#The other thing is that the scale and quality of the backlash on this sort of thing scales with the marginalization of the creator

[vitos-ordination-song]

It’s hard to have a stance in the middle of the quality of such a beloved and debated work. ‘Cause on the one hand, you have those who will hear nothing but praise for it, and on the other, there’s a kind of mindless backlash to frame popular works as overrated. I wouldn’t call LOGH overrated. Just, its diehard fans are overlooking some major issues.

It’s fine for a story to have limitations. “Plot holes,” wonky worldbuilding in places, etc. But as someone who’s read a lot of sci-fi, I found it to be full of anachronisms and questionable writing choices. I mean, why are the space imperials talking about Valhalla? We’re given no backstory for how this galactic empire came to have Norse religion. This is from a society which views Earth as a long forgotten backwater. Like??? There’s a lack of attention to materialism, like technology is just able to do anything; the battles feel more based on sea/ground combat than anything to do w space; the story will drop a huge bomb like “the first kaiser only allowed people of Germanic descent into the empire,” only to never explore the issue of race again; etc.

None of the above issues are enough for me to criticize the story really. I just view them as limitations. No one person, no creative team even, can create a perfect world in fiction. And there are really interesting things about it. For instance, I found all the history episodes compelling. The author clearly has an interest in history, especially military and leadership history. It’s fun to watch a story where the past is projected on to space. That’s not to say that the story does nothing original, and it does have harder scifi elements at times. Besides, there’s no reason that history can’t repeat itself on a galactic scale.

My issue really is with the ending. I’m not sure the promise of the first half was fulfilled. I’m still sorting through why, but I’d say the number one reason is that it feels too satisfied with itself. The story became cliched at the end—how disappointing! I mean, the Church of Terra was just there to be Evil and mess things up for the protagonists; there was absolutely no thought put into making that interesting. Every single character moment felt telegraphed. There was none of the tension and excitement of the first half. It was… corny? Maybe it was always corny. Maybe I just liked Yang Wen-li’s corniness better, lol. But his self-effacing nature kept the story from going full soap opera. With him gone, it was like, Reinhard’s just gonna keep being the same guy and then die, ok, and now Julian is a generic hero, complete with under-written girlfriend. So why did I watch to the end???

I’m venting but there was a lot I did like. I thought Reuenthal’s episodes were extremely well executed. I really only lost interest when it was like “the alliance and the empire have to fight again despite both sides wanting to talk.” It made Reinhard more boring to me that he was that predictable. And the show had never felt so complacent on the topic of violence. It’s just boring to be like, yep, we’ll end with the exact same values that we started with: might makes right. Ooooh Julian proved himself to Reinhard through combat. I guess if he died his opinions wouldn’t be worth anything???? When this was framed as Reinhard’s fatal flaw, a personal foible that led him to recklessly pursue Yang, I really enjoyed it. But I’m supposed to respect the character, right? Well what’s to respect when you always have the advantage and end up fighting a kid with way less firepower than you? I suppose you could say that Reinhard earned that right by fighting from a young age himself, but it felt like the story took a step backwards. I get bored of one trick ponies. Then it’s like “Julian gets Revenge for Yang by going on a murder spree” as if that’s also supposed to impress me. Cool, you created completely two dimensional characters for your hero to justifiably kill, you want a cookie for that amazing writing? In the end the story ended up being short-sightedly masculinist. But yeah I did enjoy it. Yang was the realest and I’ll love him forever. The rest of you hoes can go home.

[jcmarchi]

Will Replacing Creative Professionals with AI Backfire?

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/will-replacing-creative-professionals-with-ai-backfire/

Will Replacing Creative Professionals with AI Backfire?

Tools touting artificial intelligence (AI) haven’t been around for very long. But that hasn’t stopped companies from taking a leap of faith with them. Some have even attempted to replace humans with ChatGPT or similar apps.

One such experiment came from Sports Illustrated. The venerable publication has allegedly published AI-generated writers and content on its website. They went so far as to source AI author profile pictures as well.

They’re not the first to try this. CNET tested a similar strategy. There’s no doubt that other companies will follow.

The quest for cheap (or free) content is hitting writers. But it could impact all creative professionals in one way or another. Web designers, developers, and graphic artists are among them.

How far might companies go? And what sort of backlash could they face? I have a few thoughts on what might happen.

Let’s Go Hypothetical with Taylor Swift

Just humor me here. I’m trying to imagine the lengths a company might go to save money. And how they might replace a creative professional with AI. Thus, here’s a hypothetical scenario starring Miss Taylor Swift.

Swift is pulling in a massive amount of cash. Her Eras tour has raked in billions of dollars. She’s a media darling and has fans all over the world. She’s irreplaceable – right? Well, it wouldn’t be shocking if someone tried.

Let’s suppose a record label had all of her recorded music. Perhaps they feed these tracks into an AI model. The app “learns” her lyrical style and the tone of her voice.

Now, that record label has a big idea. Their AI model can generate new songs using Swift’s signature style.

They can replicate her voice. Perhaps they don’t want to go that far, though. It will likely have legal ramifications. But they can change things up just enough to sound similar. And that may be enough to produce a hit.

Would fans accept AI-generated music? The song uses a proven formula, after all. Therefore, let’s assume they do.

Playing this song on the radio may work well. But what about a concert tour? People will want to connect with this hot new artist – or a facsimile of one. It’s a key ingredient to a successful brand.

This fictional record label could hire an actor to lip-sync on stage. A modern-day Milli Vanilli, perhaps. But this doesn’t guarantee an Eras-like hit. The problem is in creating a personal connection.

Swift connects with her fans on an authentic level. She has built her reputation over many years. The idea of replacing her with an actor who “visualizes” an AI tune may be a bridge too far for fans. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.

The Question of Long-Term Success

The scenario above may seem ridiculous. But it’s significantly cheaper than paying an artist. And that’s the worry. Companies will be enticed by the possibilities. And they won’t need to work at the scale of a knockoff Taylor Swift.

A website owner may decide that they can get by without a developer. An ad agency might trust DALL·E to do the work of a graphic designer. Anyone capable of writing a prompt could do this work.

The quality of the work is another matter. After all, it was relatively easy for humans to pick apart the Sports Illustrated articles. Search engines will probably do the same. Why should Google reward such laziness?

Now, back to our industry. I’ve opined before about AI’s impact on web designers. I believe that people will try all manner of ways to save money. But a great website still requires a human touch.

We may see a cycle similar to that of DIY website builders. People will try them. Some will be dissatisfied with the results. That’s when they’ll seek out a professional. I think the same is possible with AI.

AI tools will surely improve. But are they reliable enough for long-term success? That may be the defining question of this era (see what I did there?)

The Acceptance and Expectations for AI

How or if AI replaces creative professionals may come down to our acceptance and expectations. That goes for both decision-makers and the public.

The latter may inform the former. If the public consumes AI-generated content without complaint, AI will spread like wildfire. Companies will continue to test the boundaries.

But what if conversions and SEO rankings start to plummet? We’ll likely see a change in course.

Much may depend on where AI shows up. Consumers may not blink at “disposable” content like Sports Illustrated generated. But they may demand higher quality from journalistic content.

Expectations also play a role for companies. Will they consider an AI-generated website good enough? Or will they prefer the attention to detail of human designers?

We’re still early in the game. The answers will determine the impact on how creative professionals are valued.

Where Is This All Headed?

I’m betting that AI will become a foundation for many types of projects. Perhaps it seizes the low end of the market. For example, it could spell trouble for those building fast and cheap websites.

But it doesn’t signal the end for skilled humans. Talented people will continue to thrive.

It does feel like a period of adjustment, though. Thus, any feelings of unease are understandable.

I don’t have all the answers. But I hope that continuing to learn and grow will help. In the end, maybe that’s all we can do. Prove our worth time and again.

Meanwhile, we can watch as AI evolves and brings chaos to multiple industries.

Related Topics

[maeamian]

I tend to be less amused by the genre of post where we laugh at the angry reviews of conservatives who don't like that there are queer people in art than many of you, that whole "I don't get it how could this be queer" and "How come they're shoving this down our throat now when the comics..." style comment about Sandman being the specific animus for this post.

Where, like, obviously someone who sincerely wrote those things would have drastically missed the point of the show, but there's a key word in that phrase 'sincerely', a I don't think they're actually operating in a way that adverb applies. I think this scenario is a bit more like that Sartre quote, that they're just fucking around with words because serious people believe in words and they believe in power, fundamentally this isn't different from that news clip the other day where people got mad at Cracker Barrel for introducing their non-meat sausage, no one actually cares about the sausage qua the sausage the sausage is a stand in for how a large movement in our culture is tending towards greater inclusivity and the people who don't like inclusivity don't like *that* and that's what the yelling is about

I think something that people miss when they pick out the absolute point-missingest ones to highlight how dumb our foes are is that said foes don't care they're being dumb on purpose and also, we, the audience, aren't the actual intended target, they don't care if we laugh. The actual point, I think, and the place of critical stress, is on the publishers and creators, firstly they need a one star review that won't get scrubbed for calling someone a slur and will pass the extremely generous faith of the moderation algorithms over at Amazon/Twitter/Whatever and possibly even a casual human perusal, "I hate gay people they put gay people in this" is gonna get that review removed but "I was confused by the presence of gay people" sounds like it's in good faith if you refuse to apply any context to anything, which those algorithms and their overworked moderators do.

The other thing that I think we miss is the scale, we're just looking at like... the four dumbest reviews and going 'oho' but when you're the creator, if you're looking at your reviews you go 'Jeeze there's hundreds and/or thousands of people hating this for this specific reason' and depending on why you were putting that art into the world that can hit you in a lot of ways but plenty of them extremely discouraging. I'm drawing on my experience here as a part of a mildly successful YouTube channel and knowing a few other people with them as well, but that sort of backlash can absolutely make an artist go "I would like to not touch this live wire again" which is far more the point than expressing any sincere confusion about anything. Anyhow this is probably too many words about something that doesn't really matter, I definitely am not *so* annoyed that I think you shouldn't, but it does feel a little bit like by highlighting this sort of review you're helping (not substantially or anything) with their actual goal of making it more annoying to make diverse art.

[titleknown]

Doing a pseudo-reblog of this fucking post because I don’t want to get in arguments over it or shove it into people’s faces, but like... I think we need to talk about the ugliness of the broader attitude in that comic (specific media referenced aside) because it keeps getting fucking spread in other posts by otherwise smart people and I hate it.

Rest of this after the break because it’s kind of ballooned into a wall of text.

Like... it is a common experience on the spectrum for people to earnestly gush about their special interests only to get shut down by a neurotypical in front of them because “that’s stupid,”

While the autism experience is diverse enough that it is difficult to categorize, that is A Thing I have seen people on the spectrum talk about time and time again, pretty damn common.

And that’s literally what that comic is doing, just on a wider scale and “funny,” Like, the setup is “the person is gushing about their interests” and the punchline is “the interest is stupid, I feel despair that this person likes such a stupid thing”

It is that exact fucking nightmare scenario for so many of us, but with the joke on the side of the Typical Neurotypical Viewer.

The core “joke” is literally "LOOK AT HOW STUPID THIS PERSON IS FOR BEING EARNEST ABOUT SOMETHING I FIND STUPID! DOESN'T THAT MAKE YOU DESPAIR FOR THE STATE OF BEING SURROUNDED BY STUPID PEOPLE INTO STUPID THINGS?!"

But it’s funny. It’s innocuous. It’s silly. Which lets it spread despite the fact that what it’s saying is; in the end; kinda fucked up.

But, the OP said this in the tags:

But like... this is really two-faced, right? Like, they’re basically saying “I don’t mean to be mean" while also saying “reading critical depth into what you like is bad because the source material is stupid,” which is like...

...Well, firstly I thought y’all fucking hated “the curtains are just blue” and yet y’all are making fun of people for doing the opposite of that, and secondly, it’s doing the same “I don’t get why people like this, therefore it is stupid/worthless” shit that y’all accuse people of doing with Shakespeare and the classics.

And like... I see that attitude a lot. with regards to the big post-Gamergate/post-Infinity-War backlash against fandom as A Thing and the fact it’s becoming more common worries me.

Like, in the common talking point of “I’m sorry that you think Toni Morrison is less good than your fanfic of Goku fucking Charizard” or “Dante didn’t write fanfic because what he wrote was actually good” (paraphrased), I want to deconstruct the core assumptions I see behind it:

The named author and the anonymous fanfic writer reflects the idea that authors working in approved mediums are important, whereas authors working in the Wrong medium aren’t. The “Goku fucking Charizard” thing is based on the assumption that sexuality (And “weird” sexuality especially) debases a work.

The idea that Dante’s “not fanfic” because it’s good primarily serves to define fanfic as based around quality rather than the bullshit insane walls of copyright law (Which is actually what the “Dante is fanfic” talking point was about).

The way the sex fanfic and Toni Morrison are pointed at each other shows that while fanfic must use its worst works as representatives, published literary fiction must use its best.

I wonder what the sorts of people would say about the fact that a novel about a woman fucking a bear literally won Canada’s highest literary award. But I digress.

It is an ugly view that is ironically pretty anti-intelectual in and of itself, but from a different angle than their opposition.

It seeks to demolish a very specific intellectual view of the importance of democratizing art/audience because it views the public intellect and taste as stupid and not worth commenting on. Better to return to a walled garden than to let the mob dictate public taste (even if they’re not really in control).

And like, to speculate from what I’ve observed, I hypothesize that comes from a view that; since corporate monopoly over media via copyright and consolidation is basically invincible, the best we can do is on a “grassroots” level.

And their view of the “grassroots” is that the culture is infantilized, by people who for stupid selfish reasons like stupid baby garbage instead of “real” art and give it all their money, and that fandom is primarily an engine for the most devoted of these stupid baby garbage worshippers.

You will note that what they deem as ‘stupid baby garbage” tends to cross over heavily into the diagram of “things liked by autistic people.” They’ll deny this, while ignoring how much a lot of anti-autistic ableism isn’t directly targeted but inherently stochastic responses against a perceived abnormality.

Point is, they feel this abnormal element is a key driver of what they think must be excised from the culture, like a tumor. So the core idea is that if they bully enough people into shutting up about their garbage baby interests, that “imperial core” of people into Dumb Baby Bullshit will be starved and Real Art will reassert its rightful place.

Note that none of this is conspiratorial, it’s stochastic. It’s a bunch of people with the same general beliefs adopting the same shitty tactics by sheer force of carcination. And they don’t even have to adopt all of the beliefs to act in the interest of that view, just enough of them.

And I am begging y’all, please stop boosting and reblogging this shit in the name of countering the excesses of fandom. There are better ways and better critiques you could be making and supporting.

And for the love of god, people who are saying this shit, you’re not helping. You are not going to break up Disney or elevate the fucking culture by shaming autistic people.

Go work on trying to decrease copyright duration, or expand arts programs, or push for antitrust, or fucking something that’s not bullying people for being publicly earnest about what they like!

[davidmann95]

JJ Abrams Superman Movie officially announced, with Ta-Nahisi Coates writing

Anonymous said: Just a few days after you said you were happy with DC taking a break from Superman movies and just focusing on him being on tv again, they go and announce a new Superman movie. How do you feel? Coates is an exciting choice, I think

Caught me red-handed! But to be fair a couple times I said that I left a caveat of ‘barring extraordinary circumstances’, which I’d say this qualifies as.

There’s only so much to go off of at this point, but even these tidbits open up a lot to think about.

