Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🎮 The video game industry could use a power-up
• 🤖 Artisan’s dystopian billboards are working as intended
• 🇬🇷 Greece’s population problems

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.85-minute read (1,292 words).

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“Reflect upon your present blessings of which everyone has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all people have some.”

–Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

While the movie and music industries are celebrating highs they haven't seen in years, the gaming industry is on a downward tilt, as smaller game developers struggle to find footing. Analysts expect the video game industry to contract anywhere from 2%-10% in 2024.

What’s going on? Widespread lay-offs and studio closures that plagued gaming companies last year have continued into 2024, while the rush of investment following the Covid gaming boom has slowed down.

The market is also getting increasingly saturated, making it difficult for new titles to stand out. This year, 14,000+ games were published on Steam, the leading PC gaming store, outpacing 2023's tally by thousands.

Publishing into the void

Despite all the new releases, gamers tend to gravitate towards familiar favorites – not entirely unlike scrolling through all the new content on streaming platforms only to end up rewatching The Office for the 500th time.

• 92% of all playtime last year went to old games or annual editions of recurring series (like Call of Duty or Madden), according to analytics firm Newzoo.
• This means just 8% of gamers’ time was spent playing new, non-annualized games.

But…Some analysts say there’s still room within the industry for new games with novel and fun concepts to thrive, with game development tools becoming more accessible and opening the door to smaller production teams. Many of gaming’s biggest success stories in 2024 – including deck-building poker roguelike Balatro, multiplayer shooter Helldivers II, and "Pokémon with guns" Palworld – were earned with a fresh and interesting idea.

👀 Looking ahead: The launch of a successor to Nintendo’s flagship Switch console and the release of Grand Theft Auto VI (whenever it finally comes out) are expected to boost the industry’s bottom line in 2025.

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Artisan, a YC-backed startup that sells AI agents (“Artisans”) to assist with customer service and sales efforts, has launched a new billboard campaign in the San Francisco-area that’s causing eyebrows to animate like Eugene Levy from Schitt’s Creek. The key to good marketing in 2024 – lean into outrage.

Some of the slogans:

• "Stop Hiring Humans."
• “Artisan’s Zoom cameras will never ‘not be working’ today.”
• "Artisans won't complain about work-life balance"
• "The era of AI employees is here."

The dystopian outrage campaign is working. Social media is angry, but Artisan CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack told SFGate that brand awareness and sales leads have spiked following the company’s release of the billboards.

Zoom out: Technology has long caused the economy to shapeshift; ~60% of jobs in the US represent new types of work that have been created since 1940. But, according to a 2024 study that analyzed 35,000 job categories dating back to 1940, technology has replaced more jobs than it’s created over the past ~40 years.

🤖 This is expected to continue. According to Goldman Sachs, AI could eliminate or diminish ~300 million jobs by 2030, with admin support positions, legal positions, and jobs in architecture and engineering at the greatest risk of replacement.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation in the House and Senate yesterday aimed at breaking up companies that own health insurers or pharmacy-benefit managers and also have a pharmacy business. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), would force such companies to divest their pharmacy businesses within three years.

💥 The potential impact: If approved, it would mark Congress’ most far-reaching intervention into the operations of pharmacy-benefit managers (PBMs), or third-party companies that manage prescription drug benefits for health insurance plans and use their wholesale power to negotiate rebates with drugmakers.

• America’s three biggest PBMs – CVS Health’s Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts, and UnitedHealthGroup’s OptumRx – belong to companies that also own some of the largest health insurers and distribute medicines through their own mail-order pharmacies.

Dozens of mysterious nighttime flights started being reported on the East Coast last month. Onlookers have spotted large drones in the night sky from NYC through New Jersey, and westward into Pennsylvania.

Aliens, threat, or nbd? These sightings have raised growing concern among residents and lawmakers, eventually prompting a closed-door meeting yesterday between New Jersey state and local officials and the Department of Homeland Security.

• Following the briefing, state lawmaker Dawn Fantasia revealed the drones are up to six feet in diameter, come from unknown origins, appear to avoid detection by traditional methods (like helicopters and radio), and don’t appear to be flown by hobbyists.

📝 The response: Several lawmakers have called for a limited state of emergency across New Jersey to impose flight restrictions until the Department of Defense can start investigating the situation.

