Video games have played a major role in the cultural conversation for more than four decades, but consumer brands still struggle to power up their access to gamers.
While youth-oriented and large retail brands have experimented over the years, there’s little research on what works, what doesn’t, and how brands can make the most of the consumer access and community that video game ecosystems provide.
As the kids who grew up gaming reach middle age and more games are built for older consumers, it’s time to crack the code to successful video game marketing.
“Within the last 10 or so years, games have become completely mainstream,” John Hulland, department head and Nalley Distinguished Chair in Business in the Terry College of Business Department of Marketing.
“In the U.S., I would say probably the majority of consumers now — or at least a very large segment of the total population — play video games. The kinds of games have changed, and people are playing on their phones, but it’s everywhere. It’s this huge broad thing that we need to pay attention to.”
Hulland has worked with a team of marketing researchers to understand how marketing in video games differs from that in more static media. They’ve mapped customers’ journeys and peer-to-peer interactions and examined case studies on how brands have represented themselves in gaming communities. They also conducted in-depth interviews with gamers to document their views on in-game marketing.
Their papers, “Quest for Insights: Leveraging data from the video game ecosystem in marketing,” and “Leveling up retail: How retailers and brands thrive in the video game ecosystem,” were published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and, respectively, the Journal of Retailing, in the summer of 2025.
One industry, many platforms
One of the challenges to understanding how brands use video games to reach consumers is the complexity of today’s multiplatform ecosystems.
Players act as participants and hosts in gaming communities: they compete in real-time with players worldwide, buy add-ons, watch others on live-stream platforms or esports exhibitions, build courses within sandbox games, and talk gameplay on online forums and social media sites.
“The foundation of the industry is complex,” Hulland said. “As a consumer, you may only see part of it. Or you may use all of it, but do not think of it all as being interconnected.”
Each set of interactions often occurs on a single platform, but they all impact the interactions players have on other platforms.
In “Quest for Insights: Leveraging data from the video game ecosystem in marketing,” Hulland and his co-authors mapped the platforms that form the gaming ecosystem.
They also documented the difficulty of capturing and drawing insights from constantly generated consumer data influenced by interactions on external platforms, and the issues gathering it without violating players’ privacy expectations.
“We’re talking vast quantities of data, and one of the problems is that everybody is drowning in that data,” Hulland said. “We don’t have systematic ways of making a lot of sense of it. The second challenge is that everybody who is trying to work in this space right now just sees a glimpse here, a glimpse there. You see someone’s behavior has changed, but you can’t see why.”
Marketers will need to develop the ability to process and share data across platforms to maximize the possibilities of marketing in the game ecosystem.
There are serious privacy concerns to negotiate in order to collect this data, but a tremendous upside for the brands that can figure this out, Hulland added.
Success stories
In “Leveling up retail,” Hulland and his co-authors note some brands are doing well by sponsoring gamers who live-stream their gameplay on platforms such as Twitch and sponsoring esports players and tournaments.
But as the industry grows to appeal to a more diverse population, there is room for brands that aren’t energy drinks, cryptocurrency exchanges, and gaming hardware manufacturers, Hulland said. However, it’s tricky to insert consumer brands into games in a way that doesn’t annoy players or drive them off a platform.
Hulland and his co-authors recruited video game players in their 20s for in-depth interviews about how they interacted with games and brands in that ecosystem.
They found that no one logged on to their favorite video game to shop for car insurance or buy detergent, and anything that gets in the way of gameplay creates a negative impression of the brand.
“The brand appearance has to be tailored to be what these players would already be looking for,” Hulland said. “A very, very high percentage of, I think, successful offers are tailored to the audience that you’re reaching out to, and a lot of them are pretty subtle — like billboards or like things that people are wearing. It’s sort of like you just accidentally run into the brand.”
But brands have been successful in creating more dynamic experiences.
Hulland and his co-authors point to a campaign where Ikea rolled out its 2021 catalogue in social simulation game Animal Crossing — creating a walkthrough of its showroom in the game. Similarly, Walmart created a “Walmart Discovered” storefront in the world-building game Roblox, where players could buy digital items. Luxury brands have also offered their wares in simulation games, giving players a chance to build aspirational avatars.
During the interviews conducted for the paper, players told the co-authors that brands need to make sense in the game and not present themselves in a jarring way, such as popping up in the middle of a battle or at a high-stakes time for gameplay.
“There are certain times when you can be more direct,” Hulland said. “If you get through playing a level and you beat the boss, then there’s time for a pause and a time to refresh. If a brand is there right at that point in time, you might be open to it. But if you’re in the middle of the battle, there’s a high likelihood of it backfiring.”
The same emotional intensity and strong community engagement that make video games a powerful venue for introducing consumers to brands can cut both ways — creating intense negative feelings or group backlash against a brand.
Marketing researchers are just scratching the surface of consumer behavior inside the video game ecosystem, Hulland said.
He’s hoping the papers he’s been a part of over the last few years set the stage for a more robust understanding of marketing video games and create new way to meet video game consumers as they reach the next stages in their lives.