* As out of left field as Coates feels at first blush - he’s a Marvel man! - it’s not entirely shocking that he’d be on WB’s shortlist to be their ‘how to fix Superman’ guy: he got a MacArthur Genius Grant the same year as his #1 bestselling book about what the American Way actually means, after which he got into superhero writing with a run that ended up having elements incorporated into a cultural moment in Black Panther, and then Between The World And Me was cited as the inspiration for the Watchmen show that substantially drew on Superman iconography and won 11 Emmys. People are already talking about him admittedly not being a DC or Superman guy (though in that same interview he notes his love for the DCAU, specifically including STAS), but if he’s here he’s got something to say and, y’know, probably read a decent amount of Superman stuff either since then/prior to this or to get ready for the gig, so can’t say I’m worried.

* Related note: I’m seeing folks concerned about how much control he’ll really have over the project, which is fair. But that it’s his involvement that’s being touted over JJ Abrams’ (the guy who, like him or not, rebirthed Star Wars as a going concern to the tune of over $2 billion), and that they’re formally announcing and hyping it up as TA-NEHISI COATES’ SUPERMAN MOVIE™, COMING 202X before even having a director or lead actor attached, says to me that whatever his vision is it’s one WB’s going all-in on for the time being.

* I’ve seen plenty of discussion already about the appropriateness of this potentially starring a black Superman given both the dynamics/thematics of Superman as a character, and more significantly the implications of Coates maybe only being brought onboard to do ‘the black version’. That is a conversation I have precisely zero qualifications to wade in on with my own takes, but given that he is a dude with enough options that he could probably even turn down an opportunity on this scale, and the aforementioned weight being given to his role in this, I think it’s safe to say whatever we’re going to get is something he’s onboard with.

* Also seen concerns re: his pedigree as a fiction writer - another one I’m not that qualified to weigh in on, I’ve only read the first year or so of his Black Panther and Captain America runs (though I got the rest of his BP on Comixology while it was free, gotta check it out sometime), which were solid if a bit more workmanlike than you’d hope, along with the (other category altogether) Between The World And Me some time ago, which was...considerably more than solid. I know however his fiction novel debut in The Water Dancer was well-received, his Marvel work rather than staying ‘grounded’ hasn’t shied away from the sort of outré high concepts you’d want to see in a Superman movie, and the main criticism of his runs of ‘they’re too slow’ wouldn’t likely have the space to apply in a 2-3 hour Hollywood blockbuster, so again, not too concerned.

* Perhaps time will make me eat my words, but hot take: there is a basically 0% chance this is about Calvin Ellis or Val-Zod. Yes, yes, the DC movies are reportedly embracing the multiverse an excuse to do standalone stuff, but the two examples of that thus far in Joker and The Batman are still broadly rooted in the conventional trappings of those characters even if they’re separated from the ‘main universe’. Maybe someday the options might go further afield, but right now, when Superman hasn’t had an unambiguous silver screen hit in over 40 years? They’re not going to pour a quarter-billion dollars into a movie with the premise of “last son of the doomed planet Krypton, imbued beneath Earth’s yellow sun with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men and raised with the noblest ideals of truth and justice, Some Other Guy Most Of You Don’t Know protects the world...as Superman!” Not even getting into Val-Zod being just one member of an ensemble cast from a largely overlooked book and having the baggage of being Zod’s kid, and the EVERYTHING of making a four-quadrant tentpole film about Super-Obama (when you haven’t even been able to make your regular Super work) - this is either going to be Clark, or if they do make Superman black or brown but still want some distance it’ll be a Jon movie so it’s still got the direct connection to the original and the ‘son of Superman’ pitch in its corner too.

* Abrams is an interesting partner. He’s Hollywood’s big nostalgia guy, and that’s...probably not what Coates is going to be going for here. I assume he’s basically there to keep things familiar enough for WB’s tastes, which itself raises questions about the nature of Coates’ pitch and how it was internally received even if they’re clearly very publicly committed to it.

* Michael B. Jordan probably won’t really be the guy - he apparently talked about it, reasonably concluded he didn’t want to face that inevitable scale of backlash after what he already went through just playing the Human Torch, and the tradition is to cast an unknown in the part - but I guess never say never. Heck, while I sure wouldn’t bet on it I don’t think Ryan Coogler ending up involved is out of the question either; Coates’ previous screenwriting experience was working on a project with Coogler and Jordan that evidently didn’t come to fruition (Wrong Answer, a drama about a 2006 Atlanta public school cheating scandal), and they seem to have maintained a relationship as they had a public discussion regarding The Water Dancer in 2019.

* Ok I know making fun of Snyder people is passé at this point and usually more “NO SUPERMAN MOVIES MAY BE PERMITTED UNTIL THE CIVILIZATION-REDEFINING FIVE-FILM SAGA IS COMPLETE” howling into the void is barely worth notice, and “this is solely WB retaliating against us for bending them to our will!” in response to a Superman reboot would normally be just an amusing side-note too. But trying to get #HenryCavillSuperman/#HenryCavillIsOurSuperman trending in response to the possibility of a black Superman...I mean obviously so fucking many of them are fully aware they’re just not saying the quiet part loud, but what’re the percentages here?

So that’s what I’ve got so far. How do I feel about it all? It’s odd; given that there are basically no actual details beyond a name attached I’d never thought about in this context, and that this came with no forewarning just as the prospect of Superman in movies for the next long while seemed as dead as it ever had been, it’s so ill-defined and seems so unreal that I don’t feel much of anything about it yet? Plus I’m no longer driven on a day-by-day basis by a savage, all-consuming desire to slake a thirst for quality Superman stuff long left unquenched the way I was even a couple years ago, which likely also plays its part. But objectively? This is a guy formally, nationally recognized for being smart who’s also a journalist and comics fan being given Superman, with what sure feels like a lot of leeway and presumably a blank slate, which is basically the abstract concept of a perfect pick. So yes: I formally rescind my “please no Superman movies in the 2020s” plea.

[wandworkshop]

Wand suggestion for @aad17.

Length: 13 1/2 in Wood: Aspen Core: Phoenix feather Flexibility: firm

--

I did have a look at your own suggestions, but only after I already chose a wood and core myself, so that I wouldn’t be influenced in my pick. I find it very interesting that my suggestion is fundamentally different from your own ideas! If you want to, feel free to drop me a message and tell me what you think about my pick, and also why you thought that some of the other woods could suit you. I feel like my approach in this situation is quite different from yours, but maybe you like it!

Wood: Aspen

When I read your answers to my survey, one thing that stood out to me is that you seem to value justice and moral actions quite a bit. To some extent you seem to feel the need to ‘do the right thing’, even though it might not always be easy and you might sometimes experience backlash for it. Therefore, for your wand, I felt like giving you a wood that would support you in that. Aspen wood likes to choose an owner who is strong in their beliefs and determined to make some sort of change in the world. Much like yourself, aspen wands believe in attack as the best kind of defense. They’re particularly well-suited for innovative spellwork and duel magic; however they also constantly look for new tasks and challenges. With an aspen wand you won’t want to let things slide too much because it could affect spell quality; I imagine this might help a little with the procrastination issue. Aspen has a reputation of producing ‘wands for revolutionarys’, but this doesn’t necessarily mean it has to happen in the large scale. An aspen wand owner is someone who believes that the status quo is not the be-all, end-all and who has a desire to somehow change it for the better. Whether in politics or in law enforcement, this should really suit you well.

Core: Phoenix feather

I will actually admit, I was very indecisive about the core, but ultimately I decided on phoenix for this particular wand. You are quite in touch with your gut feeling, but you also mentioned that your emotions sometimes get the better of you, which is why in the end I decided against dragon and for phoenix. A phoenix feather core is more reserved than the others and probably the most ‘head-heavy’ while still providing a good balance between head and gut feeling. It might help you in heated situations to keep your emotions in check a little better, to gather your arguments before you speak up (and hopefully destroy everyone with your words :D). Aspen is an instinctive wood and can really do with a core that’s keeping it in check a little. This combination won’t dismiss your gut feeling, but might help you to connect your heart with your head and make good, balanced decisions based on both. Additionally, a phoenix core isn’t quite as flighty and quick to change interest as for example a dragon core, so this might help as well to avoid ‘active procrastination’ (also known as ‘getting distracted with all kinds of other things while not doing the task you’re supposed to do’).

Length: 13 1/2 inches

I would like to put quite some emphasis on the wood here, which is why I chose quite a long wand. I usually tend to add some length when I feel like a person’s character is nicely in sync with the wood, so that the wood’s traits stand out a little more. Adding length will make the wand a little slower, but I feel like speed isn’t really something you’re looking for, and this might also help to ‘look before you leap’ in heated situations.

Flexibility: firm

You seem to value freedom and security to roughly the same amount. The aspen wood is quite a freethinker, so I decided to add a little stability here. A firm wand will help you stand your ground and put more emphasis behind your words, especially when the situation scares you.

--

I’d be happy to know what you think of my suggestion! Hope you liked the read.

[qethnehzul]

Forget Me Not

[Conversations, presumably, are in dovahzul. Words: >4k

Snippets from various conversations across time between Krosis and his patron dragon, Gruthrathlir.

Characters: Nonvul [Krosis], Gruthrathlir

Warnings: None]

The cold winds that covered the temple grounds that signed their esteemed patron’s arrival didn’t feel nearly as frigid as they usually did. Nonvul had been pacing back and forth on the open plaza where his patron was offered sacrifices when the great beast decided to pay him a visit.

Nonvul watched as the magnificent dragon descended down onto his perch, landing with a gentle gust of powder snow that rattled the gold decorations on his robes. He bowed deeply to the beast, awaiting the rattle of Gruthrathlir’s scales to tell him he could rise.

“Nonvul,” Gruthrathlir rumbled, tucking his wings in to his sides.

“Lord Gruthrathlir. Welcome, as always,” Nonvul replied, straightening his back out.

Formalities aside, the dragon lowered his head down to Nonvul’s level. “You pace. Does something plague you?” the dragon questioned, a hint of concern in his booming voice.

Nonvul felt his face flush under the mask, and rapidly he shook his head. “No, no, not at all milord. Nothing plagues me,” he assured the dragon.

His voice told otherwise. Gruthrathlir rumbled, stretching out a wing to climb down onto the ground. He pushed his giant head forward, snout pressing against the metal of Nonvul’s robes. “Lies. What ails you?”

Nonvul swayed with the force of the dragon’s gentle push, taking a step back to right himself. He took a deep breath, reaching up to gently cup the dragon’s lower jaw in his hands. His mind searched for the words in dovahzul while Gruthrathlir waited patiently, frigid air from his nostrils causing the fur on his robes to frost over with each breath. “Oh, i’m a fool Lord Gruthrathlir,” he whispered, hanging his head.

Gruthrathlir lifted his snout up, pushing at Nonvul’s mask for him to remove it. Nonvul obeyed, pulling the slab of bronze off before looking up at the dragon with worried eyes. The dragon pulled back, observing the man in the dim light of the moons. His head tilted to the side, settling down against the stone. “Has my priest made a mistake?”

Nonvul exhaled, lowering his head. He watched as Gruthrathlir’s tail curled around, enclosing him in the dragon’s grip. “I do not know. I know that I have, but I do not feel as though it is a mistake,” he said softly.

It was a mistake. He knew that. He was a priest, a high priest, a priest with a mask - it was forbidden for him to entertain relationships, let alone with another priest, another high priest, another masked priest. Their relationship was punishable by death and worse. If anyone were to find out… Nonvul’s heart twisted. Things would not end well, and he could not bare the thought of bringing such a blow to Miraak.

But in  the same breath, the thought of the other priest… it made his heart quiver. The way Miraak, the glorious, wonderful, great Miraak, had looked at him… Nonvul felt his cheeks fluster. His mind had been fully unable to stop remembering how he’d felt a few days prior, when he’d been pinned over the edge of the hot springs under his beloved mentor and what had been exchanged between them.

“It is not like my priest to hide his thoughts,” Gruthrathlir mused. “It is not like my priest to make mistakes. Is one to worry about such?” He questioned.

Nonvul pursed his lips, before shaking his head again. “No, no,” he said again quickly, reaching up his free hand to the dragon. “No, it… It is nothing to worry about. I promise you. I would do nothing to worry you, milord, or to cause you dishonor or harm.” His voice cracked a bit, and he cursed himself for being unable to lie about it. Gruthrathlir sorted out cold air, and Nonvul shamefully looked to the ground. He knew he shared a close bond with his patron, but he feared what the dragon might do to find he was breaking the rules. He knew what the likely outcome could be, and it scared him. “I beg you for your forgiveness, for I have been weak milord,” Nonvul spoke, dropping to his knees before the dragon.

Gruthrathlir’s spines raised up in curiosity, dipping his head down to follow his priest. “Forgiveness cannot  be given if one does not know what injury you seek forgiveness for.”

Nonvul felt the dragon’s cold breath ruffle his hair. “I know not if you have words for it, but I am… I long for another. I know I am forbidden from doing so, but I cannot help it. I am weak.”

The dragon paused, before letting out a low chuckle. “Mm, you are… as your kind call it, in ‘love’?”

Nonvul tensed. Yes. He was. He was absolutely, head over heels in love. His stupid little harbored crush he never, ever dreamed of being truly a possibility had come true, and his heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest to even think about his new lover. Slowly, Nonvul nodded. “Yes,” he said quietly, biting the inside of his cheek as he braced himself for the worst. He was in love, but he would not lie to his patron. “Will you punish me for such?”

Gruthrathlir’s cool gaze lingered on Nonvul for a long moment, before his large head came to settle against Nonvul’s chest. “And make sorrow of my priest? No,” he rumbled. “Tell me, my priest, the one that catches your eye such. They make your heart tremble and they make you pace - surely, they must be great to have my priest’s attention,” Gruthrathlir chuckled, the end of his tail twitching like a cat’s.

Nonvul exhaled in relief, setting his mask down on the ground. He reached out, slowly embracing the dragon’s face as he pressed his forehead against the beast’s scaley snout. “Truely, you are just, Lord Gruthrathlir. I am eternally blessed by your patronage,” he sighed, closing his eyes tightly as he felt the dragon press back into his hold. “It… it is Miraak, milord. I have caught his eye as he has caught mine, and he returns my affections.”

Gruthrathlir’s body rumbled under Nonvul’s hold. “Miraak…? The dragonborn?” The dragon questioned, seeming surprised.

Nonvul nodded again. “Yes, milord. I pray that does not displease you.”

The dragon pulled his snout away, before he carefully nipped at Nonvul’s shoulder. The priest winced, but the dragon’s sharp teeth only lightly grazed him through his thick clothing and armor. “My priest seeks only the greatest of partners, as he should. This dragon would be disappointed if he sought any less,” Gruthrathlir spoke, pulling his head back. “So as long as you do not forget your place here, I have no reason to bring punishment upon you. Other dragons may dislike such, but I care not.”

Nonvul exhaled in relief, looking up at his patron. “Thank you, milord. My place will always be at your feet first. Nothing will ever be more important than you,” he said, bowing deeply again. “And your approval means everything to me.” He felt himself relax a bit as he rightened himself out to gaze up at the dragon again.

Nonvul had always been a bright-faced man - though many dragons hated it, it was one of the things Gruthrathlir liked about his servant. But ever since he’d come forward about his relationship with the dragonborn, his mood seemed to only be brighter. It pleased the dragon to see his most faithful so envigored - he had always been unwaveringly a loyal, devout servant, but he had only become more upbeat and faithful since Miraak had stepped closer into his life. Allegiance guide for certain, the dragon thought with a chuckle. Gruthrathlir wouldn’t have allowed for the relationship to continue if it had caused the quality of his servant’s work to decline, but he was rather pleased to see it had only improved it. He understood the displeasure other dragons had in allowing their priests to show devotion to others, but perhaps that only showed why his priest was superior to theirs.

“Miraak visited again, I see,” the dragon rumbled in amusement as Nonvul strided out onto the plaza.

The priest seemed a bit taken aback, but the smile returned to his face as quickly as always. “He did. I pray that has not displeased you.”

