It's the saddest day of my life as a sports fan -- the A's played their final home game in Oakland. I saw my first MLB game at the Coliseum, an A's loss to the Tigers on a beautiful summer day decades ago. Two of my favorite baseball memories come from the "Last Dive Bar" -- one of Cecil Fielder's titanic taters -- undoubtedly the longest home run I'd ever seen -- and the "Jeremy Giambi didn't slide" game in the 2001 ALDS, when Derek Jeter made one of the greatest defensive plays I'd ever seen to snatch a victory away from the A's.
I cherish so many other memories. My kids' first MLB game, watching with friends and family and seeing so many home-grown stars developed (before leaving via trade or free agency). The A's have broken my heart so many times you'd think I'd be immune to it. But they have done so once again, maybe permanently this time (though I hope Sony can keep the Coliseum as an option for A's fans in future versions of MLB: The Show).
The Giants may play Tony Bennett's "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" after every home game, but for me, the tune I'm singing has my heart left forever in that aging, decrepit pile of concrete and memories called the Oakland Coliseum.
Topgolf’s Fortnite treatment shows a trend in user-generated content marketing
When organizations such as GameSquare pull away from esports and talk about “creating content,” this doesn’t mean focusing just on videos and livestreaming. They’re also making games. And a recent example shows how these games could start building a new future for brands and marketing firms telling their stories in the digital realm.
Enter Zoned, a creative marketing agency under the umbrella of GameSquare (itself part of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ vast holdings). It was just part of a noteworthy release into Fortnite’s Creative Program, the Topgolf island, which came from its Moonlight Studios subsidiary.
Zoned, as its freshly installed President Carlos Tovar said, is a small group -- “seven or eight people” -- focused on being an agency that “understands the internet” while integrating the lessons he learned at Wieden+Kennedy and then sharing those with a younger generation breaking into marketing. “We’re really giving people shots to do really cool stuff.”
He doesn’t just see Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) as an opportunity in making games for brands such as Samsung and Mastercard (two previous clients), but also in working in Epic Games’ ever-evolving UEFN, the tool that enables publishing inside Fortnite.
“Everyone's talking about Roblox and releasing their jerseys in Roblox ... yeah, cool, we got it. If you’re not Barbie World, you’re late,” Tovar said. “But Epic is really taking its time unveiling the possibilities of Unreal Engine, especially in UEFN in Fortnite, so this entire ecosystem is being built out really careful by the folks at Epic.”
That care means you don’t often see “brand slaps” as much in Fortnite. Developers are taking care to build something they feel adds to the experience for the player. And this can lead to a better brand narrative that can come from these games.
“It’s absolutely incredible what you can do with it. The tech is wild. I was looking through and someone mapped out London, and it’s as real as it can be -- ‘whoa, that looks like the street I just walked to get to the airport!’” He then contrasts that to Roblox, where he says things still don’t look “very real.”
A more YouTube-like future
Tovar sees it as a way forward for marketing on the internet, especially since Fortnite is still one of the world’s most popular games, and that doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon. Per tracking firm Circana, Fortnite has been the No. 3 game in terms of monthly players on PlayStation and Xbox consoles since June 2020, when it first started tracking this data.
“It’s a new way of art. It’s a new way of expressing yourself,” Tovar said, which is why Zoned created Moonlight Studios, to give the group an entity that was “highly focused” on the UEFN ecosystem and “collaborating” with other creators -- a key to success inside Fortnite. Tovar even noted a post from Fortnite’s X account Wednesday that credited not just Moonlight’s work but also Alliance Studios, which also worked on the Topgolf project.
“For anyone to pretend in this ecosystem that they’re these one-stop shops, it’s kinda cringey, because half the time, they’re probably contracting somebody,” Tovar said. “Something we’re trying to do with Moonlight is have our studios, we have Kazzify, who maps out the creative vision and collaborates with a lot of these incredible folks who have been spending time in this space.”
Working in UEFN, working with other studios and creators, it all leads to a vision Tovar sees as the next wave of the internet. “In the next two to three years, people are going to see Roblox and Epic and building in-game more like YouTube. That's where the stories are,” he said. “We are scratching the surface, and there is more to come. People see the way it monetizes and the way it plays and the ways to engage and the different types of things you can do -- it's not a one stop shop. It should be consistent like YouTube in telling more narratives and stories, and that's where we're headed."
