Mobile Gaming Industry Bank On People Locked Inside Homes Due To COVID-19.

• Even as stock markets plummet two sectors actually doing well are streaming services and online gaming.

• The mobile-gaming category is finding the brightest spot even as other businesses face the heat of countrywide lockdown owing to coronavirus outbreak.

• The mobile gaming category is more than a $60 billion-a-year market and seeing a massive surge in ad revenue.

Even as businesses across sectors face the heat of lockdown owing to coronavirus pandemic, online gaming has witnessed a welcome spike. There are more than 2.6 billion gamers, each spending over eight hours per week playing worldwide.

Why it matters

As hanging out gets difficult, gamers are active members of their communities, socializing with each other and exploring the virtual world – A world free of coronavirus. Recently, Netflix CEO admitted that when it comes to screen time, video games and not streaming services is their biggest competitor. For instance, Netflix has 167 million members, whereas one of Epic’s games, Fortnite, has over 200 million users.

Driving the news

Video games used to be played on big screens through expensive consoles but now when we think of video games, we will think of our mobile phones instead. Mobile gaming is emerging as a dominant digital ad platform and marketers are planning to leverage it as the world goes online from home.

• The months of quarantine and pandemic has changed brand engagement with the consumers. People are streaming entertainment, watching the news, and engaging with friends and family on playing games especially mobile games. Therefore, marketers are reimagining their brands and agencies are restructuring to communicate effectively on behalf of the brand and seize every opportunity on the way.

Yes, the trends are changing. The future of addressable video lives is now in the palm of your hands. The app is your TV and mobile gaming is primetime. 

By the numbers: AdColony new survey in March 2020 showed mobile gaming jumping more than 24 percent as the mobile audience grew more reliant on smartphones for entertainment while sheltering in homes.

• Increase in mobile game downloads by 60 percent compared to the 30-days before the survey month March.
• The increase in casual mobile games is 28 percent whereas board game downloads grew 16 percent and there were major acquisitions too.
• Word game download grew 8 percent with a six percent lift in the already high number of sessions.
• Hardcore gamer categories like action, adventure, and role-playing have started to move upward.

61 percent of marketers polled said the coronavirus situation is leading to changes in content that they are comfortable having their ads placed adjacent to.

The big picture

Mobile games have more reach than traditional T.V. Additionally, they are backed by the best parts of digital buys – addressability, creativity, analytics, and attribution. This allows advertisers an opportunity to rethink how to leverage sight, sound, and motion to engage customers combined with the surge in users.

With In-app gaming, the brand is safe and accountable. For viewability, fraud, and accuracy, measurement vendors have built programmatic solutions, and data is defined and virtually universally accessible. In these uncertain times, the app has a lot of scope with innovative opportunities for smart marketers to go big on consumers.