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5 industry experts share their predictions for in-game advertising in 2022

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December 15, 2021 | 7 min read

2021 saw in-game advertising continue to grow

With the world’s biggest agencies launching gaming arms and advertisers hiring gaming experts within prominent positions to help them better understand the landscape, the advertising and gaming industries have begun to collide in what promises to be an exciting future for both spaces.

To understand what we can expect from in-game advertising in 2022, Anzu, the world’s most advanced in-game advertising platform, caught up with several advertising experts. Read their thoughts and predictions for 2022 below.

Cloud gaming could become a necessity

David Cox, interactive gaming sales and strategy leader:

Cloud gaming continued to push the envelope on how power was used in 2021. If resources can be reallocated to the cloud the right way, how will that free local resources to elevate the experience? Can this be used to make 4K gaming more prevalent? Could this help with the component bottleneck? If chip shortages prove to be longer-term than we are expecting, some reports from Nvidia show they may be here to stay for the next two to three years, will companies need to shift focus to cloud technologies instead of trying to push consoles and PC games to the limit in terms of graphical fidelity?

What's the point of an immersive 4K experience if users can't find the next-generation console or video card? The solution could be novel and inexpensive: push cheaper boxes and leverage cloud technology to support much of the heavy lifting. CCP Games is already doing this with Eve Online to future-proof their aging game with great success, and next year I expect we will see many more studios follow suit.

Collaborating towards the metaverse

Itamar Benedy, co-founder and CEO, Anzu:

If 2021 was the year that everyone learned about the metaverse, 2022 will be the year that companies begin to take it seriously and figure out what it means for them.

The idea of the metaverse is a shared virtual space with interlinked experiences. As much as any company would like to run and own the whole thing, the premise is that companies will need to work together to achieve it. We’ve already seen Meta and Microsoft collaborate over Workplace and Teams, and gaming platforms Fortnite and Roblox collaborate with music artists, film and TV studios, and some of the world’s biggest brands as they build out their areas of the metaverse. Next year we will see many more companies try to figure out how they can work together to bring this vision to life.

Even if you’re skeptical about it, one good thing that will come out of the metaverse idea is collaboration. We have seen companies keeping their technology, data, and ideas locked away for too long. If we want to realize the metaverse, we will need global collaboration, which will mean cross-functioning teams, idea sharing, and the pulling down of many of the walls that have been built up by tech companies over the past decade. The prospect of this is really exciting, and the advertising and gaming industries will play an extremely important role in helping to shape this new space.

Advertisers need to ask themselves what they add to the gaming ecosystem

Julia Rast, senior manager, global solutions & innovation, Xaxis:

Next year, I expect brands to start thinking about what their virtual identity might look like. Brands will need to design their purpose and destination in the virtual space like their customers. They will need to ask themselves what their goal is for being there. Is it to enhance the experience or provide players with virtual goods? How is that different from their real-life identity, how can they relate the real and the virtual? Do they need to? And is a new virtual identity a commercial opportunity to connect with a new customer base?

Brands will need to think about all those questions and, once they have, work towards virtual brand representability, just like they do in the real world. Simply heading to gaming without a clear strategy because it’s where everyone else is is a recipe for disaster. Knowing who your audience is, where they are, and how they're playing will be essential for brands to know if they want to successfully connect with their consumers in a natural and engaging way.

Get ready for the in-game NFT revolution

David Cox, interactive gaming sales and strategy leader:

With Ubisoft having just announced that it’s bringing NFTs to its much-loved Ghost Recon franchise, I am excited to see how they will be used to sell in-game assets from company to customer and from customer to customer. Imagine a platform where players can buy a unique in-game item, event, skin, or gesture, and they are the sole owner.

How much would a player pay for a mount item in WoW from Blizzard that is uniquely colored and one of a kind? Now, how much would another player buy that same mount for, and would Blizzard get a transaction fee? Could this be combined with media or events? There are so many options! I have the same feeling about NFT technology as when we saw the explosion of the .com era. Incredible companies and technologies came out of the other end, with many still in use today.

The year of AAA free-to-play

Natalia Vasilyeva, VP marketing, Anzu:

Free-to-play games like Call of Duty: Warzone, Genshin Impact, and Fortnite have seen tremendous success over the past few years, and studios worldwide have been watching closely. Ubisoft recently announced a shift in focus to working on more free-to-play titles, and other studios are following in their footsteps. Rather than having a few free-to-play AAA titles dominate the charts, 2022 will see more big contenders like Tom Clancy’s The Division: Heartland and Warner-Bros’ Multiverses emerge, bringing lots more competition to the space. As this happens, studios will be figuring out how to monetize these titles. With brands and agencies making gaming a bigger part of their ad budgets, in-game advertising will be a viable solution for both sides.

The cross-platform discussion will also be key here. As studios try to attract as many players as possible, their titles will need to run across the three leading gaming platforms: mobile, PC, and console. Being able to simultaneously reach players across multiple devices programmatically will be a necessity for advertisers - and games studios will need to ensure they work with the right partners that will be able to make this happen while ensuring the advertisements don’t interrupt or take anything away from their AAA experiences.

Get in on the action, and your marketing will be inspired

David Sable, ex-global chairman & CEO of Y&R, author, global marketing and comms exec:

My crystal ball is cloudy, but my gaming sense is crystal clear. Don’t get lost in the NFT and blockchain hype, and watch out for pundit inflation and obfuscation. Instead, focus your energy on the best-in-class, amazing, truly immersive, multi-generational, multiplayer, updatable, and constantly fresh games. The ones where advertising looks and feels native because it is, and is also as fresh as it’s in real-life. Frankly, I am hot on this after a weekend of playing American football online with my grandkids. The ads were terrific, BTW. So don’t get lost in the digi-babble....get online, play, and watch, and your marketing in 2022 will be inspired.

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