Connect with us

Business

Gaming worth $184bn globally but advertiser spend is fractional

Published

2 years ago

on

Gaming

Two in five people worldwide are active gamers
26.7% year-on-year rise in average revenue per user for in-app gaming ads
A complex ecosystem, game publishers are working to build advertising capabilities and prove its effectiveness

WARC Global Advertising Trends | Gaming: Advertising’s untapped opportunity

01 August 2024 – Gaming has a vast global audience and is a key driver of culture, yet in-game advertising spend remains stubbornly low, according to WARC Media’s latest Global Ad Trends report, ‘Gaming: Advertising’s untapped opportunity’ released today.

Alex Brownsell, Head of WARC Media, says: “Gaming is huge, both in audience and cultural impact, and its highly complex ecosystem spans devices and platforms defying conventional definitions of a channel. Gaming has long been heralded as a vital emerging opportunity for brands, particularly those wanting to reach younger audiences.

“However, in-game advertising spend remains low. This may soon change, with game publishers focused on improving ad monetisation. But evidence is needed to make the case for gaming as an advertising medium.”

In this report WARC outlines key considerations for brands wanting to explore advertising opportunities in gaming:

In-game advertising investment growth remains slow despite its 3.4 billion audience and cultural impact

The worldwide games market generates revenues of $183.9 billion annually, far in excess of the music and movie businesses. Some 3.4 billion people globally play video games across age groups. Research by Newzoo has found that 72% of 35-54s and 46% of over 55s game at least once a week.

Nearly 90% of advertisers surveyed by the IAB agreed that gaming is a brand safe channel as a result of improved tools such as fraud deduction, context and age rating, ads interactivity and engagement metrics. Yet many marketers remain cautious of gaming as an advertising channel.

Enthusiasm around in-game ads peaked during the pandemic, but since 2021 the share of advertisers planning to increase spend on gaming has fallen by 20 percentage points, from 72% to 52% per WARC’s Marketer’s Toolkit 2024 survey.

US advertisers are forecast to spend $6.7bn on in-game ads in 2024, up 10.0% year on year. This is equivalent to only 3.7% of total US digital ad spend, according to Dentsu.

Gaming is a complex ecosystem rather than a singular channel

The gaming advertising ecosystem is bewildering, spanning devices, genres, formats, and market preferences. This is contributing to the slow uptake of in-game ads.

Brands can choose between numerous touchpoints to reach gaming audiences, including creator content on Twitch, user discussions on Discord, and e-sports sponsorships, meaning they aren’t reliant on nascent in-game formats.

Additionally, gamers themselves are not uniform. Over half (53%) play video games to escape from everyday life, while 63% see gaming as a good way to spend time with family and friends, per Microsoft-owned Activision Blizzard Media. Whilst mobile gaming is most common, nearly half (48%) play with more than one device per Newzoo.

Jo Pereira, SVP Strategy, Media Futures Group, EssenceMediacomX, says: “Gaming is a whole entertainment ecosystem, not a channel, and is stealing share from entertainment platforms. However, clients haven’t grown up with gaming, and feel less confident with the opportunities.”

Game publishers are working to build ad capabilities and prove the effectiveness of in-game ads

Gaming offers full funnel potential. However, while programmatically traded mobile app inventory is dominated by endemic gaming advertisers, most larger brands use in-game advertising to drive mid- and upper-funnel goals.

But understanding the overall impact of gaming can be challenging. Gaming companies and agencies are trying to step up, forming dedicated gaming practices to assist with media and creative requirements.

Gaming generates higher attention rates

Research by Dentsu, Lumen and Activision Blizzard Media found gaming environments generate higher viewability and attention rates, as well as more efficient cost. In-game rewarded video ads achieved a 100% on screen impression rate (exceeding the benchmark of 83%), an average of over 10,000 attentive seconds per thousand impressions.

Nina Fedorczuk , Chief Enablement Officer, Omnicom Media Group Asia Pacific, says: “Gaming requires attention. It’s unlikely that gamers multitask in-game; everything else is just background noise. ⟮For brands⟯ it’s a matter of keeping that attention, and not jolting gamers out of it.”

