At PlayFronts, Video Games Vie For Ad Dollars

IAB’s Zoe Soon at the PlayFronts

With many younger viewers not watching commercials on traditional television or streaming, video game companies are looking to attract a bigger share of advertising dollars.

At the IAB’s PlayFronts on Tuesday, there was lots of talk about the huge amount of screen time spent on gaming by consumers of all ages. There was also a big effort to convince marketers and their agencies that video game ads can be easy to buy and that measurement of viewing and effectiveness is improving.

There were also warnings that reaching gamers — a generation used to opting out of ads — takes extra effort including proving rewards for those that agree to sit through a commercial message.

To illustrate how gaming culture intrudes into television’s biggest moments, Zoe Soon, VP of the IAB’s Experience Center, noted that during the Super Bowl halftime show, Kendrick Lamar used video game imagery because he wanted to reach young people.

That “illustrates exactly why brands can no longer afford to ignore gaming, its ability to reach engaged audiences at scale, via a medium that’s part of the cultural narrative,” Soon said.

Soon noted that 90% to 95% of Gen Z and Gen Alpha identify as gamers. And its not just young people, with 84% of internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 defined as a gamer and the average age of gamers clocking in at 37.

More stats: the preview of the latest Grand Theft Auto game racked up 93 million views in 24 hours. Soon contrasted that with the 19.3 million viewers drawn by the finale of HBO’s Game of Thrones.

Many brands have seen big results with video game advertising but at this point, just 5% of digital ad spending, about $8.4 billion, goes to gaming. The low share relative to screen time is partly the result of the industry’s very human resistance to change and doing something new, Soon said.

”What will set brands apart is their ability to connect with audiences in authentic ways through storytelling, which is central to gaming. We need to stop thinking about marketing in old terms like reach and frequency and look deeper. As an industry, I would argue that we've over indexed on ‘right time and right person,’ and under indexed on ‘right message,’” she said. “In the words of Rishad Tobaccowala, we've optimized the plumbing without optimizing the poetry. According to Rishad, an incredible 60% of marketing success will be based on creative messaging and everything else will be commoditized.”

Individual companies presenting at the PlayFronts touted massive reach, gaming know-how and big results.

Discord, a 10-year-old platform where people play games and watch friends play, launched its first ad product a year ago. It has accumulated 200 million monthly active users, 80% of whom are those hard-to-reach 13- to 34-year-old members of Gen Z, said Discord Senior VP of Product Peter Sellis. “Our goal is to be the best place to talk and hang out and play before, during and after gaming with your friends.”

Sellis said marketers want to break into the “digital living room,” but that can be challenging. “You're talking about a set of customers who since the day they were born we'e pressing the skip ad button,” he said. “They've probably been used to free content and mashing that button over and over. If you appear inauthentically to this group, if you're a poser, if you're lame, they're going to spot it from a million miles away.”

To appeal to them, Discord created Quests, a gamified ad format it designed to be fun and reward users with digital products. The company started with ads for gaming products, but expanded into media and entertainment. This year, general market brands can buy Quest ads.

Discord offers video Quest ads that reward viewers for sitting through a long form ad such as a trailer. HBO used Quest ads to promote Dune II. Adam Bauer, VP of sales at Discord, said that 86% of users who opted in completed the 2½ minute trailer and all of those redeemed their rewards. Quest game ads reward users for playing a sponsored game for 15 minutes.

So far, Discord has run 70 Quests, with a 10% opt-in rate, and has giving away millions of rewards, Bauer said.

Bauer announced that Discord would begin offering Quests for players on mobile devices. “This is very exciting for us because this unlocks about half of our user base.”

Roblox also announced a new ad product, and said it was was working with Google to provide ad tech and measurement.

Roblox has 85 million daily active users who spend 2½ hours a day on the platform, said Ashley McCollum, head of immersive media solutions at Roblox.

She said there are already 400 brands active on Roblox.

“Our focus for 2025 is helping agencies and brands take this engaged audience and turn it into outcomes,” she said, introducing Rewarded Video, which will be available in a few weeks.

In early testing, 87% of users had a favorable opinion of Rewarded Video and 80 to 90% completion rates.

Initially the ads on Roblox will be available via Google Ad Manager.

“We want to make it easy to buy through your DSP of choice, but we also want to make it easy to measure,” McCollum said. She announced deals with measurement companies including IAS, DoubleVerify, Kantar, Cint and Nielsen.

Google offers gaming ads through its platform. “All of our mobile gaming inventory is based on the foundation of the Google Mobile Ads SDK, said Walt Gao, global product lead for emerging inventory channels at Google. The platform provides publishers like Roblox with transaction capabilities for direct sales, brand safety and inventory controls and campaign measurement, he said.

On Monday, Samsung Ads announced that it launched an interactive game ad format on its Samsung TV Plus streaming service in the U.S. and Canada.

The new format, dubbed Samsung GameBreaks, integrates interactive mini-games into Samsung TV Plus content, appearing in the first ad slot in commercial breaks. The first game used in GameBreaks is the trivia game The Six.

“In a fragmented media landscape where consumer attention is more coveted than ever, Samsung GameBreaks delivers what brands need most: attention, impact, and meaningful engagement,” said Michael Scott, VP, head of ad sales and operations at Samsung Ads. “With this new format, Samsung is ushering in a new era of engaging CTV advertising that transforms passive viewers into engaged participants. This is more than an ad. It’s a branded experience that audiences choose to remember.”

Samsung said that, according to research done with MediaScience, 89% of viewers preferred GameBreaks to traditional commercial breaks and that the ads lifted unaided recall for advertisers by 53%.

“As interactive ad experiences become more prevalent, brands have an opportunity to rethink their current approach,” added Scott. “Consumers are looking for engagement and relevance—experiences that go beyond traditional advertising. GameBreaks offers a scalable way to meet those expectations in a premium, brand-safe environment.”

For some this might be fun and games. But for the TV business, its one more digital challenge to worry about.