Darth Vader Goes AI in Fortnite + Google’s Veo 3 Changes Everything

[Music] the Google IO output has been pretty impressive. So, especially the V3 and all the video stuff. So, there was that like if you remember a while ago, there was the chat GPT40 moment where everybody went online and pasted themselves as Studio Gibli. I have now my image of myself in Cyberpunk 2077 all because of it. So, everybody updated their profile pictures because of that. This V3 moment actually feels very similar where all of a sudden you see all of these incredible posts of like videos that like it cannot be made by amateurs, right? Like just for through simple text prompts, you're getting absolutely incredible videos. And of course, there's both the AI people that are scared saying like, "Oh my god, this should never happen. We should never do this." And then there's AI Maxis saying like, "Now you can create amazing video game trailers ready for consumers all the way through a text prompt." the output is actually very very impressive. So if you have not seen that, please go

check it out and I think it also has real implications for games in terms of like how we we build some of these types of assets. The other one was the Vader AI moment in Fortnite. What freaking [ __ ] food is that? Darth Vader, tell me. Double down. Freaking [ __ ] such vulgarity does not become you. You inquire about such like a common thug. It is. I made him swear. All right. So, yeah. Vader AI within Fortnite. That was pretty impressive in terms of like a technology test, an experiment. Of course, you give players a UGC system like this and they will break it. They forced Vader to swear. They forced Vader to say some pretty inappropriate things. But it was a pretty good test for generative AI in terms of conversations within games. So definitely Lucasfilm is going to be double-checking some of their outputs of these things in the future, but at the same time, this is a

pretty big moment for games that I'm pretty sure a lot of games will start integrating similar systems. Derek, is this what it was like when you first discovered the computer? Is this what it was like to experience technology like this? Oh, you're talking about what I said last week. I went to Buudaca's family. This is a contractor wife and we used chat GDP advanced voice mode to translate between like French and English in real time. I had chat GDP make a website for her brother who runs a small business like in real time by scanning his website and automatically creating it and like their mouths just dropped. I mean this must be what it was like to first see the computer and to like show it to people. I mean there's been so many like transcendental moments and to your point Adam like now it's hit video. Remember the Will Smith spaghetti video that like kind of kicked this all off. That was our first benchmark. Like we couldn't even get Will Smith to eat spaghetti. That's long gone. He's like on his like fifth plate of lasagna by now. You know, it's it's hyper impressive. And I think when you see

about the impact in games, like Eric Seer had this piece and I think he's he's right when he measures these in milestones. You've got to think this agentic model is like coming to marketing first that like these whole pipelines are going to be automated, especially now that we have creative video. Like you'd imagine Meta is going to like just scan your stuff and start creating automatically creatives. Like they're going to own more and more of the pipeline with this stuff. I think that's good for everyone. But it's a transcendental moment that we're all a part of. Like wow. Yeah, we've been through I've been through two, right? The PC revolution, the internet revolution. Now we're talking about the AI revolution. It's like, and again, I think this is even easier than the PC revolution because the tools themselves are easier to use. immersing yourself as you're saying is the only way of actually getting really smart on this tech and to do it every day because they would they would ask like how do I use this and my first response to them is have you tried asking chatp how to use it seriously like that's that's technology that actually sells itself right like you can use it to figure out how to use it give me a procon list to

using it GDP yep no and to be honest in this market where we are where things are pretty depressing this is the one area where you're just So much promise, so much excitement. Let's lean into this. Let's figure out where it can go. Cool. All right. Doing a little shilling. So last week I was out at MAU, which is a mobile marketing conference. I got to interview Scoply CMO Ben Webb at the keynote opening. And I didn't quite realize this, but there were probably over a thousand people in the audience. We have a a couple of pictures that some friends sent me. I'm getting the video, so hopefully we'll be able to release that shortly. Ben was amazing and told lots of great stories. We're going to get to that soon, but okay, fine. A quick story just for Mr. Crest. Six months after the November TV campaign that they ran, which had Chris Pratt, Jason Mamoa, Kiki Palmer, nine of their 10 top UA creatives are from that campaign and are still like ROI

positive. They're driving all of their UA revenue. So, one of his points was besides the fact that they developed a model that had downfunnel KPIs that the campaign was driving, the creative from the TV campaign and the brand campaign actually helped lift and give life to their UA campaign. So, more on that to come, sir. I know you love it. I know you love this. I've actually made this point. I think the creative is amazing for both campaigns for that matter. But the campaign itself was not ROI positive, right, of the TV spend, you know, but how do you know that? Like we don't have their number. They have a web shop, my friend. It doesn't matter. It does not matter. It does not matter. The revenue is down and to the right since the TV campaign. So like you can't make an argument that it's propping things up from the outsider. Whatever. It doesn't matter. It's like it is what it is. It's not increasing because TV is a last ditch effort. It's stupid. It's just dumb. It is an effort that comes at the

