World Mental Health Day (10th October) is an opportunity for us all to take a breath and think about improving our own emotional health, and that of those around us. And while it’s a day to discover and explore new wellbeing methods, it can also be an opportunity to re-evaluate the everyday (especially when our everydays have been pretty far from normal for the last 18 months).

I’ve known Mark Panay for years. We met over 10 years ago as we were both active in the Bristol and Bath tech startup ecosystem. He’s the co-founder of Simpleweb (alongside Tom Holder) which is a software agency that also runs an incubator offering up tech resources and expertise in return for equity in startups.

Nothing stands still for long: technology is infiltrating every aspect of our lives – most significantly, how we interact with each other. But this isn’t limited to the influence of social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat and TikTok – today, the ways people are interacting socially online are far more widespread than that.

Still expanding fast, mobile gaming cannot afford to stand still.

Bloated agency structures could spell disaster for brands in the 2020s. Dialect CEO John Gower shares his vision of what success will look like…

This summer could herald a game industry revolution. The United States Congress is ready to vote on potential bills that could severely limit Apple and Google’s current mobile gaming digital stores practices, which are widely viewed by game publishers and developers as unfair. Meanwhile, the European Union is legislating to limit the power of big tech platform holders.

June is Pride Month. Many organizations use this time as an opportunity to look at the representation of the LGBTQ+ community in their respective sectors. For example, Jake Daniels recently became the first ever active English Premier League player to come out, prompting the football world to consider its own sluggish progress.

Since NFTs first landed in 2014, the landscape of NFTs has evolved rapidly and exploded before our eyes. Originally born as a unique digital token, NFTs have left their mark on countless spheres of life from art and music to gaming and even finance (that’s right, you can even borrow money from lenders by using your NFTs as collateral or buy Real Estate with NFTs). In 2021, Collins Dictionary even crowned “NFT” word of the year.

One of the marketing world’s most awarded branding campaigns of recent years was embedded inside a video game.

Imagine if you could be your own therapist, and solve ALL of your problems. All by yourself, without any professional help. But how could such a phenomenon even be possible? Enter Virtual Reality Therapy.

The arrival of a successful new video game Intellectual Property (IP) is welcomed much like a newborn baby – warmly embraced as both a symbol and a guarantee of a bright future. Its fresh promise delivers genuine renewal and no small measure of joy.

I know a little bit about podcasts. Enough to be dangerous. This time last year, I teamed up with journalist and radio presenter Louise Blain to create a podcast about podcasts (called Podworld). Yes, very meta, I know… but for that show I had to listen to hundreds of podcasts, and after a while, you do start to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t. So armed with this (maybe dangerous) amount of knowledge and listening hours, I have come up with 5 podcasts I think you should listen to if you are involved in the world of marketing.

The marketing world as we know it is changing: without third-party cookies and the data it captures, we explore how businesses can find opportunities in such adversity.

We know a lot about the what but not a lot about the why. As third-party cookies are set to crumble and disappear, it’s time to dig deeper into consumer behavior.

The metaverse and the digital revolution of Web3, NFTs, and cryptocurrency is a concept divided between boosters, skeptics, and dreamers. I count myself in the latter camp – I’m excited by the almost unlimited potential of a new digital universe. At the same time, I’m reluctant to be swept up by the current hyperbole. The future of gaming entertainment is, as ever, a work-in-progress.

It’s not often that a video game trailer makes me go all gooey, but this one for The Sims 4 My Wedding Stories is a gorgeous festival of romantic excess. Timed for the Valentine’s Day season, the trailer promotes a new addition to Electronic Arts’ human life simulation The Sims 4, in which players plan the wedding of their dreams. The trailer is a mini-movie about two women who fall madly in love, and throw a beautiful marriage ceremony.

Want to see what we’ve been up to? We couldn’t resist the opportunity to share with you some of our creative work from the closing chapters of 2021. Collaborating with the likes of Logitech, Extreme Networks, and EVE Online, here are some of the highlights…

Players with disabilities deserve to enjoy video games. The recently released Halo Infinite attracted broad critical acclaim for its exciting action, lush world, and compelling story. But one review will have caused concern for the game’s publisher Xbox Game Studios. Critic Ben Bayliss at Can I Play That wrote that the game is marred by “clumsy implementation” of accessibility features.

NFTs, Metaverse, Blockchain … and all that. As a concept, Web3 is best thought of as medicine. Like a handful of multicolored pills, each solution is part of a larger diagnostic that aims to heal all that’s dysfunctional with today’s model of digital monetization.

It all started a few weeks ago when Facebook unveiled their change of name to Meta …. And Mark Zuckerberg declared that Facebo…. Sorry we mean Meta, would be the pioneers to build the Metaverse, a fusion of the physical and digital worlds where humans can live, work and play in avatar form.