Video game advertising has hit $421.2m for the year so far

Video game advertising is up 17% year-on-year while the broader console, streaming and distribution ad spend surged 36%.

The video game industry has been boosted by a slew of highly-anticipated releases. Top advertisers include The Elder Scrolls, Hero Wars, Rockstar Games, Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells and Final Fantasy XIV Online with a combined spend of $78m.

This has propelled video game advertising to $421.2m for the year so far, up a healthy 17% from the equivalent January to August period in 2020 when total spend weighed in at $360m.

As far as consoles and streaming platforms are concerned the picture is even brighter, with Steam, Twitch, Xbox and Nintendo Switch all upping their ad spend.

Cumulatively the sector splurged 36% more on advertising this year than the year before, dropping $45m in cash in 2021 v $33m in 2020.

The advertising windfall is documented in new data provided by advertising intelligence and sales enablement platform MediaRadar, which has been analyzing the advertising performance of the video games industry throughout the year.

Todd Krizelman, chief executive and co-founder at MediaRadar, which conducted the research, said: “While they’ve been increasing their spend, they’ve also been diversifying where they buy. Though TV spend accounted for the majority – 51% – of ad spend in 2020, TV advertising for video game consoles, streaming and distributors has fallen to 42% in 2021.”

Coinciding with the peak pre-Christmas sales period, the news is bolstered further by hype surrounding the PlayStation 5.