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• ☝️ The winners of the 10th annual Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards were announced Tuesday, with Milko Marchetti’s “Stuck Squirrel” winning first prize.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Nuts.com

• 📊 US markets closed mixed (S&P: +0.8%; Dow: -0.2%; Nasdaq: +1.8%). | 💵 Inflation rose 2.7% in the 12-month period ending in November, slightly above October's 2.6% figure but in line with analysts' expectations; markets are currently pricing in a ~99% chance the Fed cuts rates after its December 18 meeting.
• 🛒 ​​Albertsons terminated its planned deal with Kroger following Tuesday's court rulings; the grocer also filed a lawsuit against Kroger seeking a breakup fee + damages for failing to secure the deal’s approval.
• 📝 Macy's wrapped up its investigation into the employee who intentionally hid ~$151 million in delivery expenses over a nearly three-year period.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🇸🇦⚽ Saudi Arabia was chosen by FIFA to host the 2034 World Cup (it was the only bidder); the 2030 World Cup will be held in Morocco, Portugal, Spain, and three countries in South America.
• 📱 Meta's family of apps (Insta, FB, WhatsApp) experienced an outage on Wednesday.
• 🏈 The NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles were valued at a US sports-franchise record $8.3 billion in a recent minority-stake deal; the league also approved the first-ever sales of minority stakes to private equity (Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills). | 🏈 Bill Belichick was hired as the next head coach at the University of North Carolina.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Pique Life

• 📱 iOS 18.2 was released yesterday; new Apple Intelligence features include Image Playground, Genmoji, and ChatGPT access in Siri.
• 🌌 Firefly Sparkle – the newly discovered galaxy that mirrors the Milky Way's early days, per NASA.
• 🤖🎮 Google is testing Gemini AI agents designed to help users in video games.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🔥 The Franklin Fire grew to ~4,000 acres yesterday afternoon with 7% containment; its cause is unknown; authorities have issued evacuation orders to ~20,000 people in Los Angeles County.
• 🚫 A federal bankruptcy judge blocked the sale of Alex Jones’s Infowars to The Onion, citing a lack of transparency in the auction process.
• 📝 FBI Director Christopher Wray is set to resign before President-elect Trump takes office; Trump had previously pledged to nominate Kash Patel to lead the FBI.

CLICKBAIT

• 🤔🤖 Real or AI-Generated? You Guess (Quiz).

🇬🇷 Stat of the Day: Greece is becoming emptier than a glass of ouzo after dinner. Around 200 villages and towns across the country have been completely abandoned, according to a new report, as economic hardship from the country’s sovereign debt crisis have led citizens, especially young people, to look outside Greece for jobs.

As a result, the country is home to one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe (1.3), something Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has called an “existential” threat to Greek society. Greece is now seeing around one birth for every two deaths, and the share of the population aged 65+ is nearly twice that aged 0 to 14.

The impact? Economists warn the country’s population decline is putting a major strain on society – with not enough young workers to grow the economy and support the elderly, CNBC reports.

🤔 Did You Know? The Earth will have its last-ever total solar eclipse ~600 million years from now, since the Moon is slowly moving away from our planet at a rate of ~1.5 inches/year.

📰 Worth a Read: What would happen to Earth without humans? → (Popular Science)

Yesterday, we covered how the Biden administration is rushing to spend all of its congressionally approved military aid for Ukraine before leaving office next month.

❓ Our question to you: How would you describe the US government’s current level of military aid provided to Ukraine?

• It’s too high: 47%
• It’s about the right amount: 22%
• It’s too low: 20%
• Unsure/other: 11%

Click here to read the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 2,631 votes and 259 longform responses.

This week, CNN announced its 2024 Hero of the Year: Stephen Knight, whose nonprofit saves lives by providing foster care for dogs while their owners focus on addiction recovery.

🐾🏆 Stephen's nonprofit, Dogs Matter, has helped recovering addicts and their pups since 2015, after Stephen himself went through recovery and a friend took in his dog while he was in rehab.

• “This means everything," Stephen shared. "I represent so much here. I represent the recovery community. The dog rescue community… This is going to be able to take us to the next level.”

What's the largest country in Africa by land area?

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