Gaming content commands active engagement

While Gen Z spends an average of 12.2 hours per week on games, there is also a generational shift to more active engagement: 53% of Gen Z consumers spend more than half of their time engaging with game IP in other ways than playing.

Consumers in markets like China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Vietnam are more likely to use games to socialise, and according to data in WARC’s latest Spotlight South East Asia, 31% of Malaysian gaming consumers had bought a product they saw while playing games.

Game developers are moving to boost advertising revenue

In-app advertising has seen major growth in the past year. Data from Unity suggests a 26.7% year-on-year rise in average revenue per daily active user resulting from in-app ads, with simulation, casual and puzzle games seeing the biggest increase in in-app advertising.

Whilst gaming companies such Roblox are working hard to boost advertising revenue, such expenditure may be ineffective without adequate support in other channels, particularly social, which are key to facilitating discovery and engagement.

Netflix has reportedly spent $1bn on its gaming business since launching three years ago, with game downloads up 200% since 2022. Investment in gaming content has helped The New York Times to retain users with other digital platforms including LinkedIn and YouTube following suit.

Read a complimentary sample report of WARC’s Global Ad Trends – Gaming: Advertising’s untapped opportunity here. WARC Media subscribers can read the report in full. A WARC podcast discussing the findings outlined in the report will be available from 20 August.

Global Ad Trends is a quarterly report which draws on WARC’s dataset of advertising and media intelligence to take a holistic view on current industry developments. It is part of WARC Media, a subscription service which provides rigorous and accurate benchmarks aggregated and verified from over 100 reputable sources, empowering media decision makers to plan strategies with precision.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Business

AFRICLOUD Opens Lagos Region and Local-Currency Payments in African Markets

Published

9 hours ago

on

September 23, 2026

By

The company’s third African region keeps Nigerian workloads in Nigeria, and customers from Abidjan to Nairobi can now pay in the currency they earn, without an international card

MIAMI BEACH, United States of America, September 23, 2026/APO Group/ –AFRICLOUD (https://AFRICLOUD.com), a cloud infrastructure company, has opened its third African region in Lagos and now accepts payment in local currency across West, Central, East and Southern Africa. Businesses across the continent can run servers in Nigeria, South Africa or Portugal from one account, and pay for them the way they already pay for everything else.

 




  

Download document (1): https://apo-opa.co/4Ardfz9

Download document (2): https://apo-opa.co/46FWH8Y

Buying cloud infrastructure in Africa has meant living with three compromises: traffic that leaves the continent and comes back, payment in dollars behind a card many businesses do not hold, and data sitting under somebody else’s law.

Lagos answers the first. Compute and storage for Nigerian customers stay in Nigeria, and the region also serves Accra, Abidjan, Lome, Douala and Ouagadougou. Traffic from landlocked West Africa that once reached comparable infrastructure by way of Europe now stays on terrestrial West African fibre. Johannesburg serves Southern and East Africa. Lisbon serves North Africa and Europe, and reaches Brazil over a direct subsea route. Across the three regions, AFRICLOUD’s own continent-wide measurements place 42 of the 53 African countries measured within a best-case round trip of 70 milliseconds, countries home to about 1.28 billion people.

A company in Accra or Abidjan now reaches West African infrastructure without leaving the region, and pays for it in the currency it earns

Payment answers the second. Customers across West, Central, East and Southern Africa pay in their own currency, including the naira, the cedi, the shilling and the CFA francs, by local card, bank transfer, USSD or mobile money, with no international card needed. Mobile money is live in twelve African countries, and cards, PayPal and more than 300 cryptocurrencies are accepted everywhere. The GSMA reports that 74 per cent of the world’s mobile money activity by transaction count took place in Africa in 2024.

Residency answers the third. Nigerian data runs under the Nigeria Data Protection Act, South African data under POPIA and European workloads under EU law, chosen server by server from the same dashboard.

“African businesses have been asked to choose between infrastructure that is close, infrastructure they can actually pay for, and infrastructure that keeps their data under their own law,” said Oluniyi Ajao, Founder of AFRICLOUD. “Removing that choice is the reason we built this.”

