In-Game Advertising Spending To Hit $1 Billion In 2014

34 Comments

Posted May 26, 2009 - By Jake Gaskill

In-game advertising is certainly a contentious topic of discussion amongst gamers. But regardless of whether you love or hate seeing ads for real-world products in your games, the business of in-game advertising isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s only going to get bigger from here on out. How big? Well, thank you for asking.According to analysts who make it their business to know these sorts of things, in-game ad spending will hit $1 billion in 2014. Even more impressive is that analysts predict in-game ads will make up about one and a half percent of annual global ad spending in that same time. So what is it about games that has advertisers so willing and ready to fork over that kind of cash? Futures Director at GroupM (a global media investment network) Adam Smith explains via press release:

“Games are proven recession-beaters with an ad-funded online model that actually works. There are many ways in which advertising can help evolve business models for video games, and we have only just begun to explore that potential. Given gaming is now a mainstream leisure interest, in-game deserves the same consideration as mobile and social media.”

So it seems that all of you who have helped make gaming the entertainment juggernaut it is today have simultaneously created the next great fertile territory for advertising. You’re…welcome? Again, how you view this news will vary greatly on what your attitude is towards in-game advertising. And if you haven’t yet formed an opinion about in-game ads, you will have plenty of opportunities from here on out.

In-game ads: yea or nay?