end when you do have your UA saturation. Yes. You know, happening. And he does admit that that is what that, you know, that's the entire purpose. You launch and run with your UA because that's what's working and you can track it and and then you use the brand campaign to help you know what we talked about before, which is finding ways to drive awareness. there. You can reduce some of your CPIs and your acquisition costs. You find new audiences. You help re-engage folks, get people back into it. But he can't do it because he knows that this is not ROI positive. They know the the revenue is down to the right. Like I haven't seen the presentation, but the fact that you're throwing out these [ __ ] like, you know, anecdotes as opposed to actual real numbers that I know he's not saying it because it's not true. That's the problem, right? and and moving on. It's like it is difficult when we do not have all of the data. Censor Tower is lovely and we love them, but we don't have all the data. Again, my point is he has all the

data and he's not saying what he needs to say to prove that this TV campaign has been value ad to the product, right? Period. So, tell him to come out with data that actually can show and articulate how well this thing is done. He will not do it because it isn't. That's what I'm saying. All right. He has a model and they're not going to come out publicly and share everything about their model. Of course not. Their model their model says it worked. All right. Fine. All right. We'll keep going. All right. My next shill off thereord event in LA on June 10th. So this is us partnering with Neil for mobilegamer.biz. Sadly we are over capacity at this point. We are doing executive roundts and most of the LA and San Francisco mobile game companies are coming. Crest Laura and I will be there. Adam is in town but is too busy to come to the All of us have to work. Yes, I will call work. Yeah, but why do you have parties in the middle of the day? It's not a party. It's like this looks like a party. It's like a bunch of like

people coming together from all of the major companies that you know, Google Play, all different people are going to be there learning from each other, sharing things off the record so that you can actually learn from other folks. That's okay. That's okay, Adam. You're very busy. I get it. Some of the sponsors include Media Bodies, Influencer Agency, and Apps Flyier. Google Play is hosting at their Venice office. So, more sponsors to come. Okay, Crest, you want to do your TV campaign? First correction, I totally forgot about this, but I'm going to try to do this. So, I said last week that both Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan should be ashamed of themselves and should give back half of the fees they made. I was incorrect in this assessment. Goldman Sachs who sold Zinga should get a full [ __ ] 100% of the money that they got from that transaction because they sold a piece of [ __ ] to take two. JP Morgan on the other hand should [ __ ] give back half their fees because they did a fairness opinion saying that that deal was fair and yet they've written down 50% of the goddamn transaction two years after the

transaction. So I want to be clear on that point. Goldman Sachs, they're [ __ ] rock stars, dude. If you want to sell your company for the peak dollar, even if it's not worth it, go to Goldman. They know how to do that. They sell iceos. All right, moving on. Another update from Dream. 10 million incremental downloads. Woohoo. Like, they're worth [ __ ] nothing, but they have 10 million incremental downloads. 400% increase from the trailing 41 days. Amazing. Absolutely amazing performance. But downloads don't mean [ __ ] in mobile, as we all know. It's just a vanity metric. 60% increase in revenue, which sounds like a lot, but it's [ __ ] not. It's $8 million, which is mice nuts for any type of game for that matter. They could have done this much more efficiently if they had just done UA the oldfashioned way. So, that is a 13% rorowaz assuming a $60 million budget because they're still paying for stupid TV ads and that's still going on. and the amazing creative they're using for UA. I looked at the UA charts. They're off the chain. Yo, they're using all

this great assets for UA, which is a far better use than spending it on [ __ ] TV. More power to them. And I am sure, absolutely certain they will scale this game and it'll be very profitable and good for them long term. But this TV campaign is gosh darn stupid. So, stop TV for mobile. Period. Done. I just I just can't anymore. And by the way, I guess I should say is the incrementality there is probably not even the proper incrementality because you're just doing pre-post, right? Right. So I'm giving Yeah. Well, yeah. All right. I'm giving him more benefit, right? Not less. Exactly. I know. I'm trying to be fair here, you know, with the data that we have. I know. And I would love Dream to come back and say, "Oh, well, look at what this has done for us. The $8 million." Do you know what they're going to send you? signed LeBron basketball. That's what they're going to send you. And they're going to say, "Suck it." From there, it's like that's what they're going to send you.

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