Insight
2025-12-12
2025 at Waste: Shaping Fandoms, Raising the Game
From brand launches and cinematic campaigns to some truly chaotic live-streaming, this year saw us stretch creatively, collaborate closely, and connect with audiences in ways that felt real. Here’s what the year looked like.
Predecessor: Strategic Foundations for a Global MOBA
We began the year by partnering with Omeda Studios on a brand evolution for Predecessor, a third-person MOBA with a growing, global player base. The project spanned brand positioning, audience segmentation and creative direction, all built to help the game step confidently into its next phase.
As the MOBA space grows ever more competitive, our goal was to help the team at Omeda define not just how their game looks, but what it stands for, who it speaks to, and how it grows.
Stories of Verdansk: A Warzone Campaign with Real Emotional Weight
When Activision brought back Verdansk (Call of Duty: Warzone’s most iconic map), they didn’t want nostalgia. They wanted resonance. We responded with Stories of Verdansk, a star-studded global campaign built around six animated films, each based on real player memories and voiced by celebrity fans.
Every film was brought to life in a unique visual style, blending live action, 2D animation, collage and motion graphics. The result was a dynamic, highly personal love letter to Warzone… One that sparked remarkable engagement.
The campaign generated over 58 million views across platforms, and Warzone’s player base grew by 200% in the week of launch.
Clash of Clans: Clashiversary
Clash of Clans just turned 13, and instead of a typical anniversary, we helped Supercell deliver a two-month campaign packed with story, nostalgia, and community-driven chaos. Inspired by the beloved Clash-A-Rama series, Clashiversary brought fans back into the fold with a mysterious vault, a fan-favourite new character, and an unfolding narrative across in-game events and social platforms.
The result? The narrative approach reconnected the community, driving a 21% uplift in re-engaged lapsed players and a 5% boost in new users. 109 million engagements — smashing our target by more than 150% — and helped Clash of Clans reach its highest daily active users in over 18 months.
OMUT: Streaming Meets Sadism
For indie horror title OMUT, we created The Boss Box: a one-day live-streamed event where four creators played the game inside a custom-built space designed to torment them in real time. From moving walls to TENS shocks, the entire experience blurred the line between game and reality, giving Twitch audiences direct control over what happened next.
It was messy. It was unpredictable. And it worked. The campaign drove a major spike in Steam wishlists and demo downloads, introducing a new audience to OMUT’s brutal, masochistic charm.
Connected TV: A New Canvas for Game Marketing
This year also saw us explore Connected TV (CTV) in new ways, helping clients like EA’s Design Home treat it not as just another ad placement, but as a space for high-quality storytelling. From creative development to channel strategy, we worked to unlock the full potential of the format: emotionally resonant, brand-safe, and performance-driven.
It’s still an evolving space, but one we believe holds enormous promise for games looking to break through with broader audiences.
A Conversation That Mattered: Jay-Ann Lopez of Black Girl Gamers
Finally, one of the most meaningful moments of the year came not from a campaign, but a conversation.
Our HR Manager Linda Nguyen sat down with Jay-Ann Lopez, founder of Black Girl Gamers, for a candid discussion about representation, community-building, and the future of the games industry. It was honest, sometimes uncomfortable, and deeply important; the kind of dialogue we want to keep having, and keep learning from.
The Culture Behind the Work
It wasn’t just the work that grew this year; our culture did too. We introduced new initiatives to make space for wellbeing, community, and connection, inside and outside the office:
We kicked off a Wellness Hour initiative, giving everyone time each week to pause, reset or just step away from the screen;
Our team took part in paid volunteering days, from food bank shifts to local litter picks;
We ran an LGBTQ+ History Tour at the British Museum in February during LGBTQ+ History Month, sparking meaningful conversations;
In June, we opened up our Waste Pride online store again to raise money for a local LGBTQ+ trust called Mosaic, selling merch with designs created by our team;
Pets Month brought chaos (and many excellent dog photos) into the mix;
And yes, the Summer Party delivered on its promise: good food, good music, and no small amount of DIY T-shirt content.
Looking Ahead to 2026
We’re heading into the new year with creative teams that are sharper than ever, partnerships that continue to challenge and inspire us, and a growing belief in the power of fandom not just as an audience, but as a force that shapes brands from the inside out.
Thanks to everyone we’ve worked with this year: the collaborators who trusted us, the clients who pushed us, and the communities that reminded us why this work matters.
We’ll see you in 2026, ready to go again. 🤘