“I am only displeased that he did not pay me a visit,” the dragon rumbled, scales rattling, but Nonvul knew his patron was not truly upset with it.

“I tried. I’m afraid he is… worried about being here at times,” Nonvul admitted, taking his seat on the altar before the dragon’s perch.

The dragon tilted his head to the side. “The priest worries?”

Nonvul’s gaze dropped a bit. “He does not wish to let anyone see us, anything from us. He is afraid of punishment.”

Gruthrathlir rumbled lowly. “Zokgaaftu does not share my sentiment?”

Nonvul’s brow furrowed. “He does not talk to his patron like you and I do. He fears that if even a servant sees us, we may face punishment. He speaks often of High Priest Konahrik’s enforcement of the rules and tradition.”

Gruthrathlir hummed, his tail swaying slowly. “This displeases you.”

Nonvul nodded, looking at the ground. “I understand it. But I wish it did not have to be so.”

The dragon knew that even if he did not care for his priest’s relationship, other dragons might - especially Zokgaaftu. Even if Nonvul might be safe under his wing, it would not prevent backlash of other sorts.

It was strange when Nonvul’s usual chatter of his secret meetings with his lover began to lose their warmth, when his tone grew flatter, his gaze drifted more to the side, the smile on his face seemed less alive. When his conversations became less and less about his secret love, and more and more when the topic seemed to extinguish the light in Nonvul’s eyes that Gruthrathlir didn’t think would ever dwindle. It made his white scales bristle. His priest slowed down, and though his work never faltered the bright man the dragon had come to know as his beloved priest seemed to be replaced with a husk.

“He has hurt you.”

Nonvul did not look up at the dragon. “I have hurt myself,” he whispered back.

The dragon rumbled angrily, spines flaring along his back. “I will devour him. He has hurt my priest.”

Nonvul closed his eyes tightly. “You cannot,” he dared to say, swallowing dryly. “Nobody… they can’t know. We were never supposed to be together in the first place.”

Gruthrathlir’s claws dug into the stone above, sending ice and rock cascading down in his fury. Nonvul was right. To turn on Miraak would only lead to Nonvul’s punishment as well, if not his own at the claws of Zokgaaftu. The dragon exhaled a stream of frost from his nostrils in frustration. Perhaps he should not have let Nonvul pursue the other priest. Perhaps he now truly understood why other dragons forbid such a thing. If he were to punish Miraak, all others would find out what he’d known about and allowed. The dragon let out a sharp bellow, making the priest below him flinch. “Foolish,” the dragon snarled, pulling his head back. “My priest is plenty. He is a fool for harming you.” His talons shifted back and forth on the rock, anxious that he could do nothing to remedy the situation. “Does the priest pursue another?”

Nonvul grimaced. “I do not know. I see High Priest Zahkriisos with him during meetings, and I have heard that he… spends his days now with her, Master Ahzidal, and High Priest Dukaan. They say he does not leave Solstheim often now.”

Gruthrathlir paced back and forth on his perch. “Zahkriisos? The priest of Mahkofus? He is a fool! You best her in every way,” he insisted, rolling his head in frustration. He didn’t know what he was trying to achieve, but he did not like to see Nonvul wither because of Miraak.

Nonvul shook his head. “It… milord, please… do not fret over this. That is his choice. If that is what pleases him now…” Nonvul felt the words turn sour in his mouth, “then… then may he be happy there. I was not enough.”

Gruthrathlir let out another bellow, shaking snow and ice off of the surrounding rocks. “Not enough?” The dragon roared. His tail lashed around, cutting a chunk out of a rock behind him.

Nonvul raised his hands. “Please, milord. I did not… I did not mean to anger you,” he spoke, trying not to choke on his words. He dared to look up at the dragon, and Gruthrathlir could see the pain in his teary eyes. “Please… I will not speak of him, or it, again. I should never have pursued it in the first place. Please forgive me,” Nonvul begged, sliding off of the bench to sink to his knees in the snow. His back bowed as he threw his hands forward, pressing his forehead into the snow as he deepened his bow.

Gruthrathlir fell still. He could hear the soft sob from the priest as he kneeled there, and slowly the dragon moved to descend from his perch. His wings came to shelter the priest, curling his head down to rest it against the man’s body. “He has hurt my priest, I cannot forgive that. Dimmed a burning fire and reduced it to a ember. I cannot forgive that,” Gruthrathlir spoke, moving to nuzzle his face under Nonvul’s body.

The priest reached out and hugged onto his snout tightly, eyes squeezed tight. “I’m sorry Gruthrathlir. I should do better. I’m sorry I have only grown weak from this.”

The dragon nuzzled into his chest slowly, pushing him back against the altar. “Not weak. Never weak. Only wounded. Wounds heal. My priest is not weak.”

Nonvul took a deep breath, running his hands along the soft scales under Gruthrathlir’s jaw. “No god could be kinder than you to forgive blunders like mine,” he whispered.

“No servant could replace one such as you,” Gruthrathlir replied, unsure of how else to speak his feelings. Nonvul was not like others. Nonvul was his priest, and he could not be replaced. None before him could even come close. And he felt pain to see his priest grieving.

Nonvul snorted weakly. “Surely, any could be better than I at this point. I must be disappointing you deeply.”

The dragon chuckled. “If I was displeased with you, I might have eaten you,” he teased, opening his mouth to gently place his teeth around Nonvul’s shoulder. He did not bite down though, and quickly let go to press his face against the man’s chest again. “This wound is not fatal. You will heal. You will burn bright again,” the dragon assured, before finally pulling his face away.

Nonvul looked up at the dragon, leaning back against the altar. “I pray that I will. If all else fails, I will for you milord.”

The wail that escaped the priest’s throat boiled the rage in the dragon’s chest. Gruthrathlir had hardly landed on the ground before Nonvul’s arms were around his snout, the human’s face pressed against the scales as hot tears cascaded down his face. The man let out another weak cry as the dragon coiled his body around the priest’s.

They had been betrayed. And he had lead the betrayal.

And he was gone now.

Nonvul’s body leaned heavily against Gruthrathlir’s snout as his wings wrapped around him to block out the snow and the sound of the man’s grieving. Gruthrathlir took the silence as a chance to understand himself what had happened.

Miraak had been plotting to betray them. He understood now that, perhaps, that was what had caused him to leave his priest. Nonvul would never have betrayed the dragons, and he was right to have known Nonvul was far more faithful, the dragon bitterly realized. His priest was as righteous and loyal as he had always said, and far more than that so-called allegiance guide. Nonvul remained truthful to his name. Amidst the anger, he felt proud his priest had not succumbed to the traitor’s ranks. But in that, he understood his priest’s pain. Nonvul had believed. Nonvul had so deeply believed in Miraak, in what he was named for, in him. Gruthrathlir begrudgingly admitted to himself that he had too at first.

At least nineteen of his brethren had fallen and been devoured by Miraak at his last stand before he was slain, along with his three treacherous companions. Gruthrathlir could not swallow the loss of so many of his kin. Gone. Dead. Truly gone. It made him tremble with rage. He had not been told of the attack, and he was certain he would have joined if he had known. But as much as he wished to believe he would have been strong enough not to fall to the traitor, he knew full well that may not have been the case. Zokgaaftu had fought against his brethren, enslaved by some power of Miraak’s. Miraak had turned dragons against their own kin. He had severed the land itself.

Nonvul’s grip tightened on Gruthrathlir’s snout.

Nonvul had courted a dangerous beast.

Gruthrathlir did not need to say anything to the man. He simply remained there with his face pressed into the priest’s robes, sheltering him from the storm. What words could encompass either’s pain anyways?

“Krosis.”

This time, it was not an apology. It was not an expression of their pain.

It was his name.

Krosis’s heavy gaze stared at the snow below Gruthrathlir’s perch, before he slowly nodded. “Yes, milord?” His voice was as empty as the winds around them.

Gruthrathlir’s scales bristled. His priest, his beloved priest. Nonvul, the noble, the honorable, with his bronze mask and his brightness, his eager loyalty and servitude.

They had not approached him and asked him, his patron, for permission. They had not asked him to rename his priest. No, they had stripped that from him. They had stripped the dragon of his own honor as they stripped his darling priest of his own, by taking his name and making him an apology.

Gruthrathlir’s anger boiled once more. In the aftermath of their betrayal, while all were still reeling from the pain and loss of brethren and healing from their treachery, the hidden relationship had come to light, and though no punishment would come the dragon and his priest had become laughing stocks of the others.

How could you let your priest mingle with such a traitor? How could you have let him break the rules? Your priest was with the traitors. Perhaps he could be one of them. At least he was foolish enough to be with one. You were foolish enough to allow it.

Accusations. Sneers. Jabs.

Gruthrathlir did not waver. He didn’t care to. The other dragons would be angry at anything they could now. Miraak was dead, and far out of their grasps. Perhaps Gruthrathlir was the closest thing they had left to the snake for them to turn their anger towards. It was misplaced, but Gruthrathlir would weather it.

But his priest…

Gruthrathlir descended to the ground as he always had.

Krosis. The betrayal ripped open a wound that was still healing and tore it deeper. Gruthrathlir wondered if perhaps this time it would be fatal, or if his dear priest would simply bleed out.

He did not press his snout to the priest. He held it at arm’s length, staring down at the man’s mask. Did he blame him for this?

Slowly, Krosis reached a hand out. He did not place it on his patron’s face as he used to, but instead left it to linger just a few inches away. Did his patron hate him?

Gruthrathlir pressed his snout against the man’s hand, pushing it back until his face came to rest against the man again. Slowly, Krosis wrapped his arms around Gruthrathlir, the cold mask pressing against the scales instead of his warm skin.

“I have failed you,” he whispered, voice metallic under the mask.

“You have never failed me,” the dragon replied, his voice much softer than once could imagine from a dragon. “Never.”

Krosis’s heart ached. His patron never gave up on him. Somehow, despite it all, his patron always believed in him. He was never deserving of such a just god. “There is talk of rebellion,” he whispered, tightening his grip on the dragon’s face.

“I know,” Gruthrathlir replied softly. “My brothers laugh of it. They believe no such harm could come of it.”

“Do you believe that?”

“No.”

Wind howled through the stones.

Miraak’s rebellion had sparked something in the hearts of others. Or, perhaps, it had simply shown others their chance. Krosis and Gruthrathlir were not fools. Their time was starting to run short.

“I will remain by your side until the very end, Lord Gruthrathlir,” Krosis ensured, his voice still strained. He was trying to redeem himself. Trying to prove he was not so shameful.

Gruthrathlir did not need it. His priest had never needed redemption. “As I know you will,” the dragon rumbled. “Until the end.”

Through the fighting that broke out in their temple.

Through the long years of marching their people to safety.

Until Krosis’s body fell for the last time in the blood-soaked snow.

Until his beloved priest was taken into the arms of his people to be buried.

Until his sarcophagus had been abandoned at the top of Shearpoint.

Until his beloved priest’s slayers came to slay him as well.

Gruthrathlir promised.

His people were a loss. They had fled at the sight of their pursuers, leaving Krosis’s sarcophagus ajar in the snow where they’d simply dropped it and ran. It had taken the dragon to right it and push the lid back on over his companion before he shoved it to the side of a old word wall.

I will see you again.

Even as the painful jab of a spear broke through his chest and sundered the last breath from him, Gruthrathlir clung to those words. They had lost this fight, but another day…

His white scales glistened with blood in the weak rays of light that pierced through the clouds overhead as he made his last few limps to where the sarcophagus had been hidden under a pile of snow. The great beast collapsed, his head coming to rest a few feet from his companion’s resting place. Men gathered closer towards him, weapons pointed and ready to attack again.

The dragon’s eyes closed. That was fine. He would be there. He had buried his priest under the snow and a layer of ice so that their pursuers might leave it be.

He would see him again. That he was sure of. He would see him again when he awoke again.

The thought brought a smile to the dragon’s lips as he exhaled his last breath.

[leftwriteb]

E3 2018 Predictions: EA & Ubisoft

While the winter and fall might give gamers a sweet array of games to dig into, summer brings us to the week of craziness that is E3. With publishers and console power houses hosting events to showcase their biggest and best games on the way, we break down what we’d imagine we will see from this years event, this time from EA and Ubisoft. Here’s what to expect as well as what we hope to see.

-ELECTRONIC ARTS-

Electronic Arts has found themselves in a precarious situation the past few years, having fallen from grace and instead being seen by many as the boogeyman of publishing studios. With the entire landscape of the industry having shifted following the launch of Star Wars Battlefront II, both in regard to industry practice and the patience of gamers, EA needs to exercise some restraint and earn back the trust of many. The focus for them this year will likely be quality over quantity.

Battlefield V

One thing we know we will see more of is this years rendition of Battlefield. As mentioned already, with EA and Dice having received huge backlash from their efforts to uphold micro transactions in Star Wars Battlefront II last year, they have to approach this game with caution and show that they've learned from their mistakes.

With Call of Duty having already returned to the frontlines of WWII, the reveal that Battlefield V is doing the same means EA will also have to do what it can to show what BFV has to offer over it’s longterm rival. What’s more, the focus for EA here will likely be on multiplayer, instead showcasing an array of maps, modes and content to keep people interested. While they may show a little of the campaign, EA will want to focus on showing they can earn your trust back in multiplayer games and will instead be showcasing what's new for the series.

Given the uproar Dice and EA have faced previously, and with the continued ridiculous outcry about representation and historical accuracy that we’ve discussed further on here, a particular focus will be on the customisation and levelling systems within the game and how much variety there is for players. Microtransactions will undoubtedly return but EA will tread carefully and stress they’re only cosmetic and can be earned through regular gameplay anyway. What we will see from Battlefield V will be familiar but with as much positive spin as they can muster.

STAR WARS FROM RESPAWN ENTERTAINMENT?

That isn't the only big IP we might see this year, with the next game from Respawn Entertainment potentially showing up too, the project announced way back on Star Wars Day 2016. Not much has been revealed about the project so far, so it's about time we get a few details. Following the heartbreaking news that Star Wars: 1313 was cancelled, and that Visceral Games closure meant their mid-development Star Wars game was being refocused under other studios, news from Respawn is a nice counterwieght.

As mentioned already, caution will be key as any Star Wars game coming from EA will likely be under incredible scrutiny. Coming from the same team that brought us the great but underappreciated Titanfall series, the game is supposedly a 3rd person action game. Either way, with the trepidation it could face, we will likely only get a small tease for the game, at best a trailer. What's more important though is that they'll be more focused on providing small but tantilising details for the game, helping to set it up for a more positive response when it does surface properly

NEW Dead Space?

With Respawn offering us a more light-hearted space adventure, it could well be time for something at the other end of the spectrum with perhaps a new Dead Space game and I think this year we may see this once glorious sci-if horror return. EA has shown, albeit with Mass Effect Andromeda, that they’re willing to push strong series in new (but maybe questionable) directions and may well do the same with Dead Space.

As mentioned above, EA caught further flak for the closure of the series original developers Visceral Games - so we know that team won't be working on a Dead Space game. But could we see them revive the series and put it in the hands of a new studio? This could be a chance for them to offer something a little different from their focus on multiplayer games and equally offer something that stands out amongst the jam-packed slate of games coming over the next 18 months.

It's been a long time since the release of Dead Space 3 back in February 2013, so now seems like a good time to bring the series back, especially given the rise of horror games in recent years. With the genre for the most part being pushed by smaller developers, a larger "AAA" title like Dead Space 4 would provide something meatier and show that EA hasn't given up entirely on singleplayer games.

ANTHEM

That's not all we can expect from sci-fi games though, with huge excitement tailing Anthem, the next game from BioWare. With the game being created by a majority of the team behind the original Mass Effect trilogy, there's lofty expectations from the game, especially after the extended look at gameplay we've seen that promises huge potential and scale.

