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The current landscape of video and mobile game advertising is being shifted by new platforms and evolving consumer expectations. Our world-class research and testing enables us to harvest new insights, embrace the changes and succeed in today’s industry.

OUR RESEARCH INTO VIDEO GAME TRENDS IS WORLD-CLASS

We utilize multiple avenues of research—from surveys and audience deep dives to exclusive player panels—to better understand the various video game market segments and what types of ads audiences respond to positively.

Audience Insights

We understand consumer behavior, attitudes and motivations through industry-leading research.

Media Performance

We deliver best-in-class measurement solutions to understand the brand and sales impact of ad exposure.

Creative Evaluation

We leverage our proprietary player communities, to test and validate ads, and analyze the brand lift impact by creative segmentation.

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THE PICTURE OF A GAMER IS CHANGING

Our in-depth research reveals key insights into video game player trends.

Read more about the gamer audience

Audience Summary

Dive deeper into each of the gamer personas

Gallery of the Gamer

THE SIX GAMER PERSONAS

Only a small minority of all gamers fit the common stereotype.

Breakdown
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TAP THE GRAPH

Gamer
Personas
Denialists
 62%
Say they’re not a gamer, with the remaining 38% being unsure.
Lifestylists
 47%
More likely than the average gamer to seek out gaming content weekly.
Player Ones
 82%
Say gaming allows them to express themselves.
Next Levelers
 139%
More likely than the average gamer to engage with a game every week.
Super Swipers
 58%
More likely than the average gamer to play a word-matching game.
Dabblers
 57%
Say they feel successful when they overcome obstacles in a game.

THE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD AUDIENCE

Every month, around a quarter of a billion people play one of Activision Blizzard’s mobile games. This highly passionate and engaged audience is an incredible platform for high-performance advertising.

Mobile Players

READ MORE OF OUR INSIGHTS

Learn more about our two audience segments and the games they love.

THE LATEST NEWS & CONTENT

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July 28, 2023

Meeting the Expectations of Modern Gamers: The Art of Interactive Ads in Premium Mobile Games

To stand out among mobile gamers, advertising needs to successfully replicate the satisfaction and immersion that players have come to expect from their gaming experiences. In response, advertising strategies have evolved beyond traditional methods, leading to significant opportunities for brands who understand the expectations of mobile gaming audiences.

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June 27, 2023

Harnessing the 'Premium' Advantage in Mobile Gaming and Advertising

The success of mobile gaming ad campaigns hinges on partnering with a reputable game studio and meeting players' expectations for premium ad formats. But not all games or studios are created equal. Players consider graphic quality, enjoyment, and challenge when choosing a premium mobile game, with thoughts on the accompanying ads also influencing their choice.

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June 13, 2023

Advertising Week Europe and Media360 2023 Recap

Activision Blizzard Media recently presented our newest research, Premium By Design, to our advertising industry colleagues at Advertising Week Europe and Campaign UK’s Media360 event. There, we took to the stage to further educate advertisers and brands on the power of gaming in reaching engaged audiences.

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March 22, 2023

IAB PlayFronts 2023 Recap

On March 8 and 9, 2023, gaming and advertising leaders convened for the second annual IAB Playfronts – a marketplace dedicated to advertising and partnership opportunities in the gaming industry.

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March 15, 2023

Campaign Gaming Summit: Advertisers Are Ignoring 'Older' Gamers at Their Peril

Advertisers are not paying attention to the “demographic disruption” in the gaming industry, an Omnicom leader has claimed, and are failing to reach the growing generation of "older" gamers.

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March 14, 2023

Activision Blizzard Wants to Erase the Gaming Boundaries

If there’s an easy entry point for marketers to crack gaming, it’s usually through mobile games.

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March 14, 2023

Billions Of People Play Games – Yet Marketers Still Aren’t Spending

Enthusiasm about video games is surging, but marketing budgets have yet to catch up to the hype.

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March 10, 2023

In Adland, the Pace of Change can be Glacial - IAB PlayFronts 2023

Yesterday marked the second and last day of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s 2023 PlayFronts conference. The event was full of buzz about the ad opportunities present in video games — but it also showed just how glacial the pace of both technological and cultural advancements can be in the advertising industry, particularly when it comes to gaming.

