Gaming currently draws less than 5 percent of worldwide media investment while commanding daily attention that rivals or exceeds channels already treated as core spend. That gap – not novelty, not hype – is the actual case for adding gaming as a standing line in a media plan rather than a recurring test. This reference walks through the data behind that gap, the buying paths available, and what to check before committing budget.
The Numbers Behind the Gap
The scale of the mismatch comes from eMarketer’s January 2026 Video Game Advertising Report. Three figures anchor it:
- Gaming accounts for under 5 percent of worldwide media investment.
- 59.2 percent of the US population is projected to be a digital gamer in 2026.
- In-game advertising is expected to make up just 2.3 percent of US digital ad spend in 2026.
Layered onto that is a time-spent figure: the average US consumer spends more than an hour a day with digital gaming, a number comparable to or ahead of time spent in channels that already receive core-budget treatment. Put simply, gaming behaves like a core channel by every attention metric and is still budgeted like an experimental one.
Why It’s Stayed in the Experimental Bucket
Most media plans follow some version of a 70/20/10 split – proven core, emerging, experimental. Gaming has occupied the experimental tier for years, largely because of two assumptions: that inventory is too fragmented to buy at scale, and that it’s hard to measure against the same KPIs used elsewhere. Neither assumption holds up as well as it used to.
Standard gaming inventory is now available through the same transaction types already used for CTV and social – Direct, Private Marketplace (PMP), Programmatic Guaranteed (PG), and open programmatic. That removes the main structural objection to treating it as a core line.
Matching the Buying Path to the Objective
Planning for gaming starts with the same question that governs any channel decision: what is the campaign trying to accomplish? The table below breaks down the main buying paths and where each one fits.
| Buying Path | What It Covers | Typical Objective | Where It’s Bought |
| Standard display & video | IAB-compliant formats for scaled visibility | Broad reach across multiple titles | Direct, PMP, PG, open programmatic |
| Audience targeting layer | Deterministic gameplay and hardware-based segments | Precision targeting on top of any buy | Direct, PMP, PG |
| Custom high-impact formats | Exclusive formats like takeovers and in-game skins | Visual impact beyond standard placements | Direct only |
| Gamified activations | Challenges, tournaments, treasure hunts, custom maps | Deep engagement and interaction | Direct only |
| Native, event-triggered formats | Creative tied to real in-game events or downloadable content | Contextual integration requiring creative collaboration | Direct only |
Read-out: the further right a format sits on the engagement spectrum, the more it depends on direct deals and creative partnership rather than programmatic scale. A plan doesn’t have to pick one lane – reach-focused and engagement-focused formats can run concurrently, sourced from the same category of inventory.
What an Audience Layer Adds
Layering audience targeting onto gaming inventory works differently than it does in most channels. Rather than relying on inferred interests, deterministic targeting draws on actual gameplay behavior and hardware signals – enriched, in some cases, with third-party purchase data. That distinction matters for accountability: a segment built from confirmed play behavior is a more defensible basis for spend than one built from modeled interest categories.
Overwolf Ads is one of the platforms operating across this full range – standard programmatic inventory at the reach end, custom formats and gamified activations at the engagement end, and an audience layer that adds deterministic gameplay and hardware-based targeting across eight markets. For a planner mapping out which platforms can service a gaming line without switching vendors mid-plan, that range is the relevant detail, not any single format in isolation.
Building Gaming Into a Standing Media Line
A practical rollout generally follows a few steps:
- Set the objective first. Reach, precision, visual impact, or deep engagement each point toward a different buying path.
- Start with programmatic where possible. Standard display and video formats require no new buying infrastructure and integrate with existing CTV and social workflows.
- Layer targeting before adding custom formats. Deterministic audience data improves efficiency on existing inventory before budget moves toward higher-cost custom placements.
- Reserve direct deals for engagement-heavy goals. Custom activations and native formats deliver the deepest engagement but require more lead time and creative coordination.
- Measure it like any other channel. Track viewability, completion rate, and brand lift at the campaign level rather than relying on platform-level reach claims alone.
Bottom Line
The case for treating gaming as a permanent media line rests on a simple, well-documented gap: consumer attention in gaming already exceeds what many core channels receive, while ad investment remains under 5 percent of the global total. Closing that gap doesn’t require a new planning framework – it requires applying the same objective-first, measurement-backed discipline already used for CTV, social, and display, while avoiding the common missteps that come from treating an entire category as a single, undifferentiated line item.
Q: Is gaming bought through a different process than CTV or social media?
A: Not for standard formats. IAB-compliant display and video inventory is available through Direct, PMP, PG, and open programmatic – the same transaction types used for CTV and social. Custom, high-impact formats are generally direct-sold only.
Q: What percentage of a media budget should go toward gaming?
A: There’s no fixed industry benchmark, but the underlying data – under 5 percent of global spend against consumer attention that significantly outpaces that share – supports moving gaming into a recurring, measured allocation rather than a purely experimental one.
Q: What does Overwolf Ads’ Gamer Grid add beyond standard inventory buys?
A: It layers deterministic gameplay and hardware data onto the inventory, enabling targeting based on confirmed play behavior – such as late-night gaming sessions – rather than inferred demographic categories.