With the game due to be with us by March 2019, the release is fast approaching so EA will be focusing heavily on the title in order to peak interest as much as possible. Extended gameplay will be on show and, just as with Battlefield V, the key will be showing players that Anthem will have everything players want without repeating the mistakes of the past that have shaken and soured EA so much.

With a huge fanbase having been built around Mass Effect, EA will be hoping for a similar effect for Anthem; with the game offering what could be insanely fun multiplayer, we might well get some fun but awfully scripted co-op voice chat in the demo, but customisation and variety will be front and centre. This section will likely end with a story focused trailer, reaffirming that BioWare can and will deliver a great sci-fi story next March.

PLANTS VS ZOMBIES 3?

Of course, EA has a far reaching grasp and will want to offer something for slightly different audiences. One established IP they can rely on is that of Plants VS Zombies, with a new game in the series not out of the question. The previous two games received a surprisingly sizeable following after the series moved to consoles and became more of a wave-defence game.

It's not likely that we'll see anything surprising from the game, with the core mechanics and gameplay likely receiving little more than some fine tuning and expansion to offer something familiar but new. Plants VS Zombies will be where EA can offer splitscreen multiplayer in an age where online seems to be the focus, and further still can offer something for the younger gamers too.

SPORTS, SPORTS, SPORTS - AND MAYBE SKATE 4?

Naturally though, EA showcases wouldn't be complete without their fair share of sports, sports and more sports. While we could cover this, it's an element that's easily predictable and something we don't massively care for... but there is one sort-of-sport game that we could see from EA this year that might turn some heads: what if Skate 4 is revealed?

Skate was a series that saw some incredible traction in the past but that has now been absent, along with skateboarding games as a whole, for some time. With the Tony Hawk's games having fallen to the wayside and with Skate 3 seeing a small but considerable resurgence after its inclusion in Xbox backwards compatibility, now seems like a great time to reveal a new game in the series and fill that deck-shaped gap in the market.

-UBISOFT-

Ubisoft are often seen as creatures of habit, usually announcing sequels or DLC plans for existing game and series. The key for Ubisoft is to show some restraint and double-down on their strengths. While a host of new announcements is good, Ubisoft need to show that they're investing sufficient time into their projects to ensure they're worth investment from players on day one. They've shown with games like The Division, Rainbow Six: Siege and For Honor that they're willing to put in the effort to reshape and improve games long after their release, but increasingly solid foundations is what they need to get right.

ASSASSINS CREED: ODYSSEY

One game we know will surface during the Ubisoft presentation is Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, something that was announced recently as we reported here. In years past, Ubisoft spaced out the releases of the games to give it a little breathing room and to improve the quality following the disastrous launch of Assassin's Creed: Unity. With the new game looking like a follow-up to last years Origins, and with the game likely releasing so soon, Ubisoft has to be cautious.

They will want to take their time with this new title and show that, despite the shortened development time, it will be well worth players time. With Origins having introduced stronger RPG mechanics to the series, Odyssey is likely to strengthen and expand on these mechanics and introduce even more, with rumours circulating that dialogue options will be added too.

Ubisoft will try to show a little of everything for Odyssey and reaffirm that the series is back and better than ever, the coverage ending with release date. When this will be is hard to say given how busy the next months will be for releases, but it likely wont be too far away.

BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 2

What's going to be more tricky for Ubisoft than keeping Creed in good stead is to meet the expectations of fans for Beyond Good & Evil 2, the title having been shown only a little since the reveal at E3 last year. With the introduction of "The Space Monkey Program" for the game, a system that offers select fans the chance to play it early and offer feedback, it's clear the title is a long time from release but given the sizeable following, it's a game that will be drip-fed to fans to keep them interested.

We probably won't see an awful lot from the game this year either, with even the platforms for release having not been confirmed. That said, a slightly closer look at the gameplay will probably given while stressing that development is still going strong. If we are lucky we may get a tentative year of release, though if we do I'd expect that to be subject to change.

THE DIVISION 2

Of course, there's another series that will surface during Ubisoft's show: The Division 2.  Officially announced back in March, the original game saw success both critically and commercially and is one of the big titles that saw extensive support and reworking after launch. With the game having proven its longevity, a new entry in the series has a great foundation to build on.

Unlike the original, the timeframe between reveal and release will be considerably less. What's more, with some criticism being given due to the difference between the original Divisions gameplay presentation and the final product, the gameplay we will undoubtedly see will be far more representative of the final game. An emphasis on enhanced gameplay and customisation will be made, showing how the game has grown over time and how existing mechanics will be expanded and improved.

That said, thanks to the previous work of EA, a point will be made of how lootboxes will likely only be cosmetic (though this was a policy that was applied to the original until that  changed later in its life cycle), as well as how there will be a greater wealth of content in the game at launch that the predecessor.

NEW SPLINTER CELL TITLE?

The Divison won't be the only Tom Clancy property to surface at E3 though, with all signs pointing to a new Splinter Cell game potentially being in the works. Interest in the idea peaked back in April when a new mission was added to Ghost Recon: Wildlands that saw a surprise visit from none other than Sam Fisher himself, voiced once again by veteran voice actor Michael Ironside.

It's been a long time since Fisher has graced our screens, with Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist having now released back in 2013. While the small amount of evidence above seems circumstantial, the likelihood that Ubisoft would have included the crossover just for fun is unlikely, especially when you consider they went out their way to get Ironside back. With the series having been abscent for some time and with other stealth games having adopted open-world mechanics that push stealth slightly aside, a game that truly focuses on stealth once again is perhaps what players need and the return of Same Fisher may be what fulfils that.

NEW TRIALS TITLE?

But offering something a little more tempered and casual is the potential return of the Trials series, the last main series game, Trials Fusion, having released back in 2014. While Trials of the Blood Dragon, a Far Cry 3 spin-off based spin-off (of all things) released in 2016, it's been considerable time since a full game itself has released.

Ubisoft needs to supply a little balance in their titles in order to pull in sales from all corners of the gaming glob and a new Trials games could do just that. With a new game able to release during potentially dry spells in their release slate, and with appeal to gamers of all ages, it's the perfect complimentary title to their more time-consuming and action-packed games.

INDIE SUPPORT

That said, Ubisoft can further offer variety with continued support of smaller indie titles as it has done in the past with games like Valiant Hearts, Grow Home and Child of Light. It provides Ubisoft a chance to invest in promising but smaller titles; small risk but potentially great reward.

As mentioned before, this also means that Ubisoft can release a number of smaller titles between their larger IP's and could mean we see a number of great new titles surface. What's more, a lot of these titles will probably show up across multiple platforms, particularly the Switch now that Ubisoft have strengthened their relationship with Nintendo particularly in the last few years. Whether the smaller titles show up here or elsewhere first though is hard to say.

So, that's what we might well see from EA and Ubisoft this year at E3. There's only a few days to go until the event begins so time will tell what's shown but, as always, it'll be an amazing time to be a gamer. So, let us know what you're hoping for, or what you think of our predictions, in the comments below and enjoy this years show!

 [EA's showcase will begin on Saturday 9th of June, 7pm UK time. Ubisoft's showcase will begin on Monday 11th of June, 9pm UK time.]

[earth2craig-blog]

exploring... COLLABORATION

Design Thinking 210, Term 2, Assignment 2

What is collaboration??? 

Collaboration is the act of two or more people working together to produce something.

With that simple definition out of the way, I will explore the act of collaborating MY WAY (ironically not very collaborative at all). This exploration will be based on my personal experiences, as well as referencing two of my three favorite pop culture mediums: Video Games and Movies (the third being Music FYI).

Whether or not collaboration is good or bad is not really up for debate. Collaboration is inevitable and really society is a collaborative effort. Whether you want to or not, an individual at many points of their lives will have to work with others, whether that’s at the workplace, the PTA at your children’s school or even with family preparing your Mother’s Day breakfast (topical as Mother’s Day is this Sunday).

So collaboration...

Why is it important?

As said, collaborating is inevitable, so in order to make sure whatever is being produced is a resounding success, all members need to work well with one another to make it so. I will delve into how collaborating can be effective or ineffective shortly... but first, collaborating is necessary for larger projects or productions, where many hands are needed as a single individual would struggle to do it all alone. Collaboration thus makes it possible to produce things like video games or movies. If these productions were made by a singular individual they would be limited in scope/detail and possibly even appear ‘low budget’. Could you imagine a Marvel movie the same caliber as we are used to; if it were directed and acted and lit and shot by a single individual?... I THINK NOT!!!

The marvel movies are a good example of a large scale collaboration featuring many actors, directors and writers collaborating together to produce a marvel universe across multiple films.

When is it effective?

As talked about when discussing the importance of collaborating; a large scale production of some kind is when collaborating can prove to be effective. 

Or, when the production requires people with varying specialties. If a musician wanted to produce an animated music video, they might seek out an animator/motion designer. Together, these individuals would have to collaborate to produce something that feels right for the music.

And ultimately, any client seeking another parties help to produce something, both client and the employed party need to work together to meet the client’s needs.

It is also effective at solving problems. ‘Many heads are better than one’.

When is it a waste of time?

The reverse of when is it effective to an extent. If the production or project is small enough for a single individual to do correctly on their own, then more hands could complicate the process. ‘Too many cooks in the kitchen’ so-to-speak.

Just to add to the ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ idiom, collaboration can be a waste of time when the discussing gets in the way of action (red tape). I have countless memories as a child of my father coming home and being frustrated with the lack of progress achieved in so-called ‘business meetings’.

And in addition, even if collaboration is justified and needed to accomplish something, it can be a waste of time when members of the collaboration collaborate poorly. Whether that’s working improperly or inadequately, or not being open to other input, or poor leadership, etc. Bad collaboration is bad (this sentence is purposefully written this way - to state the obvious)...

On the topic of bad collaboration... What are possible contributing factors that can result in collaboration resulting in failure or poor results?

Oooh boy. Where do I begin... Speaking from experience, and as mentioned when answering the previous question, when one or more individuals don’t do their work properly; whether that’s not performing tasks assigned to their specialty or profession correctly or on time, or even just not giving any input or they communicate poorly, etc... Anyone that has had a group assignment for a class may have experienced this. There is a large number of ways for individuals to make the process difficult for the others they collaborate with. Collaboration requires trusting everyone to do their part.

Leadership plays a vital role, especially in a typical collaboration (an explanation of what a typical collaboration is will be given later in this text). If leadership is not open to others input, or ask too much of the others working on the production, then that skewed dynamic can skew the result of the production. A good leader needs to know that they may not know everything and that they may not always be right. Unfortunately, sometimes power corrupts.

The upcoming Sonic movie backlash (based on a video game character) is a good example of poor leadership, in the way that the (lead) CG designers made the design decision to stray away from Sonic’s original design by Square Enix (with horrifying results). Sonic is a cultural icon and the decision to stray away from Sonic’s original design is somewhat of an insult to both the fans of the character and the original creators of the character. Jim Sterling in his YouTube video very passionately and elaborately discusses this particular topic, the image is a screenshot of said video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qacb7ZQoeYQ&list=UUWCw2Sd7RlYJ2yuNVHDWNOA&index=4.

The next two images are by another YouTube channel, YongYea, where he also discusses the Sonic design along with diving into social media platforms to show how some people have edited the image to show a more true to the original design. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q0__RrgJh8&t=931s. Since the backlash, it has been announced that Sonic will be redesigned before the movie release in 9 months.

Leadership can also fail in the opposite way. By not giving a clear brief or structure or ‘vision’ for the production.

Anthem falls into the category of a lack of clear vision from leadership. Anthem is a game published by EA and developed by Bioware. I could go into great detail regarding this game and the many factors that may have contributed to it disappointing its player base, and it losing both half the aforementioned players that bought into the ‘live service’ game and also halved its price tag in most retail stores only a month or two after its release. According to a Kotaku article by Jason Schreier, one of the reasons for it to be a poor product is a lack of a clear design vision.

A quote from the article reads: “One of the things we struggled with was, we didn’t understand the game concept,” said one former BioWare Austin developer. “When Anthem was presented to us, it was never really clear what the game was.”

Here is a link to the full article if interested (be warned, it is very detailed and in depth over the many, many issues that caused the development to go awry):

https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964.

The client or employer can also make the task difficult, by making unreasonable or unclear demands. Clients/employers can also not do what is required of them properly or on time and that can slow the process.

Electronic Arts as mentioned is the publisher of Anthem along with many other games. EA has quite publicly announced that it aims to focus developing games as ‘live services’ only. Essentially games that players play online with others that encourage “recurring spending”. I’ll be honest in admitting that I dislike EA quite a bit. By forcing their developers to ONLY develop live services when they may have little to no experience developing that type of game, or taking a past franchise and trying to turn it into a live service that then creates a lesser version of that franchise as a result. In this way they make the design process difficult for all game designers and developers working in collaboration with one another. Furthermore, they also insist their developers develop games using EA’s ‘Frostbite Engine’, which often proves not to be a good tool to develop the game and causes many problems during development that then need time to be solved.

And then there is the trap of producing something nobody wants or is interested in. Essentially this could be summed up in design speak as ‘solving the wrong problem’.

Lawbreakers is a First-Person Shooter game published by Nexon and developed by Boss Key Productions. It tried to sell itself as better than already established First-Person Shooter games and at a better price, however, it ended up selling very few copies and in less than a year came offline. This was a bit of a surprise to most video game analysts, game journalists and especially surprising for the developers and publisher, because during it’s beta and pre-release it had a following and traction. One of the core reasons later decided for it not selling well was that the market was already over-saturated with these sorts of games and there were too many new and more popular games also released at the same time as the Lawbreakers release date. There wasn’t a need or desire for players to own a new FPS game as most players already owned multiple or could play others for free, and as a result, Lawbreakers didn’t hit any target audience. The second image is a screenshot from the Pretty Good Games YouTube channel where they discuss the games eventual abandonment by the publishers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suIkpFufNYA.

So in conclusion, essentially everyone at every level has the ability to complicate and lessen the quality of the collaborative production.

What is the difference between typical and radical collaboration?

‘Radical collaboration’ is a term I have never heard before until now for this assignment. I found a description of what radical collaboration is on this website:

https://www.inc.com/michael-graber/radical-collaboration-mindset-over-process.html. Quoting the article, if I may:

“The first mindset is fostering a sense of radical collaboration, meaning that we all work in multidisciplinary teams and that we explore ideas, insights, and concepts fearlessly as equal team members.”

and “Under radical collaboration no one will "pull rank" and everyone will listen respectfully to one another; hence the word "radical.".

So typical collaboration is your usual, corporate structure of people working together. With there being leaders at the top of a ladder and people working under them, thus leaders have more power and say.

Radical collaboration tries to make everyone equals in the collaborative process, at least at certain phases of the development. Ultimately radical collaboration seems to try to eliminate some of the issues I mentioned earlier that could result in the collaboration producing a poor result. Poor leadership, lack of creativity, solving the right problem, etc.

What guidelines need to be in place for collaboration to be helpful?

I think that there need to be roles. While everyone has an equal say, and can contribute both an individual and specialized opinion or idea to the production or problem being tackled, people will ultimately still produce work under their area of expertise.

Taking what someone else in another profession says under advisement when working on your aspect of the collaboration should be encouraged.

An open, respectful and non-judgmental space needs to be adhered to.

Leadership or management positions/roles are not there to be dictators but should rather facilitate a constructive and structured collaborative experience while also keeping track of the various aspects of the collaboration. That’s not to say that the leadership can’t have a say, or even overrule a decision. They, just like everyone else, need to be open to everyone else’s ideas.

Do the research. Who is it for? And what do they need/want? Don’t assume to know best.

Leadership should also make sure that everyone is clear on the goal and ‘vision’ of the collaboration.

