In 2023, the video game industry is estimated to have generated $184bn in revenue and is bigger than the music and movie industry combined. Advertisers are now investing a significant percentage of their marketing budgets toward gamers in search of new attention opportunities.

Much of this advertising is spent on the same channels as before (TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram), simply with a layer of interest targeting that focuses on gamers. Others are going further by focusing on game-specific digital publishers, game-specific live-streaming platforms like Twitch and Kick, and gaming-specific influencers.

The slightly paradoxical part of this is that it focuses on reaching and engaging gamers when they’re consuming entertainment and not actually playing games themselves. Of course, there is nothing wrong with targeting gamer-orientated entertainment, however, the widespread use of adblockers amongst younger gamers often means the audience you were intending to target is near impossible. On top of that, numerous studies show that the real marketing magic of targeting gamers happens not when they are watching content but actively playing games, where emotions are high, attention is fixed and attitudes are more malleable to brands.

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In-Game Advertising vs In-Play Advertising

In-game advertising has become advertisers’ new favorite methodology for targeting gamers, where ads can be placed directly inside of games. However, due to the more complex nature and high development costs of integrating ads inside trusted premium game titles, many of the current in-game adtech solutions out there are focused on placing ads inside of “bedroom-shop” mobile games, many of which are unknown “hyper-casual” titles with poor segmentation, and low-quality audience data.

What’s more, placing ads inside of mobile games without disrupting gameplay often means peppering brand logos on a small mobile screen peppered on the edges of the main action that a gamer is focused on. Whilst ads may appear to have “high viewability” compared to display adverts on a website for example, there’s still a question of how impactful it is when it comes to brand recall and brand sentiment analysis.

Here, in-play advertising in premium game titles has always been the sweet spot that brands and advertisers have been looking for. Rather than passive ads hiding in-and-around gameplay using digital billboards, what if your brand could actively become part of the gaming experience in a more tangible way that enhances a player’s experience?

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Missed The Latest Episode of The SalesStar Podcast? Have a quick listen here!

Episode- 193: A Chat on AI with Debbie Braney, Vice President, Demand & Brand Marketing at Glassbox

Episode 192: The Latest in Distributed Commerce with Byron Sorrells, CEO and Co-founder of Dispatch

Episode 191: The Future of Online Shopping with Anh Vu-Lieberman, VP of Conversion Rate and Optimization at Nogin