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FaZe Clan Announces New West Hollywood Pop-Up Shop
Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Though it’s not an invite to FaZe Clan’s Burbank mansion, fans of the Los Angeles-based esports and entertainment organization will soon be able to plug themselves into its hype house vibes with the launch of a new pop-up store.
Founded in 2010, FaZe Clan has grown from a small group of gaming YouTubers into a conglomerate of professional esports games, celebrity investors and brand partnerships.
Open during select times and days from May 14 to June 10, The Armory—located at the primo L.A. retail coordinates of Melrose and Fairfax—will be FaZe Clan's first-ever immersive gaming lounge and retail store, the company said in a statement Monday. Livestream shopping platform and FaZe Clan partner NTWRK will oversee the store, designed by FaZe's newly-appointed creative director Jay "JVY" Richardson.
Operating in both physical and digital realms, The Armory will sell FaZe Clan’s custom gaming products and merchandise. Some of the drops will necessitate actually being physically present at the store—a page taken from the playbook of its new retail neighbor, Supreme.
The Armory will also host tournaments and events for the length of its installation, giving fans an opportunity to experience the events that FaZe Clan is known for. Different showrooms will host retail offerings, esports gaming setups and a central screen for console gaming.
“Our approach with this pop-up is showing the fans what's next and where we're at in the future already,” Richardson said in a statement. “The store itself is essentially the vortex entry point and it's being conveyed through the graphics of all the featured items you'll see.”
While this move is set to get the blood of FaZe’s millions of young fans pumping, it may be a smokescreen masking legitimate concerns about the financial state of its business. After announcing plans to go public in a merger with a valuation of $1 billion last year and jumping the gun by adding Snoop Dogg to its board of directors, Sports Business Journal reported last week that SEC filings revealed FaZe to be operating under heavier losses than they’d originally claimed.
The amendment showed FaZe’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) currently sits at an adjusted loss of nearly $29 million. (The brand’s original estimated EBITDA showed a $19 million loss.) And since the December 31 deadline for its merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) sponsored by investment bank B. Riley has blown by, FaZe will be unable to access the 75% of proceeds from the SPAC’s $173 million trust account and a planned $118 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) investment it was counting on, SBJ reported.
Meaning: FaZe isn’t making anywhere near enough money to sustain its costs—and with no way to tap into investment funds, the only thing it’s managed to raise is skepticism that FaZe is esports first real unicorn.
Whether or not a flashy pop-up like The Armory can generate enough money to keep a household of gaming influencers in their accustomed lifestyles—let alone sway a market that’s seen scores of SPAC mergers terminated amid bearish market conditions—is anyone’s guess.
Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
https://twitter.com/ksnyder_db
Why Scrubs Maker FIGS is Being Sued in California Court
10:59 AM | October 19, 2022
'We've Branded an Unbranded Industry': FIGS Co-CEOs Trina Spear and Heather Hasson on Their Epic IPO
Last August, FIGS, the medical scrub startup based in Santa Monica, was sued for false advertising and misleading business practices. This week, the company is in court arguing it didn’t need to rely on any unsavory marketing tactics and that its products sold more because they were better than its competitors.
The lawsuit, brought forth by Strategic Partners Inc. (SPI), a Chatsworth-based competitor that does business as Careismatic Brands, alleges FIGS co-founders Trina Spear and Heather Hasson violated advertising regulations by falsely claiming their scrubs are made to protect the wearer from bacteria or disease through the use of a chemical called Silvadur. In the lawsuit SPI cited the fact that FIGS said this chemical helps its scrubs reduce hospital-acquired infection rates by 66%, which SPI claimed was untrue and misleading.
The exact amount of money SPI is seeking from the suit isn’t clear. But the company did request numerous damages, including the costs of the suit and attorneys’ fees. SPI also asked for compensatory damages plus punitive damages and disgorgement of profits, which means the court could order FIGS to pay back part of the money it made selling its scrubs if the judge rules against them.
“What [FIGS] did is they came up with these false claims so that health care workers would pay premium pricing based on something that didn't exist,” said Sanford Michelman, attorney for SPI. He also said the company “is a get rich quick scheme.”
Unlike FIGS' direct to consumer model, SPI sells through a middleman, licensing out brands to mainly brick and mortar retailers.
Michelman claimed SPI has sources that used to work for FIGS that will testify FIGS’ 66% infection prevention claim wasn’t accurate, including a former stock boy and an infectious disease expert.
A FIGS spokesperson who was in court Tuesday said, however, he anticipated SPI will need to prove specifically that FIGS’ sales increased because of its allegedly misleading marketing, which could be a difficult task for the plaintiffs.