And then simple stuff. Communicate clearly, and do the work in earnest. I think there also needs to be room to fail. An individual or group of people may stumble upon a problem when working on their end, and there needs to be the understanding that these things take time to solve rather than applying pressure or discomfort on those individuals.

Who should you collaborate with?

Is this a trick question? I’ve got a trick answer. You should collaborate with anyone and everyone. It doesn’t matter how similar or different you are. It is less about who you collaborate with and more about how you collaborate. On the presumption that those you work with strive to collaborate effectively and do their part; it doesn’t matter if their personality, culture, religion or even their taste in music differs from yours. It can be a constructive process. Perhaps it is even more beneficial to work with someone that differs greatly from you in their experiences and beliefs.

Who do you want to collaborate with?

I don’t have a single individual in mind. But... I know that I want anyone I work with to be respectful, have an open mind, communicate effectively and appropriately, be creative, be passionate, take pride in their work and work diligently. That to me sounds like the perfect individual or individuals to work with.

Who should you avoid collaborating with?

The opposite of what I just listed (funny enough). I think even one opposite trait to the ideal collaborative individual I listed in the earlier question is a deal breaker. If they are disrespectful, then no. If they are closed-minded or stubborn, no. If they communicate poorly or infrequently when needed, no. Everyone has the capacity to be creative so I don’t think it’s fair to assume someone can not be creative. If the quality of work they produce is inadequate, however, or doesn’t get done in time or at all, then I would not want to work with that individual. That being said, it is not often that you get a choice in who you work with.

[mortiel]

Tim Sweeney Defending Epic Games’ Anti-Consumer Practices

Epic Games' founder Tim Sweeney has been responding on Twitter to a lot of criticism over Epic Games Store's tactic of paying publishers up front for exclusivity deals. Source link is at the button of this post, but let me get started debunking this marketing narrative:

The whole thesis here is that stores should be free to compete, and gamers and developers should be free to use stores of their choosing, which is exactly what is happening here today.

Blocking your competitor's access to products is not competition. It is literally the opposite.

Surely competition between stores is healthy, especially when it results in significant savings for developers (30% vs 12%), which can then be reinvested in future games or passed on to gamers.

Citation needed. There is no evidence that shows a publisher/developer not having to pay Steam a 30% cut will be reinvested into future games or passed on to gamers. Furthmore, you fail to account for Steam's newly introduced variable revenue share, which shaves the cost-benefit of Steam versus Epic Games Store (EGS), which is something you consistently do any time you talk on this subject, but I digress.

As counter examples: EA and Activision-Blizzard have their games now launching exclusively on their own stores. They don't even pay 12% of their sales because it's direct-to-publisher. Let's compare claims versus reality, shall we?

  Do they charge less for their games? Nope. They, in fact, charge $60 at minimum with "special" versions running well above $100.

Do they create a higher quantity of games? Nope. The quantity of games that both publishers have been funding has been steadily decreasing year-over-year.

Do they now create higher-quality games that are critically-acclaimed and award winning? Nope. In fact, their games have been getting increasing amounts of negative publicity.

Do they pass the savings on to consumers with less alternative monetisation models? Nope. They have actually been heavily criticised for over-monetising games.

Conversely, CD Projekt Red released the award-winning game The Witcher 3 on their own GOG store and on Steam. Somehow, even with paying the 30% cut to Valve, they have invested heavily into their next title, Cyberpunk 2077 by having a 60% larger development team.

Facts do not support your claim, therefore it is false.

Love us or hate us, we are certainly fostering economic competition between stores, out of a firm belief that this will ultimately benefit all developers and gamers. A store can only succeed in overturning the 30% fee precedent if it provides solid reasons for everyone to use it, developers and gamers alike. Free game giveaways, better prices, and exclusives are the big things here.

I can agree that a store can only succeed if it provides a good value proposition to consumers. Free game giveaways and better prices can do a bit, but ultimately can reduce profitability and the ability to invest profits into improving your product.

Buying exclusives can give you a short-term boost to revenue, but will ultimately either destroy your store or the entire PC gaming market due to standardising monopolistic practices. It is the "Scorched Earth" policy of gaming.

Conversely, and I know this is difficult to comprehend, but making a software that offers competitive features to Steam might also be an option... You know, the actual way that other companies create healthy competition with each other?

Compare to how Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, HBO, and others fund unique content to provide reasons to use their services. If everyone offers the same exact selection, then the most established store typically stays dominant for decades.

Is there a consumer right to buy any product in any store of your choosing? Do we have the right to buy a Toyota at a Ford dealer? A Whopper at McDonald’s? No; stores compete on selection as well as price and features.

This is a load of false-equivalency nonsense. Epic is not publishing the games it is locking into exclusivity deals. Netflix, Amazon, HBO, Hulu... They all are producing the content they have as exclusive content. Even with that, exclusivity is actually currently low on the value-proposition to consumers for these platforms. Start-up streaming services like CBS' offering are suffering because they launched with exclusivity as the entire premise.

Then you continue the false equivalency with citing Toyota at a Ford dealership and a Whopper at a McDonald's. Again, these are products created first party and sold first-party. Burger King doesn't have Joe's Burger Shack make Whoppers but only allow them to be sold at Burger King.

However, the US car dealership system is actually a major fucking monopoly where the car maker has to approve a dealership selling inventory and prevents a competitor's inventory from being sold at that same dealership, which is why you see "Chevy/GMC/Cadillac" or "Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge" dealerships and not "Ford/Chevy/Dodge" dealerships. Citing car dealerships is about the worst comparison you could have made in trying to make this point but it's actually extremely relevant because this is the future you are pushing everyone towards.

I’ve been following this very closely and understand that people who prefer to buy games on Steam prefer not to deal with a second store. But developers will never escape Steam’s 300% to 500% markup on operating costs if all games are on Steam at equal prices.

I love the citing Steam's "300% to 500% markup on operating costs" in order to use big numbers as a scare tactic with no backing evidence, but have to qualify that by saying "if all games are on Steam at equal prices" yet neither of those qualifications are true. Not all games are on Steam and not all games, even those on Steam, are at equal prices.

Steam has veto power over prices, so if a multi-store developer wishes to sell their game for a lower price on the Epic Games store than Steam, then: 1) Valve can simply say “no” 2) Pricing disparity would likely anger Steam users, leading to review bombing, etc

This is a situation you have fabricated to be a problem. Valve has never even hinted at any sort of "veto power" on pricing. In fact, they allow third-party stores like Green Man Gaming to sell games as Steam keys at whatever prices and don't even take this allegedly-oppressive 30% cut on the sale.

Pricing disparity would have an initial backlash, especially if marketed wrong. If you marketed it as a "feature offering", probably not so much. If you charged me $52 on Steam for Metro Exodus but $45 on EGS, citing the extra features of Steam as being the reason for the higher price, people would be more inclined to understand.

Furthermore, you are consistently spinning the narrative about review-bombing that I will get to in later comments. Suffice to say that review-bombing is entirely the fault of the game publisher/developer failing to properly communicate with consumers.

There I am criticizing Microsoft “curtailing users’ freedom to install full-featured PC software, and subverting the rights of developers and publishers to maintain a direct relationship with their customers”, not exclusives. No, I was criticizing Microsoft’s intentions to block competing stores from Windows.

You were also creating a hypothetical situation that Microsoft had made no actual claim of doing. Regardless, buying exclusives in order to prevent competitor access is no different. The result is eliminating competition in both cases.

We’re investing in lots of interesting things over different time scales, and the longer-term ones will have a lot more opportunity for polish as we build more store and online feature and have longer time spans to collaborate with developers.

We’re working to make the Epic Games store work offline. Launching online-only was the result of our decision to use a dynamic web based framework to build the store, with the unfortunate side effect that supporting offline requires further work.

There is no excuse for a multi-billion dollar company to release a competing solution to an existing platform and have it scarce on established features. These are things you should have included from launch, but you were trying to shave costs in order to have more money to bribe publishers/developers instead of actually competing with Valve.

However, I can't say this is only EGS failing here... The reason why Steam is so uncontested as the most popular PC store platform is largely because no one else has made a product that comes even close to competing feature-for-feature.

We’re working on a review system for the Epic Games store based on the existing one in the Unreal Engine marketplace. It will be opt-in by developers. We think this is best because review bombing and other gaming-the-system is a real problem.

Reviews are the life-blood of a healthy consumer-business relationship. Given the choice, every major publisher will opt-out of this in order to blind consumers before making a purchase decision because they think it will lead to better sales. Unfortunately for those publishers, that always blows back in their face, as evidenced by EA's tumbling stocks and poor sales performance.

More importantly, there is this current narrative making the rounds in the gaming "news" blog sites like Kotaku that "review-bombing" is a "major" problem caused by entitled, immature consumers. That kind of condescending mindset is exactly why review-bombing happens. It's an occasional problem caused by businesses failing to listen to their consumers, usually in order to pursue higher profits. Since consumers see their voice heard less and less (hence businesses failing to listen), review-bombing is one of the few ways consumers have to make their voices heard in which businesses have been shown to listen. The solution is to be an ethical business that genuinely listens to consumers, not to further restrict avenues for feedback.

If you would like a citation on that front, please look at Digital Extremes. They have one of the most positive communities in gaming right now with Warframe, due in no small part to their active pursuit in communicating with their consumers. I don't see their games getting review bombed, do you? In other words, be more like DE and less like EA.

It is clear that the decision to make reviews optional at the behest of the publisher/developer is designed to attracted corporate AAA publishers that are prone to ignoring consumer feedback and unpopular decisions, like Bethesda. However, at no point have you cited with this example how this benefits the consumer in any way. That's probably because it doesn't.

[on Steam] That’s a lot of features, but all of these features together likely don’t cost more than a fraction of a percent to operate. We’re working to release them.

Citation needed. I can say, from experience, that cloud storage alone is expensive.

Because they’re not done. Keep in mind that most developers make less than a 30% profit margin, and are decidedly not okay with stores making more profit from their own games than they do.

Conflating revenue with profit. Valve does not make a 30% profit margin. They make a 30% revenue split off a game. Publishers/developers make a 70% revenue split. Tim Sweeney is an industry veteran, so I know he is keenly aware of this distinction, which makes this a deliberately misleading statement.

This is all designed to spread this false narrative that Steam is some big bad bully picking on poor wittle publishers like EA, Activision-Blizzard, and Bethesda. Let the comedy of that statement sink in for a minute.

Source: https://wccftech.com/tim-sweeney-defends-epic-games-store/

[cathrynstreich]

Quitting Quayside: what’s next for Sidewalk Labs and investment in smart cities of the future?

[Editor’s note: Originally published on AEC Labs]

After wending its master site development plan through three years of revisions spurred by public opposition and data privacy concerns, project approvals for Sidewalk Labs’ Quayside “smart city” project in Toronto were set for a June 25 vote. But recently, in an open post on Medium, CEO Dan Doctoroff announced that Sidewalk is dropping the project. Even in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the news came as a surprise, given the deep pockets and recent momentum behind the project.

Quayside was meant to be a 12-acre development that would be the gateway to a much larger 800-acre project on Toronto’s industrial lakefront. Featuring cross-laminated timber (CLB) buildings, subterranean e-commerce delivery access points, and, ultimately, a “data trust” to help planners and technocrats improve the Quayside experience for residents and businesses alike, Sidewalk’s mission for the development was to “integrate physical, digital, and policy innovations to produce dramatic improvements in quality of life and generate significant economic opportunity” for Torontonians.

In data we (don’t) trust?

But three years ago Sidewalk’s initial plans for Quayside were met with immediate criticism from local community groups and data privacy activists. They voiced concerned with, among other things, the public subsidies Toronto was dangling for the development arm of one of the biggest and most powerful companies in history, as well as many perceived “surveillance capitalism” technologies in Sidewalk’s plans.

The backlash to Amazon’s HQ2 initiative in Long Island City, which led the retailer to pull out of the project early last year, led to further speculation that something similar could happen to Quayside. And despite scaling back its plans and performing heavy engagement with the public a “Block Sidewalk” citizens group sprung up to fight the development. Yet after Sidewalk seemed to successfully navigate the post-Amazon HQ2 landscape, it appeared Quayside was back on track, albeit with a smaller footprint and a commitment to data privacy and transparency.

But, as Doctoroff wrote, “unprecedented economic uncertainty has set in around the world and in the Toronto real estate market, [and] it has become too difficult to make the 12-acre project financially viable without sacrificing core parts of the plan we had developed together with Waterfront Toronto to build a truly inclusive, sustainable community.” Whether that’s entirely the case or if activists should claim victory over Sidewalk’s vision at this point isn’t quite clear.

Shifting focus to infrastructure

This is because Sidewalk isn’t giving up altogether on its mission to improve the urban experience. Its infrastructure investment arm, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), raised $400M from equity investors last fall (including Alphabet). It placed some of the proceeds into its first (and to date only) investment: an AI-powered robotics startup called AMP which automates the processing and sorting of recyclable material in municipal, construction, and demolition waste, increasing the volume of valuable recovered wastes from conveyor belts in its customers’ facilities.

SIP is structured not as a fund but as a “technology-enabled infrastructure” investment company. It’s targeting investment opportunities primarily in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico that seek a minimum of $100M in equity, specifically identifying autonomous vehicles, distributed renewable energy systems, real-time controls, robotics, and machine learning as the types of technologies it will underwrite across a range of infrastructure market sectors.

In describing SIP’s value proposition, Sidewalk Labs’ master development plan for Quayside (MDIP) noted that “[b]ecause the risk-return profile of advanced infrastructure systems differs from traditional infrastructure investments, traditional infrastructure investors may shy away from the investment. . . . Historically, infrastructure as an asset class has been resistant to innovation, resulting in many traditional infrastructure investors mispricing the risks of technology disruption and failing to capitalize on new infrastructure opportunities enabled by technology.”

By eventually deploying its portfolio within larger “smart city” projects from Sidewalk Labs, SIP could close the funding gap for these systems by “reduc[ing] certain risks associated with the new systems, such as absorption risk (i.e. the risk that buyers or renters might be more hesitant to move to a unit with an advanced system). This could attract investors who might not otherwise participate,” the MDIP concluded.

From there, “SIP could then structure a transaction that bundles debt financing negotiated with lenders with equity financing offered by SIP for multiple advanced systems.” This should lower overall project costs and increase the depth and breadth of RFP respondents (by eliminating the requirement that those respondents provide their own capital). If the last year in the infrastructure industry is any indication, with large global players declining to invest additional equity, and many worthy projects hurting for qualified bidders, this is a good idea.

So (un)sexy it hurts

Its investment thesis might not sound as sexy as a smart city of the future (waste management systems, anyone?). But SIP could indeed be well-positioned if future COVID-related stimulus includes funds for infrastructure. And its focus on technologies and companies more resilient in the age of COVID than, say, toll roads or airports, could prove to be shrewd.

For example, SIP will also seek to partner with governments in evaluating opportunities for public-private partnerships (P3s). These will likely increase dramatically as state and local budgets continue to creak because of COVID. And, if the Trump administration ultimately passes infrastructure stimulus, it will likely seek to leverage a relatively small direct federal investment with private funds.

As for Sidewalk Labs, the company plans to use the lessons it learned on Quayside to continue to launch and invest in other forward-thinking, technology-driven, urban-focused companies like Replica (an urban planning tool that uses de-identified location data, launched in Chicago and Kansas City) and Cityblock (a community-based healthcare network). And it will continue to develop the “generative” urban planning and “electrified neighborhood” software tools that it previously launched to support Quayside.

