Gaming Wants To Prove It’s Just Like Other Media Channels

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Home Gaming Gaming Wants To Prove It’s Just Like Other Media Channels – While Also Owning How It’s Different

Gaming
Gaming Wants To Prove It’s Just Like Other Media Channels – While Also Owning How It’s Different By
Anthony Vargas

Friday, September 18th, 2026 – 11:46 am
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From left: Michael Arzt, Director, Experience Center
IAB; Jean-Baptiste Godinot, EVP, Gameloft for brands; Rhiannon Apple, EVP Commercial Operations, Super League Gaming; and Andy Martinson, Senior Marketing Manager, H&R Block, onstage at IAB Playfronts 2026.

The gaming channel is having a bit of an identity crisis.
On one hand, gaming ad platforms are delivering the targeting and measurement capabilities advertisers expect from other digital channels. That way, gaming can position itself as part of agencies’ omnichannel strategies, rather than being treated as its own scary bucket of stereotypical “gamers.”
But on the other hand, game platforms are adamant that they need to embrace what sets the gaming channel apart from other forms of media to bring the best value to advertisers.
IAB CEO David Cohen spoke to this tension during his opening remarks at the fifth-annual IAB Playfronts event on Thursday.
Emerging media channels like creator marketing, podcasts and gaming “represent a broader change in how people experience media, and therefore how the industry needs to think about that opportunity,” Cohen said. “We need to resist the temptation to take the models of yesterday and simply put them into the environments of tomorrow.”
While Playfronts highlighted plenty of ad innovations and inventory unique to gaming, much of the new tech showed off at the event aimed to do exactly what Cohen warned against.

As it turns out, adapting other channels’ tried-and-true strategies might be exactly what gaming platforms need to do to get advertisers comfortable spending more in the channel. Leaning into gaming’s differentiators will have to come later, after bigger budgets arrive.
Proving the case
In many ways, gaming is still trying to prove its audience reach and its ability to produce outcomes to skeptical buyers.
The IAB has helped legitimize gaming as an advertising channel by updating its gaming measurement guidelines and rolling out standardized ad units that are easier to buy at scale and measure against other channels.
The organization is now working on a Gaming Buyer Map. IAB’s SVP of product development Cintia Gabilan described it as “a practical planning framework” that breaks down which of the channel’s creative types and measurement features are suited for upper- and lower-funnel objectives.
Still, despite years of efforts to make it easier to activate campaigns, gaming is still locked in the “why won’t advertisers spend more?” cycle that plagues every emerging media channel except for CTV.
Today, gaming attracts just 2.4% of media spend despite the fact that 67% of Americans play video games every week, said Shahar Sorek, CEO of gaming creator platform Overwolf, citing recent research by his company. “This is the single biggest mismatch between attention and investment in media today,” he added.
Advertisers who participated in the Overwolf study said buying gaming inventory is too complicated, and they feel it’s too hard to prove results.
To address those concerns, Overwolf announced at Playfronts its new In-Game Audience Map, a media planning tool that helps buyers find their target audiences across more than 5,000 game titles. It’s based on Overwolf’s first-party data platform, Gamer Grid – which works more or less like any other audience ID graph marketers would use to target ads in other media channels.
Giving marketers a way to target IAB standard ad units across a wide array of games can get gaming more deeply embedded in ad agencies’ media plans, Nathan Lindberg, VP of Global Brand Partnerships at Overwolf, told AdExchanger in a chat after his company’s Playfronts presentation.
Lindberg added that Overwolf has plenty of gaming-specific inventory and solutions that it can demo to wow advertisers. But, he said, “sexy gets you innovation budgets,” which tend to be just a small share of an agency’s overall spend.
Instead, Overwolf wants to get larger shares of programmatic and direct budgets, Lindberg said, which requires getting in front of agency strategy teams. Hence rolling out a new media planning tool that mimics what they’re used to in other channels.
But Overwolf is also pitching potential partners on the unique attribution capabilities it can provide as a desktop-based app for gaming creators and their communities.
Because its app lives on a user’s computer as an executable file, Lindberg said, Overwolf can tell what hardware and peripherals they have connected to that device. Which, he said, comes in handy when measuring campaigns for companies selling headsets, controllers and graphics cards.
The publisher playbook
There were even more examples of gaming platforms taking cues from other media channels at Playfronts.
Zynga, the Take Two-owned mobile app publisher, announced the launch of its own third-party publisher network, Zynga Ads+. It’s a similar play to how other large digital publishers like People Inc. have extended their ad platforms to off-network sites.
And, in a nod to the media quality concerns that follow digital publishers’ third-party ad networks, Zynga Ads+ has its own quality controls: It’s only letting apps with an App Store rating of 4.5 or higher into its network, and it’s promising brand-safe and high-attention inventory as scored by its measurement partner, DoubleVerify.
Meanwhile, gaming news site IGN is following many of its fellow digital pubs in using AI and its own audience intelligence platform, called IMAGINE, to revamp its display advertising experience. But it did so with a twist tailored to its gaming audience.
In partnership with AI agent platform Firsthand, IGN created interactive display ad units for a campaign for graphics processor brand AMD that gave readers different prompts tailored to the content they’re reading. Say a person reads a review of Capcom’s new game “Onimusha: Way of the Sword,” then moves to an article about building your own gaming PC. The display ad would prompt the reader to learn whether they need to upgrade to a new AMD graphics card to play Onimusha.
Video verisimilitude
But gaming’s attempt to balance between being just another media channel while hyping its differentiators really came to the forefront whenever video strategy was discussed at Playfronts.
When dealing with advertisers, it can be hard to decide whether to play the gaming card or say “I’m just a video network like any other, and you can buy me through DV360 or The Trade Desk,” said Jean-Baptiste Godinot, SVP of Gameloft for brands, the advertising arm of the French game publisher.
Roblox likewise touted its integrations with DV360 and other programmatic platforms. It’s all part of making its video inventory easier for advertisers to buy using their preferred methods, said Mike Schoelch, head of agency partnerships at Roblox.
However, the many ways advertisers can buy gaming inventory might be causing gaming’s share of spend to be undercounted, said Andy Martinson, senior marketing manager at H&R Block. “Is a Twitch campaign gaming, or is that programmatic?” he wondered. “Is a creator campaign gaming, or is that social? Is an integration in a game the only thing that counts as gaming?”
While Martinson acknowledged that gaming spend can be pulled from different budgets, he also encouraged buyers to treat gaming as its own channel and experiment with its unique creative options, from deep in-game integrations to more typical rewarded video. And, he added, the inventory is cheap – so “you can enter this space and play with it without spending tens of millions of dollars.”
Speaking of rewarded video, that format – which has always been associated with mobile games – has until recently been treated by many on the buy side as a joke, said Frank Puma, managing director of investment and activation at WPP Media. But, he said, now that premium platforms like Roblox are embracing it and proving it can drive results, he’s seen buyers change their tune.
For example, Roblox’s Schoelch pointed to a recent rewarded video campaign the Walmart subsidiary Sam’s Club ran on the platform. For engaging with the video units, Roblox players were rewarded with virtual Sam’s Club membership cards. The campaign produced 5 million engaged impressions, with a million users claiming virtual cards. The results translated to in-store purchases, too, with an 18% lift in sales per cardholder and a 6% lift in conversions, according to consumer research platform Cint.
Given results like these, Puma said, it’s become easier to get brands onboard with rewarded video as just another video format – but one that brings to bear gaming’s unique value exchange, in which both the consumer and the brand get something out of the experience.