Newzoo August data: EA football games, Valorant on console among highlights
Newzoo’s August PC & Console Engagement & Revenue Rankings report gives industry watchers a good picture into the usage and spending habits of players in key regions -- in this case, the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
In terms of engagement, Newzoo pegs Fortnite as the top game for monthly active players on PlayStation and Xbox, It held the same position in July. The amalgam of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II/III/Warzone was second on both platforms, holding serve from July as well. EA Sports FC 24 was No. 4 on PlayStation (same as July) and No. 7 on Xbox (dropping a spot). Roblox was No. 4 on Xbox (unchanged from July) and No. 5 on PlayStation.
Where it gets interesting is in EA’s football games, since this list includes European countries. EA Sports College Football 25 debuted at 11 in July and moved up to eighth in August on PlayStation and from sixth to fifth on Xbox, while Madden NFL 25 debuted at 18 on Xbox and wasn’t in the top 20 for PlayStation (though Madden NFL 24 was, dropping from 14th in July to 19th in August). The other sports game to chart on console was NBA 2K24, which moved from No. 8 in July to 11th in August on PlayStation and 11th to 12th on Xbox. It’ll be interesting to see if NBA 2K25 cracks the top 10 next month, showing the global strength of basketball over American football.
In good news for Riot Games, Valorant had a strong debut on PlayStation at ninth in August and 12th on Xbox.
On PC, the lone sports game in the top 20 is EA Sports FC 24, which moved up from 18th in July to 13th in August.
Revenue leaders
Summer, as always, has been a strong two months for American football. Madden NFL 25 debuted at No. 1 on Xbox and No. 2 on PlayStation, a month after EA Sports College Football 25 launched at No. 1 on both in July (it dropped in August to No. 3 on Xbox and No. 4 on PlayStation). But Newzoo worries that the “two games are seemingly vying for a similar target audience and are maintaining high ranks in terms of total revenues, so it’ll be interesting to see how their dual dynamic plays out over the coming months, especially with EA Sports FC 25 and NBA 2K25 entering the fray.”
Valorant had a strong console debut as well, coming in No. 5 on Xbox and No. 6 on PlayStation, thought it did drop in revenue from No. 1 to third on PC thanks in part to the gangbusters launch of Chinese role-playing game Black Myth Wukong, which was No. 1 on PC in August. Newzoo noted that “Valorant’s successful cross-platform debut is a good sign for Riot Games, and it’ll be interesting to see if it remains as dominant on console as it has been on PC.”
Among other sports games on PC, EA Sports FC went from No. 8 to No. 12.
Speed reads
- I'm eager to see the first couple of months of sales figures from EA Sports FC 25, which launches Friday on PC and consoles. It was a juggernaut in its first year without the FIFA branding. Meanwhile, EA and Peacock announced a new partnership for Friday's launch of EA Sports FC 25 and EA Sports FC Mobile's first anniversary, a first for the streamer, with cosmetics in both game's Ultimate Team modes.
- SAG-AFTRA called for a strike against Formosa Interactive, a studio that does voice work and more for a number of publishers (including work on Riot Games' League of Legends) for "trying to cancel and struck project and hire scabs." But Riot confirmed that it didn't cancel a game or hire non-union workers for League of Legends and that SAG-AFTRA didn't call this strike against the publisher nor is accusing it of hiring "scabs."
- F1 champion Max Verstappen and Heineken 0.0 are working together to bring a Player 0.0 competition to the U.S. Player 0.0. is a mobile racing sim, and this activation is a bit different -- it rewards the safest drivers, who will gather in Spain in a finals event against Verstappen.
- Soccer Manager 2025 launched earlier this week on iOS and Android, marking the 10th year for the sim-management series. Over that decade, it's accumulated 75 million players.
- At Meta's Connect event on Wednesday, the metaverse company announced the Quest 3 VR headset, and Resolution Games (one of the best regarded VR development studios) revealed Home Sports 3, a Wii Sports-like collection of sports games for the new headset, per GamesBeat.