The search for deeper meaning

It’s been a rough few years for mega-projects in the P3 space. But there is still a lot of opportunity out there to help governments bridge the infrastructure funding gap (which stands at $1.5T just to maintain what we’ve got by 2030). And the new technologies that Sidewalk worked on in connection with Toronto could unleash spate of innovation in sectors that are mostly unremarked upon. It’s disappointing that Quayside won’t happen. But its failure to launch could end up being a good thing for the infrastructure market generally if SIP is able to push some of its ideas ahead. That wouldn’t be a bad surprise at all.

The post Quitting Quayside: what’s next for Sidewalk Labs and investment in smart cities of the future? appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

Quitting Quayside: what’s next for Sidewalk Labs and investment in smart cities of the future? published first on https://thegardenresidences.tumblr.com/

[clarencevancleave]

Quitting Quayside: what’s next for Sidewalk Labs and investment in smart cities of the future?

[Editor’s note: Originally published on AEC Labs]

After wending its master site development plan through three years of revisions spurred by public opposition and data privacy concerns, project approvals for Sidewalk Labs’ Quayside “smart city” project in Toronto were set for a June 25 vote. But recently, in an open post on Medium, CEO Dan Doctoroff announced that Sidewalk is dropping the project. Even in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the news came as a surprise, given the deep pockets and recent momentum behind the project.

Quayside was meant to be a 12-acre development that would be the gateway to a much larger 800-acre project on Toronto’s industrial lakefront. Featuring cross-laminated timber (CLB) buildings, subterranean e-commerce delivery access points, and, ultimately, a “data trust” to help planners and technocrats improve the Quayside experience for residents and businesses alike, Sidewalk’s mission for the development was to “integrate physical, digital, and policy innovations to produce dramatic improvements in quality of life and generate significant economic opportunity” for Torontonians.

In data we (don’t) trust?

But three years ago Sidewalk’s initial plans for Quayside were met with immediate criticism from local community groups and data privacy activists. They voiced concerned with, among other things, the public subsidies Toronto was dangling for the development arm of one of the biggest and most powerful companies in history, as well as many perceived “surveillance capitalism” technologies in Sidewalk’s plans.

The backlash to Amazon’s HQ2 initiative in Long Island City, which led the retailer to pull out of the project early last year, led to further speculation that something similar could happen to Quayside. And despite scaling back its plans and performing heavy engagement with the public a “Block Sidewalk” citizens group sprung up to fight the development. Yet after Sidewalk seemed to successfully navigate the post-Amazon HQ2 landscape, it appeared Quayside was back on track, albeit with a smaller footprint and a commitment to data privacy and transparency.

But, as Doctoroff wrote, “unprecedented economic uncertainty has set in around the world and in the Toronto real estate market, [and] it has become too difficult to make the 12-acre project financially viable without sacrificing core parts of the plan we had developed together with Waterfront Toronto to build a truly inclusive, sustainable community.” Whether that’s entirely the case or if activists should claim victory over Sidewalk’s vision at this point isn’t quite clear.

Shifting focus to infrastructure

This is because Sidewalk isn’t giving up altogether on its mission to improve the urban experience. Its infrastructure investment arm, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), raised $400M from equity investors last fall (including Alphabet). It placed some of the proceeds into its first (and to date only) investment: an AI-powered robotics startup called AMP which automates the processing and sorting of recyclable material in municipal, construction, and demolition waste, increasing the volume of valuable recovered wastes from conveyor belts in its customers’ facilities.

SIP is structured not as a fund but as a “technology-enabled infrastructure” investment company. It’s targeting investment opportunities primarily in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico that seek a minimum of $100M in equity, specifically identifying autonomous vehicles, distributed renewable energy systems, real-time controls, robotics, and machine learning as the types of technologies it will underwrite across a range of infrastructure market sectors.

In describing SIP’s value proposition, Sidewalk Labs’ master development plan for Quayside (MDIP) noted that “[b]ecause the risk-return profile of advanced infrastructure systems differs from traditional infrastructure investments, traditional infrastructure investors may shy away from the investment. . . . Historically, infrastructure as an asset class has been resistant to innovation, resulting in many traditional infrastructure investors mispricing the risks of technology disruption and failing to capitalize on new infrastructure opportunities enabled by technology.”

By eventually deploying its portfolio within larger “smart city” projects from Sidewalk Labs, SIP could close the funding gap for these systems by “reduc[ing] certain risks associated with the new systems, such as absorption risk (i.e. the risk that buyers or renters might be more hesitant to move to a unit with an advanced system). This could attract investors who might not otherwise participate,” the MDIP concluded.

From there, “SIP could then structure a transaction that bundles debt financing negotiated with lenders with equity financing offered by SIP for multiple advanced systems.” This should lower overall project costs and increase the depth and breadth of RFP respondents (by eliminating the requirement that those respondents provide their own capital). If the last year in the infrastructure industry is any indication, with large global players declining to invest additional equity, and many worthy projects hurting for qualified bidders, this is a good idea.

So (un)sexy it hurts

Its investment thesis might not sound as sexy as a smart city of the future (waste management systems, anyone?). But SIP could indeed be well-positioned if future COVID-related stimulus includes funds for infrastructure. And its focus on technologies and companies more resilient in the age of COVID than, say, toll roads or airports, could prove to be shrewd.

For example, SIP will also seek to partner with governments in evaluating opportunities for public-private partnerships (P3s). These will likely increase dramatically as state and local budgets continue to creak because of COVID. And, if the Trump administration ultimately passes infrastructure stimulus, it will likely seek to leverage a relatively small direct federal investment with private funds.

As for Sidewalk Labs, the company plans to use the lessons it learned on Quayside to continue to launch and invest in other forward-thinking, technology-driven, urban-focused companies like Replica (an urban planning tool that uses de-identified location data, launched in Chicago and Kansas City) and Cityblock (a community-based healthcare network). And it will continue to develop the “generative” urban planning and “electrified neighborhood” software tools that it previously launched to support Quayside.

The search for deeper meaning

It’s been a rough few years for mega-projects in the P3 space. But there is still a lot of opportunity out there to help governments bridge the infrastructure funding gap (which stands at $1.5T just to maintain what we’ve got by 2030). And the new technologies that Sidewalk worked on in connection with Toronto could unleash spate of innovation in sectors that are mostly unremarked upon. It’s disappointing that Quayside won’t happen. But its failure to launch could end up being a good thing for the infrastructure market generally if SIP is able to push some of its ideas ahead. That wouldn’t be a bad surprise at all.

The post Quitting Quayside: what’s next for Sidewalk Labs and investment in smart cities of the future? appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230574 https://ift.tt/3htRE0p via IFTTT

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Former Vice President Joe Biden picked up two notable endorsements this week. The first was from his former rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who endorsed him on Monday, less than a week after he dropped out of the race. And the second was from his former running mate, former President Barack Obama, who endorsed him on Tuesday.

Both endorsements point to a party coalescing behind its nominee, and Obama’s endorsement, in particular, could be especially influential as he remains popular among Democrats and is seen as a kingmaker in the party. So just how important is Obama’s endorsement, especially at this stage in the primary?

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): How best to put this … Obama’s endorsement is simultaneously completely unsurprising/pro forma and also an important part of political pageantry.

Like, obviously no one doubted that Obama would endorse the eventual Democratic nominee. And I don’t think it will really matter in terms of winning Biden votes in the general election (although I expect we’ll debate that below).

But it is still a nice little bit of free media for Biden and has come to be an expected part of the modern presidential campaign — the old party leader draping his arm around the new one. Certainly without that moment, Biden would have had a problem, as the question of “Why hasn’t Obama endorsed?” would hang over his campaign. So it’s important in that respect.

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): I was just thinking about that as I watched the endorsement video — I’m not sure who would care about the Obama endorsement who wasn’t already basically fine with Biden.

But I do think this is a move to get things going into the general election.

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): It’s pretty typical for a president to eventually endorse his former VP, but it would’ve been far more memorable had Obama publicly endorsed Biden before the Democratic primary was over.

julia_azari: I totally agree with that, Geoffrey. I’ll try to come up with something to disagree about so as to be less boring.

sarahf: Geoffrey also raises something that’s been asked a number of times this primary: Should Obama have backed Biden sooner from the standpoint of Democrats?

nrakich: From Biden’s perspective, of course! From Obama’s perspective, nah.

Obviously, Biden would have loved Obama’s endorsement from the get-go. It would have scared a lot of other contenders out of the race and made him even more of a favorite than he already was. But Obama’s motives may have been different.

geoffrey.skelley: Obama was smart not to publicly endorse until now, as he was able to avoid exacerbating intraparty divisions.

nrakich: Obama also has his legacy to think of. He is beloved by pretty much all corners of the party — why risk that? Also, why risk having your endorsed candidate lose, thus showing that your own party doesn’t care what you have to say anymore?

julia_azari: I think there’s a sense after 2016 (and 2004, and 2000) that assembling a winning coalition for Democrats is tricky and requires a lot of pieces to be in place. And although Bill Clinton endorsed Al Gore in December 1999, helping to clear the field, I think for a variety of reasons that sort of field-clearing would have been ill-advised this time around. The timing and informal politics of presidential nominations have changed.

sarahf: Why is that, Julia?

julia_azari: Part of it has to do with the fallout from 2016 and accusations that the process was “rigged.” While I don’t think that the conspiracy theories about the DNC are right, it is true that (per “The Party Decides”) party actors try to do things like clearing the field for former vice presidents and other establishment-type candidates. Also, it was far from obvious that Biden was going to be the nominee. So as Geoffrey and Nathaniel are saying, if you’re Obama, why stick your neck out to endorse Biden before things are settled?

geoffrey.skelley: However, there are rumors — and some evidence — that Obama may have been moving behind the scenes to get the party’s establishment to coalesce behind Biden right after South Carolina, which may have contributed to the timing of former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s departures and subsequent endorsements of Biden ahead of Super Tuesday.

sarahf: The New York Times reported he met with Sanders’s team at least four times and played a big role in getting Sanders to drop out when he did. That’s … pretty big, right?

geoffrey.skelley: Yeah, I would say convincing Sanders to not extend the primary fight might be a bigger deal than Obama endorsing Biden, if only because a drawn-out primary might have left room for more ruffled feathers and division. I don’t want to overstate things, though, because Sanders was doing much worse than he did in 2016, so he also had some incentive to not hang around this time.

nrakich: Yeah, I think Obama’s reported orchestration of the dropouts of Sanders, Buttigieg or Klobuchar is much more important than Tuesday’s public endorsement. Maybe that was a way for Obama to achieve the outcome of an earlier Biden endorsement without incurring any of its backlash. Obama’s main incentive to endorse Biden earlier would have been if he was strongly opposed to another candidate (i.e., Sanders) and his vision for the party. But he may have decided to address that concern behind the scenes rather than stick his neck out publicly.

julia_azari: And as I noted last year, there were several candidates running in 2020 who might have carried on Obama’s legacy: Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker and Buttigieg. So again, there’s no real incentive for Obama to endorse sooner. In fact, there’s an argument to be made that Biden wasn’t the best candidate to carry on Obama’s legacy despite his closeness to the president. New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz has suggested as much — Biden was selected in 2008 in part because he wouldn’t pose a threat to his legacy by running for president later. Of course, that didn’t pan out, but I think that argument is persuasive.

geoffrey.skelley: It’s worth noting that Obama dissuaded Biden from running against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary, too.

julia_azari: But the main reason I think Obama got in this game so late was the changing norms about competition in presidential primaries (i.e., there should be some rules for when a former president can endorse) and not because it was Biden, his former running mate, per se.

geoffrey.skelley: That makes sense, Julia. If there was a sense that someone was putting a thumb on the scale, that would rankle a significant chunk of the Democratic primary electorate and potentially create more discord.

However, I do think there’s a question of how big a role Obama has played quietly behind the scenes since he left office.

As we know, he played a part in keeping Biden out ahead of 2016, and then it seems as if he played a part in the party coalescing around Biden instead of Sanders in 2020. So maybe he’s always been maneuvering behind the scenes where possible to get his preferred result under the circumstances.

nrakich: Yeah, Geoffrey — maybe Obama has actually always been extremely active in intraparty backroom dealing and we just don’t know the full extent!

geoffrey.skelley: We’ll need someone’s great tell-all book on the subject in a few years to help us out.

sarahf: But some of the timing question must have also had to do with how Obama would handle the role of “sidekick to his former sidekick,” right? That is, there is a real risk that Obama’s star power overshadows Biden, and the primary becomes about him. Take this headline from Politico from a few days ago, for instance: “Barack Obama wins the Democratic primary.”

Obviously, Biden wanted Obama’s endorsement, but I think there’s a real question of how much of a role he wants Obama to have in his campaign moving forward.

julia_azari: I’ve been thinking a lot about this. There’s a very odd role reversal in Obama now being the sidekick because Biden was the more experienced politician to start with.

Also, Biden has embraced the Obama legacy idea in a way that strikes me as somewhat novel. Most former or sitting VPs try to make their own pitch, but Biden has really tried to connect himself to Obama’s legacy. Given the power of norms and normalcy at this moment (even pre-COVID-19, though I think that exacerbates it) it isn’t a dumb political move. But it is sort of uncharted in modern politics, where politicians’ individual qualities are often more important than their affiliations.

This might only be tangentially related, but since the 2016 Republican primary I’ve been thinking a lot about the absence of actors who have real influence. Rep. James Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden showed that there are still some actors with informal influence in the Democratic Party. Obama is another such actor, and perhaps his late entry into the race signals that he understands the scope and potential downsides of that power.

But a healthy party has more people like that and doesn’t rely on popular former presidents — former presidents, for one thing, lack any formal power to go along with their informal influence.

nrakich: As we’ve discussed before, though, Biden doesn’t really have a party-unity problem — at least no more than past nominees.

I just don’t think there’s anyone out there who is saying, “Well, I was on the fence about Biden, but now that Obama has endorsed him, he has my support.”

julia_azari: I think Obama’s endorsement is a signal to less-attentive voters, like, ‘OK, we’re doing this.’

sarahf: Is it possible though, that Obama’s endorsement backfires or is something Trump can use against Biden?

geoffrey.skelley: There’s obviously a major chunk of the Republican base that has great antipathy for Obama, but you’d think most of those voters would already vote for Trump regardless.

nrakich: Right, polarization is king. Most people already know if they are going to vote for Biden or Trump. Obama’s endorsement is unsurprising, so it’s unlikely to make a difference. Heck, even huge news events like impeachment or the coronavirus (so far) barely move the needle.

sarahf: What about Obama’s popularity among the ever-coveted independents?

geoffrey.skelley: I guess it can’t hurt with independents, but Trump’s underwater ratings among them hurts much more than Obama’s endorsement of Biden helps.

julia_azari: One question I have moving forward is whether politicians will have to develop a different calculus to attract news coverage. I expect that stories about the coronavirus will dominate for a long time.

sarahf: Yeah … how much more would Obama’s endorsement have meant if it was him and Biden at a campaign stop when he took the stage in front of hundreds (or thousands) of supporters? I think we’re starting to see some of the real limitations of remote campaigning.

But given what Obama has reportedly done behind the scenes for Biden already (help coalesce the party, get Sanders to drop out) and what he can do now that he’s publicly backed Biden (fundraise, fundraise!), I think that is still a win for Biden at the end of the day.

nrakich: I think that’s right, Sarah. Under normal conditions where the presidential race were still the top story, this would dominate the news cycle (rightly or wrongly), which might lead to a free-media bump for Biden.

sarahf: The timing, though, of Sanders (the rival) endorsing yesterday and Obama (the former commander-in-chief) endorsing today was smart. Especially if Obama helped orchestrate the former.

nrakich: Twitter is not real life, but this is pretty impressive:

NEW: @BarackObama's video endorsing @JoeBiden hit 1 million views on Twitter in 39 minutes, @Twitter says.

