, the opportunity for advertisers is that, you know, fandoms are powerful, right? When someone has that degree of connectivity to media, when it's effective on that level, right, with an a, it can be effective with an e for advertisers. And I think the concern is that because of the intense love that, you know, game players have for games, that can actually be a little scary for advertisers. They believe if they integrate in a way that, you know, well, one, they believe they're not welcome in general, but then two, if they don't integrate in a very specific way, that's gonna kind of go sideways on them. And again, I think there is something to be said that there are ways that you can integrate in gaming that are not gonna be super fan forward and therefore problematic. But if you find a way to integrate that is fan forward that does kind of fit with the needs and expectations of the fans, it can be super effective for advertisers for that reason of the level of affinity that the game players have for the experience.DAMIAN (19:24):It seems like gaming is driving a, a, a big shift in entertainment habits and, and is is not siloed anymore as just a gaming thing over here, you know, a a movie experience over here. It's, it's kind of, uh, crossing, I don't know what's the word? Uh,JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (19:39):Transmedia might be one of the words, right? Yeah. Like where it's multiple stories talked about through multiple forms of media. Yeah.DAMIAN (19:45):And, and you know, on that point, how, what does this mean for, for marketers? Do they understand how entertainment habits are actually changing? Are they, are they there yet? Is there, is there more that they need to know?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (19:57):I mean, I, I think there's still learning to be done. And, you know, when I go out and I speak about gaming, my, the general point that I want advertisers to walk away with is that even if you aren't bought into the idea of gaming, per se, what you can be bought into is the fact that media in general is becoming more interactive. And gaming is obviously at the forefront of interactive media. And I think advertisers are very good at and understand even down to the psychology of how people think about movies or watch shows, or even Peru's social media less so I think at this time about things like interactivity, it's a different set of psychologies, right? It is a different way in which someone's mind is literally tuned into the media. And I think we're still kinda at the early stages of that.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (20:43):And, and you know, I think there I am, I'm encouraged that it has become a broader conversation. I think, you know, when things like the metaverse and whatnot were very hot, that was basically a reflection of that, right? Because everything that the metaverse was that we were talking about, you know, about a year ago and that are no longer really talking about it was basically just gave me experiences, but it was the right idea, right? That oh wow, there's all these people, they're in these online interactive spaces. How should I think about that? And again, maybe wrong focus at that point, but it was the right question.DAMIAN (21:13):Hmm. And one of the things I you are very interested in is, is measuring attention and attention metrics. How does that work in the context of gaming and why is it so significant? Have we caught up yet? Have marketers caught up with the way we should be looking at how people are paying attention in these new forms of media?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (21:30):I mean, you know, it is certainly the case that you will be hard pressed to find a single marketer out there that is happy with their measurement period. And, and again, to be clear, that's not a problem necessarily with the measurement companies. That's just kind of the nature of how measurement works with advertising, not the least of which. And again, I think apropos adver or to attention specifically is that the focus and conversation around attention in my mind just really signals that we are dissatisfied with the metrics that we have today. Fundamentally, most of the media that we're buying on is through the same metrics and lenses that we use circa 1970, right? It's reach and frequency, which is great, it has its purposes. Obviously advertising is a scale game. We need to make sure that we have enough people that see a message, but we're less sure about whether it mattered to them or whether they saw it.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (22:19):Because again, recall that, you know, reach is an opportunity to see not whether someone saw it. So on the one hand, I think attention is becoming a broader conversation, one because I think we, there is more focus on not just the breadth, but the depth of these potential interactions and how folks are consuming media. But then also because in worlds where more media's consumed interactively reach and frequency just might not cut it. Now again, it's an interesting conversation, but much like the general dissatisfaction around measurement more generally, we're pretty far away from a standardized definition. I think it's a, it's an active and interesting conversation that's going on, but in my mind, regardless, almost regardless of what definition we'd land on, is something that I think needs to happen because otherwise we're still gonna be stuck in the same reach frequency mode of buying that we kind of used to buy linear TV several decades ago.DAMIAN (23:11):I mean, one of the challenges, uh, I guess one of the needs for this idea of attention metrics is to be able to measure results in different channels. And it's not apples to oranges, it's apple want. The, the need is to kind of a me have an apples to apples measurement, right? And that doesn't necessarily exist yet. And I'm wondering about, you know, when it comes to gaming future integrations across different channels, how do you see that? I mean, playing out,JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (23:38):So gaming is one of the big challenges that I think we have as a, as certainly as a gaming publisher, but then also the broader marketing world has about thinking about gaming in general is that, you know, if we think about social, right, you're looking at degrees of apps and ev all these apps are different, but fundamentally, if you're focusing on one, like it's an app, and, and again, that's not to say that's not very complicated what have you, but like it's a technology, gaming is an ecosystem, right? So even if you were to go and have someone sit in this chair and ask them, oh, are are you doing anything in gaming? They'll say, oh yeah, yeah, I am. And if you ask them what are they doing, you're gonna get a lot of different answers, right? Like, maybe it's Twitch, maybe it's eSports, maybe it's mobile games, maybe it's some spots and dots and you know, console titles or what have you.