Activision is pivoting its publishing initiative away from newsletters to focus on social channels instead. The company sent the last edition of its The Edit newsletter on August 30 and says it will now refocus its content ambitions firmly on social channels.
“We’ve learned a lot from The Edit newsletter and are refocusing our attention to where gamers are engaging with us more,” said a company spokesperson, adding “channels like TikTok, Instagram, and X (Twitter) are driving an increasing share of our community conversations.” The spokesperson declined to share more details.
The newsletter launched in June and was one of the first major projects helmed by the company’s editor-in-chief, Andrew Nusca. The Edit focused on the intersection of gaming and general tech and entertainment and was delivered via Substack.
Speaking to Toolkits in July, Nusca said that newsletters were of particular interest to Activision because they provided a way to directly communicate with and build a relationship with an audience. “It turns out that having a direct relationship with your reader, viewer, is the core of every good business. I don’t have to make every single post fight for its existence like I did in the heady days of web publishing. Starting with a newsletter gives me a firm, stable ground to build many other things. We have a subscription list to start with.”
Newsletters have been popular among brand publishers as a vehicle for speaking directly to audiences. Many brands have taken inspiration from publishers like Morning Brew, which have built large audiences using email. And as a cookieless future looms, email addresses themselves have become even more valuable. But at the same time, newsletters are difficult: Audiences are discerning, and newsletters require consistency and often can be resource-heavy. And they can also be hard to get off the ground, particularly if customers and audiences are already active on other platforms.