The suit also called into question other elements of FIGS’ business practices, including the company’s promise to donate “hundreds of thousands of scrubs internationally'' as part of its Threads for Threads program. Per the publication of the company’s first video ad for it, the program appears to have been set up in 2013 to donate one pair for every pair sold: The lawsuit alleged, “these misrepresentations regarding donations are part of FIGS’s broader plan to deceive the public into believing that FIGS and FIGS scrubs are special, when they are not special.”
During opening statements, law firms Bird Marella and Munger, Tolles, & Olson argued on behalf of FIGS that SPI uses a similar chemical in its medical clothing.
Back in 2021, FIGS created an entire website to explain its side of the story. On the site, the medical clothing startup called the lawsuit “baseless attacks” from an older competitor that’s simply angry it lost market share to a new upstart and wants to “thwart competition.”
To that end, FIGS’ chief legal officer said the lawsuit was an attempt by SPI to “stifle” competition and drive it out of the market. He called the litigation “absurd” and said it won’t hold up in court.
This is a developing story. Have a tip? Contact Samson Amore securely via Signal at 401.287.5543 or Samsonamore@dot.LA.
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Samson Amore
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la
Here's How To Get a Digital License Plate In California
03:49 PM | October 14, 2022
Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash
Thanks to a new bill passed on October 5, California drivers now have the choice to chuck their traditional metal license plates and replace them with digital ones.
The plates are referred to as “Rplate” and were developed by Sacramento-based Reviver. A news release on Reviver’s website that accompanied the bill’s passage states that there are “two device options enabling vehicle owners to connect their vehicle with a suite of services including in-app registration renewal, visual personalization, vehicle location services and security features such as easily reporting a vehicle as stolen.”
Reviver Auto Current and Future CapabilitiesFrom Youtube
There are wired (connected to and powered by a vehicle’s electrical system) and battery-powered options, and drivers can choose to pay for their plates monthly or annually. Four-year agreements for battery-powered plates begin at $19.95 a month or $215.40 yearly. Commercial vehicles will pay $275.40 each year for wired plates. A two-year agreement for wired plates costs $24.95 per month. Drivers can choose to install their plates, but on its website, Reviver offers professional installation for $150.
A pilot digital plate program was launched in 2018, and according to the Los Angeles Times, there were 175,000 participants. The new bill ensures all 27 million California drivers can elect to get a digital plate of their own.
California is the third state after Arizona and Michigan to offer digital plates to all drivers, while Texas currently only provides the digital option for commercial vehicles. In July 2022, Deseret News reported that Colorado might also offer the option. They have several advantages over the classic metal plates as well—as the L.A. Times notes, digital plates will streamline registration renewals and reduce time spent at the DMV. They also have light and dark modes, according to Reviver’s website. Thanks to an accompanying app, they act as additional vehicle security, alerting drivers to unexpected vehicle movements and providing a method to report stolen vehicles.
As part of the new digital plate program, Reviver touts its products’ connectivity, stating that in addition to Bluetooth capabilities, digital plates have “national 5G network connectivity and stability.” But don’t worry—the same plates purportedly protect owner privacy with cloud support and encrypted software updates.
5 Reasons to avoid the digital license plate | Ride TechFrom Youtube
After the Rplate pilot program was announced four years ago, some raised questions about just how good an idea digital plates might be. Reviver and others who support switching to digital emphasize personalization, efficient DMV operations and connectivity. However, a 2018 post published by Sophos’s Naked Security blog pointed out that “the plates could be as susceptible to hacking as other wireless and IoT technologies,” noting that everyday “objects – things like kettles, TVs, and baby monitors – are getting connected to the internet with elementary security flaws still in place.”
To that end, a May 2018 syndicated New York Times news service article about digital plates quoted the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which warned that such a device could be a “‘honeypot of data,’ recording the drivers’ trips to the grocery store, or to a protest, or to an abortion clinic.”
For now, Rplates are another option in addition to old-fashioned metal, and many are likely to opt out due to cost alone. If you decide to go the digital route, however, it helps if you know what you could be getting yourself into.
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Steve Huff
Steve Huff is an Editor and Reporter at dot.LA. Steve was previously managing editor for The Metaverse Post and before that deputy digital editor for Maxim magazine. He has written for Inside Hook, Observer and New York Mag. Steve is the author of two official tie-ins books for AMC’s hit “Breaking Bad” prequel, “Better Call Saul.” He’s also a classically-trained tenor and has performed with opera companies and orchestras all over the Eastern U.S. He lives in the greater Boston metro area with his wife, educator Dr. Dana Huff.
steve@dot.la
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