Play the Digital Marketing “Game”

There are 33.5 million digital game players in the UK. 65% of these are aged between 16-74 years old. 49% of mobile gamers are men, 48% are women. 38% of PC/console gamers are men and 26% are women. (Source: Populus)

Free is favoured

Probably no major surprises in these stats, but did you know 75% of gamers accept some level of advertising/digital marketing on free apps or online games? Not only that – 80% of gamers would prefer to download a free game app with advertising than pay for an advertising free version! The relevance to Digital Marketing is that the UK games industry was worth £5.7 billion in 2018, and with a potential audience of almost 35 million, it’s worth considering how the gaming industry could be beneficial.

In game advertising allows advertisers to pay to have their name or products featured in digital games. Given the huge numbers of gamers currently in UK, that is a pretty large target audience. The more indepth games are highly interactive and allow for subtle forms of digital advertising. Product placement in an action game, car manufacturers in a racing game. The advert is worked into the experience becoming a feature rather than a distraction to the user.

Online access

According to a recent study, 80% of video game consoles are now connected to the internet which allows them to receive dynamic content updates on a regular basis. Marketers can change and segment their adverts, and analyse data choosing when ads will show and where they will show.

When users download mobile games, they are often free to download. The game designers make their money by showing paid ads within the free games. If users don’t want the ads, they install a paid version of the game. If they don’t want to pay they are shown ads regularly based around the potential user demographics and interests, according to the type of game downloaded.

Currently the cost of digital marketing in games makes it unappealing to smaller businesses, but it is a sign of things to come.