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January 25, 2023

Activision Blizzard’s Head of Business Marketing’s Top 5 Predictions for 2023

As marketers wake up to the fact gaming isn’t to be ignored, Jonathan Stringfield outlines how the space will evolve this year and where attention needs to be directed.

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January 11, 2023

Ad Age Next: CMO 2022 Recap

Learn about the social impact of gaming, how consumers are oriented around the channel, and the vast opportunity for advertisers to engage.

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December 29, 2022

How the Designers of Candy Crush Maintain the Balance Between Monetization and Fun

For over a decade, leading mobile game Candy Crush has threaded the needle between monetization and fun. As the game turns 10, its developers are experimenting with new ways to turn it into potential revenue or advertising inventory — but they have to tread lightly to avoid upsetting this delicate balance.

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Jonathan Stringfield

December 22, 2022

Video Games Are Dominating Hollywood and Changing Viewing Habits Forever

How entertainment companies are gaming the silver and streaming screens.

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December 16, 2022

Prada’s Candy Crush Fragrance Campaign Drives Sales Bounce, 1,800% Traffic Growth

For Prada Beauty’s foray into the casual gaming space via a new Candy Crush campaign, the results have been sweet.

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December 14, 2022

How Gaming is The Ultimate Social Connector

At Ad Age Next: CMO, Activision Blizzard Media's VP of global business research and marketing, Jonathan Stringfield, weighed in on the current state of gaming, its inherent social nature and the opportunity for brands to tap into advertising's premier social channel.

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December 02, 2022

Get in the Game, with Jonathan Stringfield of Activision Blizzard

PODCAST: One of the biggest blind spots in the entire marketing universe is the opportunity presented by gaming, which, in 2021, was a $180 billion industry. Why are marketers so sheepish to enter the gaming space?

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November 18, 2022

How—And Why—Candy Crush is in The Midst Of A 10th Anniversary Brand Refresh

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the release of Candy Crush, the world’s most popular mobile game.

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November 14, 2022

IAB UK Gaming Upfronts 2022 Recap

Industry leaders convened at the annual IAB UK Gaming Upfronts to discuss the state of gaming and how advertisers can continue to engage this growing channel.

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October 10, 2022

The Interactive Advertising Format That Is Winning Over Audiences

Unlike a traditional static or interactive video ad type, Playables allow users to interact with the brand directly in a fun and immersive way that helps drive awareness and brand recall.

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August 24, 2022

Understanding What Motivates the Gaming Audience

As brands look to understand how to best reach and engage with gamers, they need to start by understanding the different types of gamers that exist and what motivates them.

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August 16, 2022

The Rise of Female Gamers and What It Means for the Ads Industry

While awareness of the diversity of gamers is increasing, there remains an opportunity to understand better the full depth of female gamers, including their behaviors, motivations, and habits.

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July 26, 2022

Discovering the Effectiveness of In-Game Advertising

Unlike traditional advertising, in-game advertising allows marketers to reach their audiences where they are most engaged and active, making it a more dynamic and flexible form of marketing.

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July 20, 2022

What Sets Gamers Apart From Everyone Else?

How gamers treat the games they love is how they often treat their real lives — with a level of dedication, passion, and a sense of community.

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June 13, 2022

The NDA Gaming Roundtable part 2: do gaming environments measure up for advertisers?

How important a factor is ‘measurement’ in attracting more marketing revenues into the gaming space? Will the loss of third-party cookies and personal IDs impact gaming ad revenues as much as other media channels?

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June 09, 2022

The NDA Gaming Roundtable: brand advertisers need to do more to understand gaming audiences

With the original generation of console gamers now in their 50s, does the marketing industry’s conception of what a gaming audience looks like need to evolve?

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Claire Nance

June 08, 2022

Gaming the Attention Economy: how gaming has changed entertainment consumption habits

Today’s audiences are consuming content, especially gaming, throughout the day across multiple devices at a time, with the second screen increasingly acting as a focal point for attention.

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May 03, 2022

Why Is Everyone Suddenly Talking About In-Game Advertising?