Tagged in:

AMD

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Andy Martinson

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Cint

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Cintia Gabilan

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David Cohen

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doubleverify

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featured

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Firsthand

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Frank Puma

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Gameloft

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Google DV360

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H&R Block

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IAB PlayFronts

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ID graph

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IGN

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in-app ads

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in-game ads

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Jean-Baptiste Godinot

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measurement and attribution

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Mike Schoelch

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Nathan Lindberg

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Overwolf

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rewarded video

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Roblox

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Sam's Club

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Shahar Sorek

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Take-Two

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the trade desk

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The gaming advertising channel is currently experiencing an identity crisis as it seeks to establish parity with traditional media channels while simultaneously asserting its unique value proposition. This tension arises because while gaming platforms are successfully delivering the targeting and measurement capabilities expected by advertisers, they must also define what differentiates the gaming channel to maximize its value. This dynamic was highlighted during the IAB Playfronts event, where speakers noted the need to resist simply applying existing media models to new environments.

The primary challenge for the gaming sector is proving its audience reach and outcome generation to skeptical buyers. Despite the fact that gaming attracts only 2.4% of media spend while 67% of Americans play video games weekly, a significant mismatch exists between attention and investment. Advertisers often find it complex to buy gaming inventory and lacking clear proof of results, leading to a cycle where spending remains low. Efforts by organizations like the IAB have aimed to legitimize gaming by updating measurement guidelines and creating standardized ad units, such as the Gaming Buyer Map, a framework designed to delineate which creative types and measurement features suit upper- and lower-funnel objectives.

To address advertiser concerns and increase embedment within agency strategies, gaming platforms are adopting established strategies from other media channels. For instance, Overwolf developed an In-Game Audience Map, leveraging its first-party data platform, Gamer Grid, to function like standard audience ID graphs used in other media channels, allowing buyers to target IAB standard ad units across thousands of game titles. This approach allows platforms to gain traction in agency media plans by mimicking established tools, even while simultaneously promoting their unique, specialized inventory and solutions. Furthermore, gaming platforms are exploring unique data assets, such as desktop-based applications that can measure hardware and peripheral connections, providing specialized attribution capabilities relevant to hardware-focused brands.

Other gaming publishers are also adapting external strategies. Zynga, for example, introduced Zynga Ads+, establishing a third-party publisher network similar to those employed by larger digital publishers, while also implementing quality controls, such as app store ratings, to ensure brand safety and attention. Similarly, gaming news sites like IGN are integrating artificial intelligence and audience intelligence platforms to revamp display advertising, tailoring experiences to the gaming demographic, such as creating interactive ad units based on the user’s content consumption.

In the context of video strategy, there is an ongoing debate regarding whether gaming constitutes a distinct media channel or is merely a form of video delivery. While some platforms, like Roblox, focus on facilitating easy programmatic buying through established platforms like DV360, others argue for exploring gaming’s unique creative options, including deep in-game integrations. This exploration is supported by evidence showing that rewarded video formats, traditionally associated with mobile gaming, can generate tangible results. A campaign run by Roblox’s subsidiary, Sam’s Club, utilizing rewarded video led to significant engagement and measurable in-store sales lifts, suggesting that the unique value exchange inherent in gaming experiences can successfully onboard brands to these formats as legitimate video advertising methods. Ultimately, the focus for the gaming channel appears to be on leveraging its unique data, creative depth, and proven engagement mechanics to justify increased investment and establish its distinct role in the broader media landscape.