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (24:22):Huge degree of diversity. So on the one hand, when we've been thinking about measurement, we want it to be applicable to every experience that an advertiser can have in our ecosystem. And the more that we can build our platform to essentially get some degree of equivalence, whether it's across any number of touchpoint within the ecosystem, the better, broader industry, cross platform measurement is a conversation that's been going on as long as I've been doing ad measurement. That's a long time. Um, and, and again, I think we're a pretty far ways away if we're being honest with ourselves. Again, even if we take gaming to a side and don't even think about that just in general media, we're pretty far ways away. But I am encouraged by things like attention, because what we can agree on is things like reach and frequency, right? Like we might have some disagreement about when, where, and how and how do we wanna like measure things like fraud and delivery and what have you. But we all kind of know what it means and we can all kind of compare it across them. What attention needs to do is get to that point. And when it gets to that point, then it becomes a currency, then it becomes useful. And then I think it becomes super meaningful that not only are we understanding the scale of the potential execution, but again also how much it affected us, which in my mind is super important for interactive media like gaming.ILYSE (25:32):Now you mentioned you foresee basically anything with a screen being an area or an opportunity for someone to game. And it's true that like gaming is making its way into like a bunch of different channels. Even like Netflix now has games, for instance. It's crazy. Um, how do you see like other like, forms of new technology from AI to Metaverse technologies further expand the potential like real estate for gaming and opportunities to reach gamers?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (26:01):So if we, if we tick through the buzzwords real quick, right? So like on on, on the one hand, ai, super popular conversation going on, AI's been used in gaming for years, right? So like, and, and again, like we could get a little bit wonky and just talk about, eh, it's for the most part just machine learning and stats and things we've been doing for a while. But, you know, again, even things like procedural generation, what have you, that's been part and parcel to gaming for a long time. So on the one hand, you know, there's something to be said about game developers have experienced with that, but we, you know, continue to lean into these new worlds because again, it creates a lot of power in terms of how we can make experiences on a more scaled basis. As a general note, when I, again, one of these kind of truisms that I give folks is that when they want to think about or really see what kind of the future of the media landscape is, you do wanna look to gaming for these types of things, right?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (26:48):So again, ai, it's kind of been a part of gaming for quite some time. Vr, same deal, right? Like, so for the most part, most of the more popular experiences we have in VR are generally games. But then on the other hand, if you look at the percentage of people on platforms like steam, which is a very popular, um, platform for PC gaming, the install base of VR headsets is about 2%. It usually waffles between one or 2%. So again, you would kind of already know that the market for VR hasn't really developed even then just looking at how gamers are oriented towards it. And metaverse, you know, again, there, it was very much a double-edged blood blade type of conversation that on the one hand I was really excited that people were starting to think about online immersive, interactive environments. On the other hand, they were just talking about gaming, but calling it something else, right?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (27:40):And I think there has been a little bit of correction, like yes, there are grander plans or grand plans in terms of building something more generalized like a metaverse, but realistically all of our best practice for it and all the techno technology platforms that exist right now are gaming. So on the one hand, like there's a lot to be said about all these types of things with within the gaming ecosystem, but on the other, you know, a a again, I think it's important for marketers to understand not just because of the opportunity within gaming today, because there are many, but also it's a really good lens to kind of judge some of these new emerging trends through in terms of how it's worked in the gaming ecosystem. Mm-hmm. ,ILYSE (28:17):You know, one area of gaming that is continuing to grow I feel like is that of like e-commerce and shopping through games. Um, you can buy, you know, skins, you can buy elements to build out your characters these days. Just curious about, I guess your outlook on that and how you see growth in that when it comes to e-commerce.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (28:39):Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, the, the, on the one hand there's something to be said that in general when you look at things like buying skins, even advertisements in games, things of that nature, this is all coming from the fact that the games industry wants to move with the economy of the world in such a way that like we want everyone to play our games and ultimately we just wanna transact with folks in a way that makes sense for them, right? So in some games, some experiences, no one wants to pay anything and maybe they're happy to watch an ad and that's okay. And others they wanna pay 60 or $70 upfront and that's okay too. And then in a third maybe they're buying certain, you know, skins and what have you. And again, that's fine. Like what all of these potential activations allow us to do is just again, be flexible in terms of how we can transact with customers to again, make sure that we're reaching virtually everyone.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (29:23):So on the one hand, I think that's gonna continue to be important not just for the game industry, but also the flexibility that we gain give to game developers. For brands specifically, one, obviously that provides a lot of opportunities because things like advertisements and integration with skins and integrated marketing like we talked about before, like that can all be weaved into there. And then even certain environments being set up as commerce platforms in and of themselves. Like if it's something that makes sense for the game environment, like yeah, right? Like, you know, imagine, again, I'm gonna kind of make this up, but 10 years ago you didn't buy anything online, right? But then it kind of became something that was novel and then it became something that you did a little bit more. And now I buy near everything online, right? Like I like, it's almost weird when I go to a store. I think we could start to see that in gaming, right? The more that we start to use these technologies and become normalized in our everyday practice, then that is something that we'll use for a wider variety of use cases from socialization, whether it be the Metaverse to shopping.DAMIAN (30:24):And that's it for this edition of the current podcast. We'll be back next week. So stay tuned.ILYSE (30:30):The current podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by love and caliber. The current team includes Chris Berkley and Cat Festy.DAMIAN (30:38):And remember, I'm Damien.ILYSE (30:47):And I'm Elise.DAMIAN (30:48):And we'll see you next time. AndILYSE (30:50):If you love this podcast, be sure to subscribe and leave a review. 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