— Evan McMurry (@evanmcmurry) April 14, 2020

Although people who are Very Online are probably especially unlikely to be swayed by this!

sarahf: I think you might be underestimating the cues of this, Nathaniel, for less-attentive voters as Julia said.

julia_azari: Yeah, I really stand by my statement that this is a reminder for marginally attentive people that the primary happened, has concluded, and the general election is starting with Biden as the party nominee. And if you liked life under the Obama administration better than now, the former president’s endorsement is telling you, ‘This is the guy.’

nrakich: I’m not trying to minimize that! But I don’t think this is changing minds.

I agree it’s a cue to maybe start tuning in.

And as I said at the beginning, it’s an important part of political pageantry.

julia_azari: Speaking of pageantry, I was struck by just how partisan the announcement was.

Obama accused Republicans of being interested in power, talked about their attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and stressed that some of our democratic values are under attack.

geoffrey.skelley: Maybe that approach is part of trying to make sure that this election is a referendum on the president? Given Trump’s consistently mediocre approval rating, that would seem like a wise approach.

julia_azari: It also tells you that this was about cueing people for the general and not really about consolidating the party at the end of the primary.

sarahf: Which maybe goes back to Nathaniel’s point that it’s less about Obama’s endorsement convincing people to vote for Biden, and more about setting the stage for what’s at stake here in 2020.

But OK, to wrap — just how big of a deal is Obama’s endorsement?

geoffrey.skelley: On a scale from 1 to 10, I give it a … 4? If we knew for sure that he was central in helping get much of the party behind Biden, I would give that a 10 out of 10 for importance.

Encouraging Sanders to drop out, though, that’s like an 8 or 9.

nrakich: I agree with Geoffrey that it would be very important if Obama was helping Biden behind the scenes, but I don’t think of that as the same as this public endorsement. He could have done one without the other.

julia_azari: If we mean “likely to help Biden,” then I give it a 2. If we mean “indicative of other forces around nomination politics,” I give it an 8. I think the real lesson here is that Obama has been pretty involved in politics for a past president. Some of this has to do with the tenor of partisan politics, and some of it has to do with the fact that he’s quite popular and still a pretty young former president.

geoffrey.skelley: The popularity of Obama really stands out to me. George W. Bush was not a much-desired figure at GOP events four years after his presidency, much less during the 2008 campaign to succeed him. Whereas Biden will happily deploy Obama wherever the former president can help, and down-ballot Democrats will love having him, too.

[margaretbeagle]

Reddit Marketing Strategies for Those Who Don’t Have Time for Reddit Marketing

Reddit is one of the most vibrant communities on the Internet and a powerful source of attention. A positive Reddit mention can mean thousands of visits to your website or your product.

Your audience may be there. Opportunities certainly exist there.

Should you be there, too?

It’s a tricky question to answer because one of the first rules for marketing on Reddit — one of the first rules for marketing on any social media site, really — is that you have to be genuinely engaged and committed to the communities you’re part of.

But there’s good news. You can gain so much from the awesome people at Reddit whether or not you have the time to fully dive in. Yes, there are marketing tactics to drive meaningful traffic. But there are also a handful of other ways to benefit by learning from the community, engaging with the community, and building a thoughtful Reddit strategy.

We’ll talk about it all in this post. Come along!

About Reddit Marketing

Reddit is one of the most vibrant communities on the Internet. And one of the largest, with over 300 million active users. 

To put that in perspective, that’s more than …

Twitter

LinkedIn

Snapchat

Pinterest

Yet when you hear about strategies for marketing to social networks, you rarely hear about Reddit. 

This isn’t to disparage all the great guides that people have written about Reddit marketing. They’re really good! These guides have some great tips in them, which we’ll do our best to condense into the most actionable takeaways that you can put to good use today. 

So why does Reddit fly under-the-radar when it comes to social media marketing options? 

Well, one of the key things to note about Reddit is that it’s not exactly welcoming to organic, native promotion. Reddit wants authentic contributions — which of course makes sense. That’s how the best social networks thrive!

This ethos is really well-captured in this phrase from Reddit’s community guidelines:

It’s perfectly fine to be a redditor with a website, it’s not okay to be a website with a reddit account.

Hmm, well, all of us brands and businesses are definitely websites. What are we to do?

One great thing about Reddit is that, while its guidelines are protective, they’re not meant to be exclusionary. There are ways for marketers to make use of Reddit in many ways, whether you’re interested in becoming a redditor or not, and whether you’re looking for organic or paid. Even if you don’t have time for full-scale Reddit marketing, there are ways you can gain from the Reddit community.

Reddit Marketing Strategies

1. Use Reddit as a Customer Research Tool to Find the Latest Trends

We believe this strategy can work for all marketers — whether you’re a redditor or not, and even if you only have small pockets of time to commit.

The great thing about this tip is that it doesn’t require you to devote yourself to becoming a seasoned Reddit contributor. Anyone can use Reddit for research, right now. It only takes a few minutes, and there’s a ton to gain for your marketing.

The premise is simple: 

You can gain marketing insight by using Reddit as a research tool to see what people are talking about and what’s trending right now. 

Step one: Find the subreddits that are relevant to your brand or business.

This will come in handy for the Reddit strategies we mention later on, too.

There are a couple different ways to search for subreddits. You can go straight to Reddit and search for the topics that you’re interested in. The search results will show you a list of suggested communities to join as well as a list of the most popular content related to your search term.

Another way to find subreddits is on a subreddit itself. The subreddit “find-a-reddit” is a place for people to ask questions about certain topics and then the community responds with ideas of subreddits to join.

Also, there are some great third-party options for subreddit searches. too.

One of the best is Redditlist which aggregates the most popular subreddits and lets you search for keywords. Also, Redditlist gives you some neat data on the subreddits, like how many subscribers it has and how fast it’s growing. 

Generally, the larger the subreddit, the faster you’ll be able to gain research insights. And of course, when you get into advertising potential, the larger the subreddit, the larger the audience.

Once you’ve found your “people” on Reddit, the next steps for researching are totally up to you.

You can go the super manual way and just navigate to each of the subreddits directly and browse them. If you go this route, I’d recommend setting up a regular reminder to visit things daily or weekly, depending on the volume of the subreddit.

And another way that works really well if you’re doing research or content at scale is to plug your subreddits into a content aggregator like Feedly. We do this for social media content on our Buffer feeds. This will pull in all of the subreddit threads directly into Feedly where you can browse them cleanly all at once. We’ve gained a lot of insights into social media trends by following Reddit conversations over the past months.

The one thing missing from the Feedly approach is going to be the upvotes and rankings for content. You won’t see this in Feedly. So what you can do instead is sort the content using Feedly’s popularity option, which scores posts according to their popularity on Feedly and other platforms. 

Then just like that, you’ve built your research engine. You can use it for things like:

Hearing what questions people are asking

Noticing what topics are getting the most attention

Keeping an eye on upcoming trends and competitor products, and 

Catching news stories you might have otherwise missed

While we’re on the topic of research, let’s go to our Reddit strategy number two, which you can also put to use whether you’re a redditor or not.

2. Use Reddit to get ideas on how to write catchy headlines

One factor into why content does well on Reddit — other than the quality of the content itself — is how something is framed or worded in the title. Redditors make great use of this space to show off what their post is about. Marketers can learn a lot from this!

You can observe the copywriting on Reddit to see what kind of styles are resonating with people and getting upvoted. Anything at the top of your chosen subreddits will be good to see. You can also go to the Reddit homepage or the subreddit “all” and check out the most popular posts across all of Reddit.

Then you can use these writing insights to feed back into your blog post headlines and email subject lines, just like that! 

3. Connect with people on Reddit who want to engage with your brand

Though Reddit might not want marketers in their midst, the topics do occasionally shift to products … maybe even your product. A good social media practice is to be present with your customers and audience wherever they are, which means lending a listening ear to Reddit. 

You can do this with a manual search, keeping tabs on any brand mentions that happen to come in. You can also look into some social support tools that have this functionality built in. 

When you’re choosing to respond, be sure you understand the context of the conversation you’re jumping into, then feel free to jump in and be helpful. There’s a fear with marketing on Reddit that the backlash for bad marketing can be swift and severe. But If you approach your conversations with authenticity, then you should be in good shape.

4. Get more traffic from Reddit (the right way)

When people talk about Reddit marketing, they’re often thinking of ways to get traffic from Reddit to their website. If you’re interested in using Reddit for referral traffic, then let’s start with some of the advice we mentioned earlier … 

First and foremost, you must be an authentic contributor to the Reddit community.

There’s no way around this. If you want to drive organic traffic from Reddit, then you can’t just show up and promote your stuff. You have to genuinely take part in the community. 

The only other shortcut to Reddit traffic is through advertising, which we’ll get to in a minute. But for organic referral traffic from Reddit, it all starts with you getting involved. 

And once you’re involved, here are the next steps to follow.

1. Find your ideal subreddits. 

Again, you can do this by searching Reddit or by using a tool like Redditlist.

2. Understand the Reddit demographics

On the macro scale, Reddit’s primary demographic is males between the ages of 25 and 44.  The overwhelming majority of users come from the U.S., in particular San Francisco and Seattle.

But that’s by far not the only crowd that’s on there.

Especially with Reddit’s subreddit system, you can find huge pockets of engaged communities that are specific to your niche. 

So when it comes to your Reddit traffic strategy, you can take a couple of different swings: 

You can swing for the fences and aim to reach the front page of Reddit, where everyone can see your content. 

Or, you can target specific niches on subreddits. These will have lower reach than the 330 million users we talked about earlier, but they do have significant sizes: Many subreddits boast 100,000 and more users.

Here are a couple more things to keep in mind if you’re looking to get traffic from Reddit.

5. Earn karma points by giving value to the community

image via Oberlo

Karma points function as a scorecard for Reddit users and are earned every time you share links and comments. These links and comments can be upvoted or downvoted, which corresponds to the rising and falling of your karma. 

To be successful on Reddit, you need to build up your karma points. At least a few hundred points are needed to show that you’re serious about taking part in the communities. Some subreddits even require a minimum amount of karma before you can post.

Karma points don’t necessarily affect the virality of your content, but they are a good signal to your fellow redditors of whether you’re on Reddit to genuinely be involved or whether you’re just there to self-promote.  When you’re building up karma points, there are a couple of workflows that can help …

Get involved in popular subreddits like today-I-learned and Ask-Reddit. These are some easy, breezy places to get started with commenting.

And when you’re link sharing, you can build Reddit into your usual content workflow and share to Reddit anytime you would share to Twitter and Facebook, too. 

Ok, now when it comes time to post your content to Reddit, here are some ways to make sure it gets as much traction as possible. 

6. Reverse-engineer the popular headlines of your subreddit

Like many things on social, one of the key aspects will be the title. The same goes for Reddit threads.

Look at the structure of how these titles are created. Notice what gets upvoted and what doesn’t. Then you can take these insights and put them back into the title that you write. 

On the Grow and Convert blog, they talk about a couple of headline formulas that work really well on Reddit.

The first is … 

Need [x]? Here’s [y]

For example, you could say: Tensed shoulders? Try these few stretches (very work-friendly!)

And the second headline formula is … 

[specific time before] I [did something]. I will now [explain to you/share even more detail/teach you how/explain what happened].

And an example of this is: 3 months ago I posted the exact process on how I made $150,000 selling T-shirts on Amazon. I will now explain the exact steps you can take to earn your first $1,000,000 selling on Amazon via the Shopify integration with ZERO inventory.

The Foundation blog also did a study on Reddit titles, and they found some general rules to follow. 

Posts with titles between 60 and 80 characters got the most upvotes. 

Posts with titles that were longer than 120 characters or shorter than 20 characters fared the worst. 

And their overall advice probably sounds familiar: The best approach to ensure that you’re writing a title is to review the top 15-20 posts within a subreddit.

The research really pays off!

Additionally, it’s worthwhile to pay attention to some of the trends on Reddit. For instance, the most frequently used phrase in titles is “if you have …” which is very similar to the “need this? try this” formula that we mentioned a moment ago. 

And another favorite topic of redditors is year-end lists or year-ahead posts. Some of the most common numbers in titles are years like 2018 and 2019. 

So if you authentically engage with the community and write good content with titles that resonate, then you stand a great chance of succeeding on Reddit. One last tip we’ll mention is about promoting your content on Reddit … in addition to posting on your chosen subreddit, you can also 

7. Cross-post to other subreddits to make sure it’s seen by as many people as possible. 

When you do this, you can click the “cross post” button at the bottom of your original thread to cross-post it to any other subreddit. One thing to note: You’ll want to use this strategy wisely and not be overly promotional with every post you share. 

8. Use Reddit paid ads to place your content

Reddit advertising is in its early stages compared to other social sites, so there’s still room here to get good returns. 

Reddit advertising works on a cost-per-click basis. You can optimize your campaigns for reach, video views, traffic, and conversions. The video views are especially great because videos are one of the most engaging types of content on Reddit.

For targeting, you can choose to show your ad to all of Reddit or you can focus on certain subreddits. 

There’s a neat case study on how the search engine DuckDuckGo found really stellar success with Reddit advertising.

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Heather-Mae on Twitter

Dave on Twitter

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 27,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

Reddit Marketing Strategies for Those Who Don’t Have Time for Reddit Marketing published first on https://improfitninja.weebly.com/

[mariemary1]

Reddit Marketing Strategies for Those Who Don’t Have Time for Reddit Marketing

Reddit is one of the most vibrant communities on the Internet and a powerful source of attention. A positive Reddit mention can mean thousands of visits to your website or your product.

Your audience may be there. Opportunities certainly exist there.

Should you be there, too?

It’s a tricky question to answer because one of the first rules for marketing on Reddit — one of the first rules for marketing on any social media site, really — is that you have to be genuinely engaged and committed to the communities you’re part of.

But there’s good news. You can gain so much from the awesome people at Reddit whether or not you have the time to fully dive in. Yes, there are marketing tactics to drive meaningful traffic. But there are also a handful of other ways to benefit by learning from the community, engaging with the community, and building a thoughtful Reddit strategy.

We’ll talk about it all in this post. Come along!

About Reddit Marketing

Reddit is one of the most vibrant communities on the Internet. And one of the largest, with over 300 million active users. 

To put that in perspective, that’s more than …

Twitter

LinkedIn

Snapchat

Pinterest

Yet when you hear about strategies for marketing to social networks, you rarely hear about Reddit. 

This isn’t to disparage all the great guides that people have written about Reddit marketing. They’re really good! These guides have some great tips in them, which we’ll do our best to condense into the most actionable takeaways that you can put to good use today. 

So why does Reddit fly under-the-radar when it comes to social media marketing options? 

Well, one of the key things to note about Reddit is that it’s not exactly welcoming to organic, native promotion. Reddit wants authentic contributions — which of course makes sense. That’s how the best social networks thrive!

This ethos is really well-captured in this phrase from Reddit’s community guidelines:

It’s perfectly fine to be a redditor with a website, it’s not okay to be a website with a reddit account.

Hmm, well, all of us brands and businesses are definitely websites. What are we to do?

One great thing about Reddit is that, while its guidelines are protective, they’re not meant to be exclusionary. There are ways for marketers to make use of Reddit in many ways, whether you’re interested in becoming a redditor or not, and whether you’re looking for organic or paid. Even if you don’t have time for full-scale Reddit marketing, there are ways you can gain from the Reddit community.

Reddit Marketing Strategies

1. Use Reddit as a Customer Research Tool to Find the Latest Trends

We believe this strategy can work for all marketers — whether you’re a redditor or not, and even if you only have small pockets of time to commit.

The great thing about this tip is that it doesn’t require you to devote yourself to becoming a seasoned Reddit contributor. Anyone can use Reddit for research, right now. It only takes a few minutes, and there’s a ton to gain for your marketing.

The premise is simple: 

You can gain marketing insight by using Reddit as a research tool to see what people are talking about and what’s trending right now. 