“Lagos is the piece that completes the map,” he said. “A company in Accra or Abidjan now reaches West African infrastructure without leaving the region, and pays for it in the currency it earns.”

All three regions run the same platform: AMD EPYC processors with all-NVMe storage, IPv4 and IPv6 on every server, and a new server online in about two minutes. Dedicated Servers are built to order in all three regions. Support is available around the clock by chat and email.

Cloud Servers are available now at https://AFRICLOUD.com.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of AFRICLOUD LLC.

 

 




 

Continue Reading

Business

Hong Kong outlines strategies for deepening development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and enhancing green transformation

Published

13 hours ago

on

September 23, 2026

By

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 22 September 2026 – Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee announced the First Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) (2026-2030) and his fifth Policy Address on September 16, rolling out measures to further sharpen Hong Kong’s edge amid global competition, consolidate development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and promote green transformation.

Initiatives aim to support high-quality development of the GBA, align rules and mechanisms within the region, and promote cross-boundary collaboration.

 




 
 

“The HKSAR Government will continue its efforts in fostering synergistic development of the GBA,” said Mr Lee. “We will strengthen co‑operation in technological innovation, promote ‘hard connectivity’ in infrastructure, foster ‘soft connectivity’ by deepening the alignment of rules and mechanisms, and achieve ‘connectivity of hearts’ among residents of the three places.”

The HKSAR Government will continue to actively participate in the development of the various major co-operation platforms, including Qianhai of Shenzhen, Nansha of Guangzhou, Hengqin of Zhuhai and the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Co-operation Zone, to promote mutual benefits.

In terms of “hard connectivity” the HKSAR Government will support Nansha in its role as a high‑standard gateway for opening up, including encouraging the trade to participate in Nansha’s infrastructure development.

“To promote the co‑ordinated development of rail transit in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, we are pressing ahead with the Northern Link Project and the Hong Kong‑Shenzhen Western Rail Link (Hung Shui Kiu‑Qianhai), with target commissioning in 2034 and 2035 respectively, to fully connect the rail transit networks of Hong Kong and Shenzhen,” Mr Lee said.

Regarding “soft connectivity”, Mr Lee said the HKSAR Government will set up a Task Force to explore ways to advance the alignment of rules and mechanisms within the GBA.

To achieve “Connectivity of Hearts” among residents across the GBA, Hong Kong will strengthen co-operation between its higher education institutions and those in other GBA cities by establishing cross‑disciplinary partnerships, facilitating scientific research, knowledge transfer, and commercialisation, with a view to promoting high‑level research.

Hong Kong’s Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Janice Tse, noted that the First Five-Year Plan clearly states that Hong Kong will participate in the development of the GBA into an international first‑class bay area and a world‑class city cluster with global influence.

“Hong Kong will forge closer alignment and synergy with the nine GBA cities in Guangdong Province and Macao, making full use of our respective advantages to jointly promote the high-quality development of the GBA,” Miss Tse said.

To foster financial development in the GBA, Hong Kong will continue to capitalise on institutional innovation, financial infrastructure upgrading and enhanced regulatory alignment to encourage the orderly flow of financial elements among GBA cities.

The Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited’s Core Climate, in collaboration with the Guangzhou Power Exchange Centre, is working towards the pilot trading of national renewable‑energy, green electricity certificates in Hong Kong in 2026.

“On connecting the Chinese Mainland and the world, the HKSAR Government will continue to support green technology development through the HK$400 million (aboutUS$51 million) Green Tech Fund, leveraging Hong Kong’s function as a springboard for green technology and assisting national green technologies and products in going global,” said Hong Kong’sSecretary for Environment and Ecology, Tse Chin-wan. “On the development of hydrogen energy, we have participated in drafting national hydrogen energy standards with a view to helping these standards align with international practice.”

To meet the country’s “dual carbon” targets and fulfil Hong Kong’s commitment to achieving carbon neutrality before 2050, the HKSAR Government steered the establishment of a production base for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in Dongguan, leveraging the leading position of Hong Kong enterprises in the international SAF industry.