The short version, the more media buyers learn about the gaming audience and their entertainment consumption habits, the more essential gamers become to media spending ROI. The long version, it’s complicated.

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April 22, 2022

Companies Try to Sell Videogaming as the Next Big Advertising Channel

Investors are funneling money into companies looking to turn videogames into a marketing platform that can compete with television commercials and online ads.

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April 13, 2022

IAB PlayFronts 2022 Recap

The gaming industry celebrated an incredible milestone when the IAB PlayFronts, an annual marketplace dedicated to advertising and partnership opportunities, kicked off its inaugural in-game advertising event on April 5, 2022.

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April 08, 2022

The Gaming Industry Wants Advertisers To Take It Seriously

Turns out, gamers aren’t just dudes in their parents’ basement. While crass—and frankly just as insulting in 2022 as it would have been 2012—it’s a myth the gaming industry tried to dispel in a formal pitch to advertisers this week.

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April 08, 2022

Crushing It: Lessons in Gaming Activations from Ten Years of Candy Crush

As the iconic mobile game turns ten and launches a nifty new Sonic the Hedgehog tie-in, Jennifer Sharp, vice president of mobile partnerships, Activision Blizzard King, tells Laura Swinton what Candy Crush can teach us about impactful gaming partnerships.

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April 07, 2022

IAB PlayFronts takeaways: Game advertising has arrived — and brands are playing catch-up

Gaming has arrived as both a pillar of popular culture and source of advertising inventory, but some brands and agencies still struggle to grasp the value of this new medium.

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March 29, 2022

Sonic the Hedgehog Teams With Candy Crush to Promote Movie Sequel

With the imminent release of the sequel to surprise hit movie Sonic the Hedgehog, Activision Blizzard’s mobile gaming division King has teamed with the makers of the film to deliver an in-game event through Candy Crush Saga.

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Jonathan Stringfield

January 11, 2022

Marketing 3.0: Getting Ahead of the Metaverse

The evolution of the web is of great importance to the advertising industry. The dawn of its latest iteration, known as “web3.0,” via related components such as the “metaverse,” have become a heated discussion in the marketing community.

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December 07, 2021

Predictions 2022: Mobile & In-Game

Industry experts give their thoughts on what next year looks like for Mobile and In-Game.

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Jonathan Stringfield, VP Global Business Marketing, Measurement & Insights

October 31, 2021

A Break in the Natural Order of Media

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Jonathan Stringfield, VP Global Business Marketing, Measurement & Insights

October 28, 2021

The Legacy of 2020 on Media Habits: The Second Screen

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Claire Nance, Head of Global Communications & Marketing Strategy

May 25, 2021

First-Gen Gamers: Millennials Take Center Stage

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Jonathan Stringfield, VP Global Business Marketing, Measurement & Insights

May 02, 2021

Gaming (And Marketing) On Easy Mode

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Jonathan Stringfield, VP Global Business Marketing, Measurement & Insights

March 29, 2021

Advertising Going Back For The Future: The Upside Of A Post-IDFA World

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Claire Nance, Head of Marketing Communications

March 04, 2021

Welcome To The Era Of Mobile-First Gaming

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Jonathan Stringfield, VP Global Business Marketing, Measurement & Insights

January 27, 2021

The Gaming Audience Is More Diverse Than You Think

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Zachary Heinemann, Head of Quantitative Research

January 13, 2021

In The Competition Between Esports And Traditional Sports, The Winner Is Clear

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Jonathan Stringfield, VP Global Business Marketing, Measurement & Insights

January 12, 2021

Gaming In 2021: What’s Old Is New Again

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Jan Bojko, Head of Market Research

November 16, 2020

Level Up: How Video Games Conquered The World

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Jan Bojko, Head of Market Research

November 04, 2020

Gamers Are Not Who You Think They Are

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Jan Bojko, Head of Market Research

September 09, 2020

How To Get In The Game – And Why You're Missing Out

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Meredith Worrilow, Director, Global Business Marketing, Measurement, and Insights

August 31, 2020

Mom's Got Game

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Zachary Heinemann, Head of Quantitative Research

June 21, 2020

LGBTQIA Gamers Challenge the Idea of a ‘Typical’ Gamer

LGBTQIA Gamers Challenge the Idea of a ‘Typical’ Gamer

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Jan Bojko, Head of Market Research

