Activision Blizzard faces calls from fans, shareholders, and industry figures for its CEO to resign: Widespread backlash against the gaming company suggests that consumers are paying more attention to corporate social responsibility and ethics.

Among US gamers, Facebook Gaming is the most popular destination for viewing live gameplay, with 42% watching esports and other gaming livestreams on the platform.

On today's episode, we discuss how Americans' attention shifted in 2021 (and what that means for the year ahead), the promise of ultra-fast delivery, the ideal amount of ads you should show viewers, whether gaming is more popular than TV for Gen Z, Facebook testing giving more control of the newsfeed to users, the office of the future, how far away the average American adult lives from their mother, and more. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer analyst Blake Droesch and principal analysts at Insider Intelligence Suzy Davidkhanian and Paul Verna.

Gaming app publishers are more likely to experiment with alternative monetization routes. According to an October 2021 survey by AdColony and Fyber, 39% of gaming app publishers worldwide monetized via in-app purchases, compared with just 6% of nongaming apps.

The same set of respondents identified social networking, creating their personal space, and gaming as the activities that they most look forward to in the metaverse. Social metaverse-like app Jelly (or "Zheli") was downloaded more than 1.8 million times and became China’s most popular free app on Apple’s App Store three weeks after launching in January 2022.

Consumers are worried about the surge of ads in gaming: Xbox and Sony both have in-game ad programs in the works, and consumers aren’t thrilled.

On today's episode, we discuss how Spotify performed in Q1, what's driving its subscriber engine, and whether its expected hi-fi streaming tier can help move the needle. "In Other News," we talk about whether gaming is critical to brand objectives and what to make of Pinterest's mixed signals. Tune in to the discussion with our analyst Daniel Konstantinovic.

Once the domain of gamers and young social media users, AR and VR are entering the mainstream. This year, more than a quarter of the US population will use AR and nearly a fifth will use VR. As device-makers improve VR headsets and AR spreads to new use cases, the number of AR and VR users will continue to grow over the next four years, with AR outpacing VR.

There’s also overlap with streamers’ growing interest in video game adaptations. One of Netflix’s most popular anime is an adaptation of the “Castlevania” series, and it has commissioned shows based on other popular Japanese game series.

Mature gaming platforms including Roblox feature virtual worlds where branded content, from the likes of Gucci and Hyundai, has captivated players. But in nongaming metaverses, “it will be a while before marketing campaigns can move beyond gimmicks,” said Nina Goetzen, eMarketer analyst at Insider Intelligence. More like this:. Report: Insider Intelligence’s Tech Trends to Watch in 2022.

Gaming and tech conglomerate Tencent, which also owns messaging app WeChat, has pointed to the metaverse as an opportunity to expand its gaming business, per TechCrunch. TikTok owner Bytedance has followed in Meta and Microsoft’s footsteps and acquired VR headset company Pico, and Alibaba has plans to release AR glasses.

AR, VR, and video games present opportunities that marketers can tap into right now.

Gaming. Maturity, Iteration, and Market Sizing. Amazon’s gaming business is a tale of contrasts. On one side, its Twitch subsidiary is a pioneer and category leader in game-oriented streams and is expanding into a broader social video platform.