Step one: Find the subreddits that are relevant to your brand or business.

This will come in handy for the Reddit strategies we mention later on, too.

There are a couple different ways to search for subreddits. You can go straight to Reddit and search for the topics that you’re interested in. The search results will show you a list of suggested communities to join as well as a list of the most popular content related to your search term.

Another way to find subreddits is on a subreddit itself. The subreddit “find-a-reddit” is a place for people to ask questions about certain topics and then the community responds with ideas of subreddits to join.

Also, there are some great third-party options for subreddit searches. too.

One of the best is Redditlist which aggregates the most popular subreddits and lets you search for keywords. Also, Redditlist gives you some neat data on the subreddits, like how many subscribers it has and how fast it’s growing. 

Generally, the larger the subreddit, the faster you’ll be able to gain research insights. And of course, when you get into advertising potential, the larger the subreddit, the larger the audience.

Once you’ve found your “people” on Reddit, the next steps for researching are totally up to you.

You can go the super manual way and just navigate to each of the subreddits directly and browse them. If you go this route, I’d recommend setting up a regular reminder to visit things daily or weekly, depending on the volume of the subreddit.

And another way that works really well if you’re doing research or content at scale is to plug your subreddits into a content aggregator like Feedly. We do this for social media content on our Buffer feeds. This will pull in all of the subreddit threads directly into Feedly where you can browse them cleanly all at once. We’ve gained a lot of insights into social media trends by following Reddit conversations over the past months.

The one thing missing from the Feedly approach is going to be the upvotes and rankings for content. You won’t see this in Feedly. So what you can do instead is sort the content using Feedly’s popularity option, which scores posts according to their popularity on Feedly and other platforms. 

Then just like that, you’ve built your research engine. You can use it for things like:

Hearing what questions people are asking

Noticing what topics are getting the most attention

Keeping an eye on upcoming trends and competitor products, and 

Catching news stories you might have otherwise missed

While we’re on the topic of research, let’s go to our Reddit strategy number two, which you can also put to use whether you’re a redditor or not.

2. Use Reddit to get ideas on how to write catchy headlines

One factor into why content does well on Reddit — other than the quality of the content itself — is how something is framed or worded in the title. Redditors make great use of this space to show off what their post is about. Marketers can learn a lot from this!

You can observe the copywriting on Reddit to see what kind of styles are resonating with people and getting upvoted. Anything at the top of your chosen subreddits will be good to see. You can also go to the Reddit homepage or the subreddit “all” and check out the most popular posts across all of Reddit.

Then you can use these writing insights to feed back into your blog post headlines and email subject lines, just like that! 

3. Connect with people on Reddit who want to engage with your brand

Though Reddit might not want marketers in their midst, the topics do occasionally shift to products … maybe even your product. A good social media practice is to be present with your customers and audience wherever they are, which means lending a listening ear to Reddit. 

You can do this with a manual search, keeping tabs on any brand mentions that happen to come in. You can also look into some social support tools that have this functionality built in. 

When you’re choosing to respond, be sure you understand the context of the conversation you’re jumping into, then feel free to jump in and be helpful. There’s a fear with marketing on Reddit that the backlash for bad marketing can be swift and severe. But If you approach your conversations with authenticity, then you should be in good shape.

4. Get more traffic from Reddit (the right way)

When people talk about Reddit marketing, they’re often thinking of ways to get traffic from Reddit to their website. If you’re interested in using Reddit for referral traffic, then let’s start with some of the advice we mentioned earlier … 

First and foremost, you must be an authentic contributor to the Reddit community.

There’s no way around this. If you want to drive organic traffic from Reddit, then you can’t just show up and promote your stuff. You have to genuinely take part in the community. 

The only other shortcut to Reddit traffic is through advertising, which we’ll get to in a minute. But for organic referral traffic from Reddit, it all starts with you getting involved. 

And once you’re involved, here are the next steps to follow.

1. Find your ideal subreddits. 

Again, you can do this by searching Reddit or by using a tool like Redditlist.

2. Understand the Reddit demographics

On the macro scale, Reddit’s primary demographic is males between the ages of 25 and 44.  The overwhelming majority of users come from the U.S., in particular San Francisco and Seattle.

But that’s by far not the only crowd that’s on there.

Especially with Reddit’s subreddit system, you can find huge pockets of engaged communities that are specific to your niche. 

So when it comes to your Reddit traffic strategy, you can take a couple of different swings: 

You can swing for the fences and aim to reach the front page of Reddit, where everyone can see your content. 

Or, you can target specific niches on subreddits. These will have lower reach than the 330 million users we talked about earlier, but they do have significant sizes: Many subreddits boast 100,000 and more users.

Here are a couple more things to keep in mind if you’re looking to get traffic from Reddit.

5. Earn karma points by giving value to the community

image via Oberlo

Karma points function as a scorecard for Reddit users and are earned every time you share links and comments. These links and comments can be upvoted or downvoted, which corresponds to the rising and falling of your karma. 

To be successful on Reddit, you need to build up your karma points. At least a few hundred points are needed to show that you’re serious about taking part in the communities. Some subreddits even require a minimum amount of karma before you can post.

Karma points don’t necessarily affect the virality of your content, but they are a good signal to your fellow redditors of whether you’re on Reddit to genuinely be involved or whether you’re just there to self-promote.  When you’re building up karma points, there are a couple of workflows that can help …

Get involved in popular subreddits like today-I-learned and Ask-Reddit. These are some easy, breezy places to get started with commenting.

And when you’re link sharing, you can build Reddit into your usual content workflow and share to Reddit anytime you would share to Twitter and Facebook, too. 

Ok, now when it comes time to post your content to Reddit, here are some ways to make sure it gets as much traction as possible. 

6. Reverse-engineer the popular headlines of your subreddit

Like many things on social, one of the key aspects will be the title. The same goes for Reddit threads.

Look at the structure of how these titles are created. Notice what gets upvoted and what doesn’t. Then you can take these insights and put them back into the title that you write. 

On the Grow and Convert blog, they talk about a couple of headline formulas that work really well on Reddit.

The first is … 

Need [x]? Here’s [y]

For example, you could say: Tensed shoulders? Try these few stretches (very work-friendly!)

And the second headline formula is … 

[specific time before] I [did something]. I will now [explain to you/share even more detail/teach you how/explain what happened].

And an example of this is: 3 months ago I posted the exact process on how I made $150,000 selling T-shirts on Amazon. I will now explain the exact steps you can take to earn your first $1,000,000 selling on Amazon via the Shopify integration with ZERO inventory.

The Foundation blog also did a study on Reddit titles, and they found some general rules to follow. 

Posts with titles between 60 and 80 characters got the most upvotes. 

Posts with titles that were longer than 120 characters or shorter than 20 characters fared the worst. 

And their overall advice probably sounds familiar: The best approach to ensure that you’re writing a title is to review the top 15-20 posts within a subreddit.

The research really pays off!

Additionally, it’s worthwhile to pay attention to some of the trends on Reddit. For instance, the most frequently used phrase in titles is “if you have …” which is very similar to the “need this? try this” formula that we mentioned a moment ago. 

And another favorite topic of redditors is year-end lists or year-ahead posts. Some of the most common numbers in titles are years like 2018 and 2019. 

So if you authentically engage with the community and write good content with titles that resonate, then you stand a great chance of succeeding on Reddit. One last tip we’ll mention is about promoting your content on Reddit … in addition to posting on your chosen subreddit, you can also 

7. Cross-post to other subreddits to make sure it’s seen by as many people as possible. 

When you do this, you can click the “cross post” button at the bottom of your original thread to cross-post it to any other subreddit. One thing to note: You’ll want to use this strategy wisely and not be overly promotional with every post you share. 

8. Use Reddit paid ads to place your content

Reddit advertising is in its early stages compared to other social sites, so there’s still room here to get good returns. 

Reddit advertising works on a cost-per-click basis. You can optimize your campaigns for reach, video views, traffic, and conversions. The video views are especially great because videos are one of the most engaging types of content on Reddit.

For targeting, you can choose to show your ad to all of Reddit or you can focus on certain subreddits. 

There’s a neat case study on how the search engine DuckDuckGo found really stellar success with Reddit advertising.

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Heather-Mae on Twitter

Dave on Twitter

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 27,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

Thank Reddit Marketing Strategies for Those Who Don’t Have Time for Reddit Marketing for first publishing this post.

[hannahhydedma-blog]

Survey: The Fake Follower Problem

Before personal computers were ubiquitous, and before we could hold them in the palm of our hands, people were still using social media as a form to connect with each other. Whether it was through a forum about specific topic, playing an online game together, or building their own personalised websites, social media took many different forms. But with the advent and rapid success of popular sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, something else began to happen - people began making money just by having a large following on a platform.

Mainstream media didn’t really know what to make of them. Who were these people making money just from posting pictures on Instagram or tweeting out their opinions? Why are people gravitating towards that form of entertainment rather than traditional TV or films? Social media became a place of entertainment, and in some ways, like a form of journalism. Users would record or live-tweet something that was happening and post it to be seen by their followers. In doing this, they would unintentionally become a journalist of sorts. In a report by Nic Newman, he wrote:

Fuelled by the growth of powerful networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, individuals are now able to create, collaborate and share their own media – often to the bemusement of governments, lawyers and traditional news organisations…  Citizen journalism and social media haven’t replaced professional journalism, but it has certainly become harder to define what a journalist is. The line between professional and personal has blurred amid an overwhelming tide of interlinked news sources and outputs.

One of the reasons people gravitate towards following social media personalities (influencers) is because they feel more personal than the name in a byline of a newspaper. The audience can get a glimpse of their family, their pets, their opinions, and they begin to connect with and trust who they are as a person rather than connecting with the ideas or content put forth by a large publication. (Larger publications are even creating their own ‘influencers’ to be part of their brand, such as Lucie Fink of Refinery29.)

But with social media influencers growing in scale to having millions of followers, one specific issue began arising - fake followers. A fake follower is a ghost social media account - there is no real person running or updating it. Or someone has copied the profile. including the image and personal information, of another real user to create a fake duplicate account. It is created with the sole purpose of adding a follower in a person’s number count.

The New York Times wrote:

… an obscure American company named Devumi… has collected millions of dollars in a shadowy global marketplace for social media fraud. Devumi sells Twitter followers and retweets to celebrities, businesses and anyone who wants to appear more popular or exert influence online. Drawing on an estimated stock of at least 3.5 million automated accounts, each sold many times over, the company has provided customers with more than 200 million Twitter followers.

At least 55,000 out of the 3.5 million accounts use the data from real people (name, profile pictures, hometowns, etc). (Confessore, 2018) It was reported that nearly 48 million Twitter users (15% of all Twitter users) are fake accounts. Facebook disclosed that nearly 60 million of its accounts are automated. These fake accounts are known as bots (software robots), but are designed to look like real people. Ferrara (et al., 2016) defined a bot as ‘a computer algorithm that automatically produces content and interacts with humans on social media, trying to emulate and possibly alter their behavior.’ These bots can have an impact on political decisions and social interactions. In the field of influencers, it is important to understand that the appearance of bots, especially if a human user does not recognize that they are a bot, can impact an influencer’s audience or interactions. The presence of bots in their follower count can even impact the decision on whether a brand will work with them or not. Especially if the influencer purchased those fake followers from a company like Devumi.

While he wasn’t the first to do so, YouTuber Shane Dawson posted a video where he purchased fake likes, views, and retweets on social media accounts for three other people: his boyfriend’s sister, his mother, and one of his own longtime viewers. He used the site BuildMyViews and experimented to see what happened. Within hours, each account he had purchased something for (Instagram likes, YouTube views on a certain video, and Twitter retweets on a certain tweet respectively) had the expected outcome. While he purchased these things for other users, some influencers are purchasing them for themselves.

Geoff Pilkington, CEO of Launch Industries and a blogger, wrote that he had purchased fake followers previously but criticized the idea of placing worth on the numbers. He wrote:

‘The reality is, unless you are providing something of value, people other than your family and close friends just don’t care… That lesson is that in today’s world we are admired because of our developed skills, our talent, our values, and most importantly for the value we provide and our willingness to help others. Not by phony labels.

The criticism on influencers valuing their follower count (real or not) isn’t just made by outliers. The way brands are interacting with influencers with fake followers has recently changed dramatically.

Unilever CMO Keith Weed announced that they and their subsidiary brands would no longer work with influencers who purchase fake followers (Sternberg, 2018) in an effort to ‘rebuild trust back into our digital ecosystems and wider society… One of the ways we can do that is to increase integrity and transparency in the influencer space. We need to address this through responsible content, responsible platforms and responsible infrastructure.’ (Pathak, 2018)

The recognition of how fake followers, likes, retweets, etc. can inflate the ‘worth’ of an individual is a radical move forward in challenging social media platforms to be accountable to not only the content being posted, but who is doing the posting. When a global corporation like Unilever challenges the influencers they work for to be more authentic, it also challenges their own social presences and their competitors’ to be transparent as well.

Madeleine Boulton, assistant brand manager at Unilever, told DigiDay that their shift does not necessarily discount larger influencers, but rather allows for a mixture.

The perfect blend between both groups, according to Boulton, would be using the larger influencers for high-impact campaign launches, while having micro-influencers do more of the day-to-day engagement. “That cake posted by a micro-influencer might look a bit battered, but it has that homely edge that you don’t get from an influencer’s polished and pristine content,” she added. “It’s not as accessible for the everyday baker.”

Having a massive global corporation wanting to crack down on the quality of its influencers - their advertising agents - surely will bring other businesses to do the same. With a move like this, it shifts the focus from a brand trying to land a sponsorship deal with the influencer who has the most followers, to working with several microinfluencers whose follower count may be lower, but their engagement rate is higher. 

References

‘BuildMyViews’. BuildMyViews, https://buildmyviews.org/.

Confessore, N., Dance, G.J.X., Harris, R. and Hansen, M., 2018. The Follower Factory. The New York Times. [online] 27 Jan. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/27/technology/social-media-bots.html, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/27/technology/social-media-bots.html> [Accessed 12 Jul. 2018].

Dawson, Shane. BUYING VIEWS AND LIKES! *Does It Work?*. Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt2SF4hpwdk. Accessed 4 Aug. 2018.

Ferrara, Emilio, et al. ‘The Rise of Social Bots’. Commun. ACM, vol. 59, no. 7, June 2016, pp. 96–104. ACM Digital Library, doi:10.1145/2818717.

Joseph, S., 2017. How Unilever’s micro-influencers fit into its ‘less is more’ advertising strategy. Digiday. Available at: <https://digiday.com/marketing/unilevers-micro-influencers-fit-less-advertising-strategy/> [Accessed 12 Jul. 2018].

Newman, N., 2011. Mainstream media and the distribution of news in the age of social discovery. [online] Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism: University of Oxford. Available at: <https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2017-11/Mainstream%20media%20and%20the%20distribution%20of%20news%20in%20the%20age%20of%20social%20discovery.pdf> [Accessed 7 Jul. 2018].

Pathak, S., 2018. In Cannes, a marketer backlash to influencers is growing. Digiday. Available at: <https://digiday.com/marketing/cannes-marketer-backlash-influencers-growing/> [Accessed 12 Jul. 2018].

Pilkington, Geoff. ‘Yes. You Should Buy Social Media Followers.’ The Startup, 12 Mar. 2018, https://medium.com/swlh/yes-you-should-buy-social-media-followers-6e8ea368b69f.

Sternberg, J. and Johnson, L., 2018. Q&A: How Unilever’s CMO Is Trying to Help Make Digital a Safer Space for Brands. [online] Available at: <https://www.adweek.com/digital/unilevers-cmo-on-moving-meaningful-money-in-push-for-tech-platforms-to-clean-up-content/> [Accessed 12 Jul. 2018].