There’s an engaged audience and then there are gamers.
Whether you’re a casual Candy Crush enjoyer, a competitive e-sportist, or enjoy a casual, epic, single-player saga it doesn’t matter. You’re equally immersed in the game.
Gamers are focused, attentive, and prone to emotional decision-making. Which should—in theory at least—make video games a great platform to run ads on.
But is that really the case? You probably don’t hear about gaming ads as much.
Let’s investigate a bit.
🎮 What are video game ads? Running in-game ads means that you buy ad placements in video games—such as mobile, PC, or console games. While there are many different types of video game ads, the most prominent include:
- Intrinsic ads: In-game, non-intrusive ads that blend with the gaming environment.
- Rewarded ads: Ads that reward the player with special in-game gifts if they watch them, usually promoted in-between gaming sessions.
- Interstitial ads: These ads cover the entire screen and require some type of interaction—such as skip or continue button—and are played during in game pauses, loading screens, and similar.
Video game ad revenue is growing
Here’s how ad spend looks like globally:
According to the forecast, there’s going to be a 5.7x increase in video game ad revenue worldwide from 2017 to 2027. That’s a $100B increase in less than a decade. Whoa.
This indicates that brands and advertisers are seeing the channel as one worth spending a buck on. But it can also tell us that it’s getting easier to do so than before.
It’s a similar trend in the US:
There’s been a slow but steady growth in the video game advertising industry in the US.
However, compared to the total internet advertising revenue—which is $225B as per the most recent IAB report—this is less than 5% of total US ad share.
…which is still a pretty decent share for a growing slightly “niche” channel.
🙍♀️👨🏿 According to reports, there were 3.2B gamers worldwide in 2023. In the US, 55% of all gamers identify as male, while 45% identify as female. That’s a big and diverse pool of potential eyeballs—and customers.
There’s more in-game shopping going on in 2024
Unlike a few years ago, today’s gamers aren’t strangers to purchasing stuff while playing.
There are a few reasons for this:
- The increase of microtransactions and in-game purchases is now a normal thing.
- The biggest gaming generation, millennials—and a part of Zoomers—are entering peak spending power.
- The rise of mobile gaming, popular among older generations.
The stats back it up:
With this data—and the number of gamers increasing year over year—It’s not crazy to think that the number of in-game purchases will keep growing.
👥 Who actually plays video games? Who can you target? GWI did a great report in 2020 and found that:
- Female users dominate mobile-only gaming (55%), Gen X are second largest mobile-only gamers.
- Millennials dominate every gamer type—from casual gamers to e-sport players and influencers.
- All gamer types have played games on smartphones more than any other devices.
Mobile video gaming might be a golden opportunity
As we’ve seen in the previous section, mobile gaming is where the attention is. And money.
Plus, mobile ads are most convenient to set up and track, from now.
Advertisers seem to know this as well:
It appears that most video game advertising is happening on mobile with PC coming on second.
What’s interesting is that only half of advertisers say they opt to advertise on both at the same time.
But when it comes to mobile gaming, it looks like there’s a bit of a stagnation in both time spent playing games—and ad spend.
However, gaming screen time still outpaces ad spend. A lot:
According to this, there seems to be a lot of unused advertising space on mobile.
With around 10.9% of all mobile time spent on games in 2024, there’s probably a case to be made that mobile gaming ad revenue could be a bigger chunk of total mobile ad spend.
But why doesn’t it increase? We’ll touch on that a bit in the next section.
Advertisers are seeing potential in video game ads
At least that’s what the stats say.
Take a look:
There’s a big chunk of advertisers who say that video game ads are increasingly important to their company.
Moreover, games advertising is one of the channels with the biggest percentage of budget increase this year, according to reports—below social ads and online video ads.
However, it’s worth noting that 10% plan to decrease spending as well.
The optimism around video ads might be greater, if they weren’t complicated to plan and implement. In fact, 70% advertisers think video gaming ads are complicated to run.
That, and them being a bit difficult to scale are the two biggest concerns.
Meaning that—until the sentiment starts edging towards “uncomplicated”—we won’t see the full potential of video gaming ads.
❤️ Advertisers who do gaming ads, seem to love gaming ads. According to IAB, advertisers say gaming ads are pretty effective:
- 78% say they’re great for awareness stage
- 70% claim they’re great for driving post-purchase advocacy
- 65% say they’re excellent in delivering ROAS
There’s something in there, isn’t it?
New game, load game, advertise
Video game ad revenue is growing. Interest from companies doesn’t seem to be waning and—despite their complexity—advertisers who leverage them often find them effective.
Mobile gaming, particularly, offers untapped potential according to stats and is something you might want to consider first.
Finally, with increased ease of implementation, we can expect it to bite into a bigger share of the advertising pie. We’ll keep a close eye on that.
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