esports

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...