
Why brands shouldn’t lose sight of hyper-casual gaming as a growing and diverse ad environment
With interest in all forms of gaming advertising on the rise, hyper-casual mobile game developers are looking to assert the value of the advertising inventory within their product. Although newer forms of in-game...

Why the IAB’s updated measurement guidelines could be a watershed moment for in-game advertising
The Interactive Advertising Bureau has released updated measurement guidelines for intrinsic in-game advertising — and in-game ad firms are rejoicing at the news. Although in-game ad tech has improved at a rapid pace...
How Full Squad Gaming’s influencer-powered approach reflects the future of gaming and esports media
The media brand Full Squad Gaming launched in late 2020, focused on gamer-oriented video content on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. Since then, the company has expanded rapidly, hiring prominent talent such as gaming influencer Jake Lucky to create content — all while (literally) hitting the road on a multi-state promotional bus tour last month. Full Squad’s social-first, influencer-powered vision for gaming and esports...

Gaming and esports companies’ cheery earnings reports belie the industry’s profitability challenges
As their quarterly earnings rolled out last month, publicly-traded gaming and esports companies highlighted growing revenues and expanding audiences as evidence of their continued success. But these declarations ignored...

As esports organizations widen their revenue streams, valuation continues to be a challenge
The problem with valuations of esports organizations is that more often than not, they don’t add up. Sky-high valuations on non-profitable businesses are par for the course in the sector. That’s not a great thing to...

Quontic Bank’s metaverse outpost demonstrates the importance of brand utility in metaverse activations
Yesterday, Quontic Bank opened its first presence inside Decentraland, with plans to expand the virtual outpost into a bona fide virtual bank, replete with all of the financial services offered in physical banks. The activation demonstrates that brands have realized the importance of lasting utility in metaverse spaces — and shows the difficulties of actually attaining that utility. The virtual bank includes a digital representation...
In-game advertising experts question Microsoft and Sony’s gaming advertising plans
Microsoft and Sony are both on the verge of starting their own in-game advertising businesses, but their work is cut out for them. Both tech giants boast massive player bases and potential inventory, yet their premium console offerings are not particularly attuned to in-game advertising, according to industry veterans — and some experts believe they are investing in a modality of gaming advertising that is already outmoded. In-game...


Why Snap and Saber Interactive are promoting the release of Evil Dead: The Game with an AR magazine cover
To promote the release of its film-inspired title, Evil Dead: The Game, game developer Saber Interactive partnered with Snap and Game Informer to create a grisly augmented-reality magazine cover featuring audio and video assets pulled directly from the game. Though the game comes out on Friday, the AR-powered Game Informer cover has been on newsstands since April. When Snap users scan a Snapcode on the cover, it triggers an immersive...
Fortnite Creative’s creator economy represents the future of metaversal brand activations
Fortnite Creative is becoming a hub for metaversal brand activations, and the demand has pushed companies to look beyond Epic Games, the developer of the title, to reach audiences. From that interest, a cottage industry has emerged around a community of independent companies that design experiences within the game’s workshop mode, similar to the creator economy taking shape inside Roblox. Just like the world it emulates, the...
Game developers are angling to become the next big media owners — and brands are taking notice
Here’s the latest sign that the gaming market is going through unprecedented change: games publishers are developing their own advertising businesses. In fact, it won’t be long before Upfront-style events fronted by those businesses are a staple of the industry, said Paul Mascali, head of esports and gaming at PepsiCo. And he may have a point. More than most marketers, Mascali has had a front-row seat to why ad dollars are becoming...

How the Overwatch League is generating fan engagement with a March-Madness-style bracket contest
Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch League is borrowing a play from the NCAA. To generate interest and engagement in the OWL’s regular season, which kicked off on Thursday, the company has introduced an updated...

How The Sandbox’s first virtual pride parade highlights the importance of diversity in the metaverse
In June, virtual platform The Sandbox will be the location of the first metaverse-native LGBTQ pride parade. The event is the brainchild of People of Crypto (POC) Lab, a new agency and innovation hub focused on building...
Why Twitch signaled a recommitment to creators at IAB NewFronts
Digiday’s NewFronts coverage is presented by Amazon. During Amazon’s IAB NewFronts presentation on Monday, Twitch representative Sarah Iooss spent most of her allotted time reaffirming her company’s commitment to creators. As competition mounts between livestreaming platforms, Twitch is providing new tools and services to support creators in the production of both personal and branded content. The past year has brought both...
WTF is the difference between gaming and esports?
As both gaming and esports become fixtures in the cultural landscape, the distinctions between them are growing increasingly hazy. Esports is a subset of the broader gaming community; it’s very rare for an esports fan to identify as a non-gamer. Over time, the reverse is also becoming true: both casual players and non-gamers alike have become increasingly familiar with the events and personalities that define the esports scene....
Why companies are developing new tools and metrics to measure gaming advertising
As gaming advertising takes center stage, companies across the industry are developing new measurement tools and metrics to increase brands’ confidence in their efforts. Brand interest in the space has steadily increased over the past year, sparking a buzz of activity at industry events such as IAB PlayFronts and Digiday’s own Gaming Advertising Forum. Recently, both Microsoft and Sony have indicated plans to develop in-game...
Why North Carolina is becoming the Silicon Valley of the metaverse
A perfect storm of tech companies, universities and top-of-the-line network infrastructure could make North Carolina the next center of development for the metaverse and other future technologies. North Carolina has been a hub of technological development ever since the 1950s, when a confluence of local universities led observers to refer to a nine-county region in the state as the “Research Triangle.” “The Triangle has the jet...
‘The model is shifting’: In esports, brand dollars increasingly follow the personalities
Turns out, it’s the culture around esports, not the competitions themselves, that really interest advertisers. Marketers at Digiday’s virtual Gaming Advertising Forum earlier this week said as much. And the way they advertise to gamers is changing as a result. They’re increasingly choosing to build campaigns around the biggest personalities in esports, over the teams and competitions. “We recognized early on that a lot of...

‘Everyone just got addicted to it’: How kids are using Roblox, in their own words
Since its launch in 2006, Roblox has transformed from a video game into a metaverse platform, gradually adding in features such as layered clothing to bring its virtual environment closer to the physical world. These...