Could Gaming’s ‘Epic’ Struggles Open the Door for Extra Advertisers?

There was a time when Epic Games seemingly couldn’t do something unsuitable, and types had been dying to be a part of the phenomenon that’s Fortnite – whilst they had been largely left on the skin wanting in.

Epic didn’t like promoting, and didn’t appear to need a lot to do with it. The firm was form of the intense model of an trade that didn’t have a lot curiosity in catering to manufacturers.

Things have changed in the gaming space fairly dramatically. Could that open up this world extra to advertisers? Or is that simply extra wishful considering concerning an advert medium the place it seems like we’re all the time ready for it to occur?

As you will have learn, Epic laid off a thousand people a few weeks ago, acknowledging that Fortnite’s viewers is down, and that some latest initiatives haven’t labored. Meanwhile, Fortnite gamers are grumbling on-line that the video games forex, V-Bucks are worth a lot less (apparently inflation spares no one, even virtual Battle Royales).

This information got here amidst a relatively gloomy time in gaming, which has been marked by a gentle stream of job cuts, and as analyst Matthew Ball put it in his latest annual presentation on the state of gaming, “with budgets cut and layoffs…the video game industry continued its retreat.”

Through my promoting lens, I instantly thought – may a gentle stream of advert income have stemmed the tide of losses at Epic, and assist get the trade by means of its retreat?

Well, based on some trade insiders, Fortnite’s present issues are about maintaining the sport contemporary and engagement excessive – whereas making an attempt to make sure the extra folks can entry the sport by way of cellular gadgets. Advertising income wouldn’t essentially deal with these points.

Ok, however what concerning the different large gaming corporations? Wouldn’t a gentle dose of advert income come in useful proper now if the trade is certainly ‘slumping?’

“I don’t see the big studios like EA, Take-Two, etc. suddenly doing this,” stated Amanda Rubin, senior vp, income at Frameplay. “They’ve gone back and forth on advertising for years and they’re still confused.”

Rubin stated that that large gaming publishers are sometimes paying to license IP from large manufacturers – sports activities leagues, motion pictures, and so forth. – after which turning round and asking them to pay to promote, establishing a nagging contradiction. In the case of Epic, the corporate simply doesn’t have curiosity in incorporating commonplace, scalable advert models.

“It’s hard to say if that would have even helped Epic,” stated Michael Herriger, CEO / Co-Founder, Atlas Creative, which helps manufacturers create customized gaming applications.

“You’ve seen it on Roblox, where they’ve proven do all of these things people [in gaming] are afraid to do. You can do it and still grow. Yet with Fortnite, they are very much trying to build something different.

To be fair, while Roblox gets credit for fully embracing ads, ad spending still hasn’t moved the needle at the company, which makes the majority of its revenue through virtual currency. A recent Bloomberg story showed how many Roblox game developers just don’t see the value in running ads. And the company has said it’s going to take a while for ads to hit the bottom line.

“While advertising revenue currently remains modest, our expanded portfolio of ad products, together with our growing age-checked user base makes us bullish about the long-term potential for mass market advertising on Roblox,” stated the corporate in its 2025 annual report.

One benefit that Roblox is touting is that as a result of so a lot of its video games are made by customers, and due to developments in AI-driven expertise, the corporate can merely make video games less expensive than others (consider the years of funding and improvement required for the subsequent “Grand Theft Auto,” for instance).

• From Roblox annual letter: “Not long ago, people talked about game development budgets in the billions of dollars and timelines of years. But in September 2025, thanks to the power of the Roblox platform, Steal a Brainrot, a game launched in 4 months by a group of young developers, reached an all-time record of 25 million concurrent users. We believe our AI roadmap will create more opportunities for this kind of success.”

With that sort of seemingly in a single day, outsourced success, why be treasured about rolling out adverts?

“Roblox’s ad trajectory has been steady but relatively modest to date, but the company has been experimenting with a variety of ways to scale this business,” stated Stephen Dypiangco, head of Max Power Gaming. “If Roblox is able to crack rewarded video ads, I believe larger gaming companies will take notice and explore adopting advertising similarly.”

Whether Roblox is the best mannequin or not, “there is still plenty of room to embrace ads in games,” stated Herriger. As Ball put it, “Today, ads remain rare among PC and console games and services, but eventually ads reach all addressable surface areas.” In different phrases, every little thing is an advert community, possibly even NBA 2K.

“Where in-game advertising started was like literally a sign in the back of your character,” stated Michael Wolf, CEO of Activate Consulting. “[Today] if I look at a game like NBA 2K, [theoretically] there’s the ability when you’re playing with other people to have a coffee with your friend. And you can imagine that the coffee with your friend is at Starbucks. Similarly in Grand Theft Auto, there’s an actually real world casino, and so on.”

Until then, some would advocate for gaming by means of a much wider lens than the “AAA Title,” console viewers.

“I don’t think gaming is going anywhere,” stated Rubin, who famous that corporations starting from Netflix to Samsung to after all, the New York Times are increasing the literal enjoying discipline for gaming nicely past the core PC or console gamer. “We have to get past this connotation of gamer. If you want to reach the gamer bros in their basement, that is one thing. If you want to reach players, they are increasingly everywhere.”

For Every Identity Crisis There’s an Opportunity

On my podcast this week I talked with Fabrice Beer-Gabel, Vice President Strategy & Partnerships, Intent IQ, concerning the state of cross-platform measurement in a Post-Cookie-Apocalypse, AI-is-Taking Over-Media-Buying-Era. He and I spoke about why getting cross-platform measurement proper retains getting more durable, and extra important. Which is why the identifier race is so fierce.

“We’re in a world of outcomes. There is more and more pressure…and that drive for outcomes creates competition. And in the case of ad agencies, everybody has to differentiate and build differentiation, which comes a lot from the data and the knowledge they have about their users. “

“Eventually, that data and that differentiation needs to translate into the way they reach the target users, they activate the by media, they measure performance, and it resolves down to an identifier.“

“Ultimately, the right identity resolution can double [a brands’] reach..andcan increase bottom funnel performance by 80%. We have to tie everything to results because that’s the world we live in right now. We have to deliver outcomes.”

Check out the complete episode right here: