Good morning, Players!

We're very competitive here at The Game, so when I saw today's email went out to 825 of you all, it got me thinking bigger.

One digit bigger in fact.

The goal for this week is to hit the one comma club by next Friday. You all can help by taking 15 seconds to forward this email to a friend who you think would like it. And if you're the friend reading this, make sure to subscribe below.

Now on to the Winners and Losers from this week.

WINNER

Kids on the blox

The youths are spending a lot of time in the metaverse—just not Zuck’s version. The open-world game, Roblox, has a stranglehold on the younger generation with kids aged 4-18 spending an average of three hours a day on the platform. That outpaces TikTok and Snapchat by a hefty margin and nearly triples the time spent on YouTube.

This is the first time I have felt truly “old” in my life because spending 3 hours on Roblox seems as foreign and ridiculous to me as Instagram first did to our parents.

Speaking of Instagram, it’s had a rough year with the kids. It fell out of the top five social media apps (by % of kids in each country who use it) in the US, UK, and Australia.

Now, even Reddit and Twitter rank higher than IG in the US. Guess Instagram is officially cheugy.

LOSER

Google's fact checker

After half a decade of peace, war has broken out between the elder houses of Big Tech. The non-aggression pact between Microsoft and Google signed five years ago expired in April, just in time for the AI race to fully heat up.

Microsoft made the first move on Tuesday by announcing it'll soon be adding the AI capabilities of ChatGPT to Bing, its search engine. Google followed suit on Wednesday with a demo day of its own, unveiling the AI chatbot named Bard to the public for the first time.

It did not go as planned. Bard made a factual error in marketing materials leading up to the live demo (the James Webb Space Telescope did NOT, in fact, take the first picture of plants outside our solar system) sending Google’s stock into a tailspin and shaving over $100 billion off its market cap in a matter of minutes.

Could Microsoft’s souped-up version of Bing pose the first real threat to Google’s 93% market share on search? Or are the factual shortcomings of large language models going to sink the AI revolution before it even begins? Either way, the market is watching closely.

LOSER

Boycotts

If you want a guaranteed way to get people to buy your product, just have a loud minority tell everyone not to buy it. The strategy is working for the new Harry Potter game, Hogwarts Legacy, which comes out today. It’s already set a record for most concurrent views on Twitch for a single-player game and currently sits at No. 1 for Playstation 5 games on Amazon.

The boycott stems from J.K. Rowling’s tweets on transgender rights that have rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Former Potter fans organized before the game’s launch in order to hit Rowling where it hurts—her bank account.

But boycotts like these often end up having the opposite effect with the increased media attention from the boycott driving more sales rather than less. As Morning Brew noted, Goya sales rose 22% in the two weeks after Ivanka Trump provoked a boycott by posing with the beans on social media. And Nike sales jumped 31% despite suburban dads publicly burning their ankle socks in protest of Kaepernick's deal with the company.

WINNER

The Beer Bowl

There’s about to be a whole lot of beer commercials at the Super Bowl this year.

“But, Toby! There are always lots of beer commercials at the Super Bowl!”

Yes, but they’ve always come from the same beers. More specifically, the beers owned by beverage giant Anheuser-Busch which has held the exclusive beer advertising rights to the Super Bowl since 1989.

This year, it decided to not renew its deal paving the way for other global brands like Heineken, Crown Royal, and others to finally make their debut on the biggest stage in advertising.

One sector that will be noticeably absent from screens this year is crypto. Not a single crypto brand that advertised last year is running it back in 2023 in the wake of the FTX shit show.

One tip for this year: if you see a brand in a commercial, do NOT invest.

WINNER

Accidental renaissance

The Chinese spy balloon saga has been the story that just keeps on giving. After the US military downed the massive 200-foot balloon over the Atlantic, images of the Navy retrieving the debris lit up social media.

Some were quick to point out that the pictures could belong to a category created by a Reddit forum called “accidental Renaissance.” It’s when a modern image evokes the same gravitas and style of a Renaissance painting of old.

What do you think? Would Michelangelo approve?

STATS TO IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS WITH

• For the first time since ancient Sumerians were getting drunk on the banks of the Euphrates spirit sales have outpaced beer. Spirits now hold a 42.1% market share with beer clocking in just behind at 41.9%. Seems like the market has finally caught on to what college students have known for years—liquor before beer, you're in the clear.

• The Michael Jackson estate is looking to sell 50% of its stake in the pop star’s music catalog for around $900 million. It’d be the largest such deal yet and suddenly makes Justin Bieber’s $200 million haul for the rights to his entire catalog look like a bargain.

• LeBron’s age: 38 years old. Kareem’s record: 38 years old. Points scored on Tuesday: 38. The record he broke: 38,388 points. Pretty wild.

GAMES AND PUZZLES

This week's crossword puzzle is brought to you by master puzzler Max S.

It’s a 6.5/10 on the difficulty scale and took me 18:34 to complete.

Think you can beat me?

Try the puzzle here.

THE BUTTON

NO WINNERS THIS WEEK

Thanks to everyone participated in The Button last week. You all are getting a LOT better at guessing, but unfortunately no one nailed it this week.

The final number of clicks was 90.

• Closest guesses: Chase Allred (92) and Vincent Yam (88)

For any new readers joining us, reply to this email with how many times you think the Button below will be clicked.

If you're right, you win the money in the prize pool. If nobody guesses right, the prize pool doubles for next week.

Here is some information to help inform your thinking:

• Newsletter open rate: 70%

• Total subscribers: 823

Taking all that into account, make sure you get your guesses in before next Thursday at 11:59 PM ET.

Without further ado, The Button.

Good luck, Players. See you next week.