June 15, 2020

Getting To Know Gamer Dads

Getting To Know Gamer Dads

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June 09, 2020

Activision Blizzard Knows The Video Game Industry Hasn't Done Enough To Cater To Big Brands, But Is Working To Change That

Activision Blizzard Knows The Video Game Industry Hasn't Done Enough To Cater To Big Brands, But Is Working To Change That

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May 26, 2020

The Rise Of Gaming As A Major New Media Channel

The Rise Of Gaming As A Major New Media Channel

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May 20, 2020

The Gaming Audience Is A Lot More Diverse And Desirable Than You Think

The Gaming Audience Is A Lot More Diverse And Desirable Than You Think

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May 17, 2020

New Survey Reveals Majority Of Mums Play Video Games

New Survey Reveals Majority Of Mums Play Video Games

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May 11, 2020

Activision Blizzard Media: Monetization Isn’t At Odds With The In-Game Experience

Engagement with games is up during the pandemic, but it’s not only because people are looking for a way to kill time.

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May 04, 2020

Activision Blizzard Media Treats Ad Agencies To A Virtual Esports Tournament

Activision Blizzard Media Treats Ad Agencies To A Virtual Esports Tournament

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March 30, 2020

Advertising Is Coming To Video Games, And The Shift Could Happen Sooner Than Marketers Think

Advertising Is Coming To Video Games, And The Shift Could Happen Sooner Than Marketers Think

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February 02, 2020

It’s Context, Not Length, That Determines The Success Of Mobile Video

It’s Context, Not Length, That Determines The Success Of Mobile Video

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January 22, 2020

Activision Blizzard And Google Enter Into Multi-Year Strategic Relationship To Power New Player Experiences

Activision Blizzard And Google Enter Into Multi-Year Strategic Relationship To Power New Player Experiences

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December 17, 2019

Predictions 2020: In-Game Advertising

Predictions 2020: In-Game Advertising

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December 15, 2019

Activision Blizzard Media Launches Player Panel To Test Mobile Ads

Activision Blizzard Media Launches Player Panel To Test Mobile Ads

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November 03, 2019

Why Shorter Isn’t Necessarily Better With Mobile Video

Why Shorter Isn’t Necessarily Better With Mobile Video

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October 06, 2019

Activision Puts In-Game Ads On ‘Easy Mode'

Activision Puts In-Game Ads On ‘Easy Mode,’ Stringfield Says

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August 20, 2019

What In-Game Mobile Advertising Offers

What In-Game Mobile Advertising Offers

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July 16, 2019

Highly Social, Gender Diverse And Age Agnostic: Why Brands Must Change Their View Of Gamers

Highly Social, Gender Diverse And Age Agnostic: Why Brands Must Change Their View Of Gamers

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June 17, 2019

Activision Blizzard’s Esports Marketing Chief: We Want Brands to Help us Build Overwatch League

Activision Blizzard’s Esports Marketing Chief: We Want Brands to Help us Build Overwatch League

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June 13, 2019

Does Adland Have a Gaming Blind Spot?

Does Adland Have a Gaming Blind Spot?

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March 05, 2019

More Than 2.4 Billion People Will Play Mobile Games This Year, According To Analyst

More Than 2.4 Billion People Will Play Mobile Games This Year, According To Analyst

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March 04, 2019

Betting on Billions: Unlocking the Power of Mobile Gamers

Betting on Billions: Unlocking the Power of Mobile Gamers

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December 20, 2018

Rewarded Video: The Name Of The Game At King

Rewarded Video: The Name Of The Game At King

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The Cannes Classic - An esports tournament for the agencies

Always wanted to win a trophy at Cannes? Now’s your chance. The Cannes Classic is a winner-take-all, Call of Duty virtual esports tournament for the advertising and marketing industries.

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Level up your brand awareness with high performance advertising.

With decades of experience and a legendary portfolio that includes iconic game franchises like Candy Crush™, Call of Duty®, World of Warcraft® and StarCraft®, we make it possible for brands to engage with hundreds of millions of active users all around the world.

For media inquiries, contact
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