Gaming Is Our Gateway Leading to Metaverse

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The gaming industry is one of the most dynamic and exciting categories in entertainment across all platforms today. eSports provide a burgeoning platform for marketers looking to reach an increasingly elusive consumer. Interest in professional competitive video gaming is growing, with one in five fans globally beginning to follow esports just within the past year.

Credit: eSport Playbook for Brands, Nielsen

And it's been playing a key role in the development of metaverse platforms. Not only is it changing the way people interact with each other, but more digital activities are also taking place inside games.?One thing that game companies are good at is keeping audiences engaged for long periods, from many hours a day to many years.

This immense engagement is vital to the metaverse because the focus is about getting people to come back, every day, and getting people to have the desire to stay in this realm of the metaverse.??The global video game industry will grow across all major platforms, with mobile gaming continuing to represent the largest and fastest-growing portion of the market.

Credit: 2022 Media Outlook, Activate Consulting

The number of gamers has significantly increased while the average spend per gamer has continued to grow, and the average gamer plays most of the days in a week and multiple times a day. And gaming has been shifting the existing technology paradigm and paving the pathway to the metaverse.

The global esports audience will grow to surpass 700 million viewers by 2025. eSports viewers pursue feature- and content-rich viewing experiences; they also attend events and follow the sport through audio and online publications. There will be considerable investment in the eSports space by traditional sports leagues and teams, as well as other companies.

And unsurprisingly, advertisers are bringing gaming and eSports in-house. Over the last two years, non-endemic brands have shown increasing interest in the gaming market, with fashion leaders such as Gucci and Ralph Lauren activating inside games like Roblox?and Fortnite.

For marketers, speed, efficiency, and overall, a need for more control has meant some highly publicized attempts to build their own in-house gaming teams that replace — either partial or full agency offerings. Much like adtech, two lanes exist for doing this:

1. Advertisers either assemble a team to manage campaigns in and around games and esports independently, from creator outreach to campaign ideation through to execution and measurement;

2. They hire an in-house gaming expert/consultant to mastermind gaming marketing while still relying on agencies to execute those campaigns.

Source: COMvergence media spending data and Digiday research.

Advertising budgets or revenue growth projections of the gaming and eSports industry aside, the major impact of eSports will be across multiple technologies and media experiences. From VR headsets to cryptocurrency, from podcasts to betting and gambling, from live sports broadcasting to online money transfer, consumer behavior could change significantly.

The big question is who is going to lead the effort for building a metaverse? Game developers and Hollywood, or more realistic individuals who prefer metaverse to reflect the ordinary world we live in? If the former leads the effort then there is a chance our metaverse could end up quite dystopian. If the latter prevails we could have a clone of the world we live in, hopefully, less ordinary.

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The global video game industry continues to grow across all major platforms, with mobile gaming continuing to represent the largest and fastest-growing portion of the market Consumer video game revenue is expected to hit $165 billion in 2021 (+50% vs 2017).?

Sources: Newzoo, Activate Analysis, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Total US retail sales will increase 2.5% year over year (YoY) in 2022 to $6.624 trillion. Ecommerce sales will grow 16.1%, while growth for in-store sales—which will account for more than 80% of total retail sales—will be close to flat.

As for 2021 net sales growth for carrefour.fr is expected to exceed 40% again, carrefour.fr is forecast to overtake both coursesu.com and auchan.fr and assume the pole position in the race for France’s top online supermarkets in 2021.

by MIT Sloan School of Management

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About Mert Damlapinar

Mert Damlapinar has been in director roles for eCommerce, digital marketing, and sales, he's currently Global eCommerce Lead, Sr.Mgr. for Mondelez International. He holds a master's degree in Applied Business Analytics from Boston University, executive management certificates in Integrated Digital Marketing from Cornell University, and Applied Data Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He's currently working on his 2nd book.

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