“By combining technology strengths with industrial foundation, Hong Kong and Guangdong will jointly develop a globally influential green industry,” Mr Lee said.

The HKSAR Government will take forward the construction of an SAF blending facility in Hong Kong to build an end‑to‑end SAF value chain and reduce logistics costs to make SAF prices more competitive. The target is to achieve an SAF consumption ratio of 1% to 3% for flights departing from Hong Kong International Airport in 2030.

Hong Kong’s Five-Year Plan promotes the integrated development of culture, sports, and tourism, to develop the GBA into a cultured bay area.

Under the strategic framework of the Agreement on Strengthening of Sports Cooperation and Promotion of Integrated Development, Hong Kong will deepen co-operation, and strive to co‑organise important regional and international single‑sport events. It will also strengthen cultural exchanges, pass on Cantonese opera and the characteristics of Lingnan culture, and promote the sales and cross‑boundary exhibition of Hong Kong publications.
 




 

Continue Reading

Business

Alamein Africa Forum to bring together key political and business leaders

Published

14 hours ago

on

September 23, 2026

By

The forum is to become the continent’s premier gathering where political power meets entrepreneurial prowess, bridging the established engines of African growth with the new sectors defining its future

CAIRO, Egypt, September 22, 2026/APO Group/ –The inaugural Alamein Africa Forum (https://AlameinForum.com/) will take place from October 2-4 in the historic city of Alamein on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast in parallel with the 2026 African Union mid-year summit.

Established in response to a mandate from the African Union, which called for a permanent African Business Forum to convene biennially in Egypt, the inaugural edition will bring together Heads of State and official delegations as well as some key actors in business and finance.
 




 

The forum is to become the continent’s premier gathering where political power meets entrepreneurial prowess, bridging the established engines of African growth with the new sectors defining its future.

The Alamein Africa Forum will serve as a pan-African platform bringing together the private sector, investment and financial institutions

The Presidents of Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Libya, Senegal, Somalia, and South Africa are expected in Alamein as well as President Al Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt who is the host of this year’s AU Mid-Year Summit. Business leaders from across the continent have confirmed their participation including Ralph Mupita, MTN; Idrissa Nassa, Coris Bank; Mohamed El Ketani, Attijariwafa Bank; Hichem Eloumi, Groupe Shakira; Wale Tinubu, Oando; and many more. Aliko Dangote, Africa’s biggest industrialist is also expected to attend, with the organisers hoping to set up a Business Advisory Council to help advance private sector priorities and investment throughout the continent.

Bringing together leaders in politics, business and policy from across the continent, the Alamein Africa Forum will provide a unique opportunity to shape Africa’s growth agenda by aligning policy and investment priorities, mobilising partnerships for implementation and strengthening financing and investment pathways. The private sector must become an integral part of Agenda 2063, the AU’s strategic 50 year masterplan to transform the continent.

Co-organised by the Government of Egypt, Afreximbank, the African Union and AUDA-NEPAD, the Forum brings together Africa’s most influential decision-makers in an unprecedented alliance of public and private sector leadership.

Speaking on the imperative of the summit at a joint press conference by the government of Egypt and Afreximbank on Thursday, September 17 2026, Dr. Badr Abdelatty, Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation, and Expatriates Abroad said (https://apo-opa.co/4ygiQag): “The Alamein Africa Forum will serve as a pan-African platform bringing together the private sector, investment and financial institutions, and representatives of various productive and service sectors, to strengthen direct links between companies and markets and decision making at the highest level.”

Continuing, he noted that the Alamein Africa Forum is part of a series of high-level African events that Egypt will host in early October, stressing that holding the forum reflects Egypt’s commitment to advancing continental economic cooperation

In his own comments, Dr. George Elombi, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank described (https://apo-opa.co/4ygiQag) the Alamein Africa Forum as a pan-African platform for promoting intra-African trade and investment and connecting the business community and financial institutions with priority projects and investment opportunities in the continent.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Alamein Africa Forum.

 




 

Continue Reading

Trending

Exit mobile version