"If you do not have a gaming strategy, it's clearly too big to ignore now," Charles Hambro, CEO and co-founder of GEEIQ, said at EMARKETER's Future of Digital summit last week. "But you should not get bamboozled by 'Oh my god, we're gonna build unbelievable worlds.' Be very, very self-disciplined with regards to what are my CPMs for this audience."

Nearly 60% of US consumers will be digital gamers this year, according to EMARKETER's forecast, yet only 2.4% of total digital ad spend in 2026 will go to gaming.

It's a delta that represents both a significant opportunity and a cautionary tale for marketers who rush in without proper measurement frameworks.

The gaming landscape has evolved

Gaming has shed its outdated image as a niche activity for teenage males in basement bedrooms. Today's players are far more diverse, and the platforms they play on have changed at their core.

Over the past decade, user-generated content platforms like Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft have turned games into destinations where people socialize and create content. Like Instagram, these platforms host what users make rather than making it themselves.

"These are no longer just games. They're actually destinations where people can socialize," Hambro said. "That's the main difference that is the opportunity for brands."

This shift means brands can now work directly with platform creators rather than negotiating with major gaming companies for product placement in traditional titles. The accessibility is similar to social media, where brands can activate campaigns without going through lengthy approval processes with game developers.

Virtual worlds require different strategies

GEEIQ separates gaming (console and mobile games) from virtual worlds (user-generated content platforms), a distinction CMOs need to build into their strategies.

Virtual worlds offer immersive, three-dimensional environments that go beyond the video, image, and copy limitations of traditional social media.

"This is content that is really, really engaging, where the player, where the consumer is actually engaged," Hambro said.

Brands without gaming heritage or intellectual property should integrate into existing games rather than build from scratch. Ikea's collaboration with Skyrim shows how: Players can interact with the brand's shelving units within the role-playing game's existing environment.

Brands should approach these platforms the way they approached TikTok after establishing themselves on Facebook: learn the community norms, cultural codes, and platform-specific language instead of transplanting existing strategies.

Measurement challenges stem from platform economics

The difficulty in measuring gaming campaigns traces back to a fundamental difference between gaming platforms and social media: Gaming platforms make money from players, not brands, while social media platforms monetize through advertising.

"The game platform does not want the players to leave the game, whereas the social media platform is happy for the consumer to leave the social media platform in exchange for alternative value," Hambro explained.

The result is a measurement gap at the bottom of the funnel. Gaming currently shows its strongest value at the top and middle, where engagement metrics matter most. That makes time spent a crucial metric: Brands can track millions of visits inside platforms like Roblox, with average session times of 11 minutes or more.

Brands need to translate gaming-specific metrics into data points they can compare across the media mix. The question is: What do 2 million visits inside Roblox at 11 minutes per visit equate to, compared with spending the same budget on Snapchat, Instagram, or influencer marketing?

Brands should prioritize data discipline

The biggest mistake brands make is getting distracted by the novelty of immersive virtual worlds rather than treating gaming platforms as another channel requiring rigorous performance analysis.

Hambro's advice for marketers:

- Compare CPMs between gaming platforms and social media for equivalent audiences

- Start with a small budget reallocation rather than wholesale shifts

- Focus on whether gaming reaches target audiences more effectively than existing channels

- Avoid building elaborate branded worlds without clear performance metrics

- Treat gaming platforms as an evolution of social media, not an entirely separate category

"There was far too much attention on the delivery itself, 'Oh my God, we can build a virtual world,' and actually what's massively changed now is there's a huge step back," Hambro said. "This is just a way to reach a subset of individuals."

With Grand Theft Auto 6 set to launch in November in what's expected to be the biggest game launch in history, brands should develop gaming strategies now. Success will come from treating these platforms as measurable media channels rather than experimental playgrounds.

Watch the full session.

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