Mobile Gaming Evolving: The Next Big Advertising Platform

The year's Super Bowl featured a new flair of commercials from the mobile gaming industry in its mix. With hefty $4.5 million dollar 30 second airtime slots, mobile games have shown just how profitable they've become. Three of the games advertised during the super bowl were Clash of Clans, Game of War: Fire Age, and Heroes Charge; two of which were able to hire well-known celebrities to appear in their ads. Interestingly, no traditional gaming platforms aired advertisements during the Super Bowl, proving the strength the mobile industry is gaining in the gaming world.

Digital marketers have taken notice of the grasp mobile games have grabbed in the gaming industry and the large audience demographics they have taken with it. While platform systems and PC games have often had a predominately young male demographic, mobile games spawns a wide age group composed of both genders and all ages thus making them a highly attractive candidate for advertisers who wish to reach a wide audience. Also as opposed to traditional gaming systems, mobile games are  constantly with consumers and accessed during all parts of the day since all a person has to do is pull the phone out of their pocket or purse. For companies and brands that are able to integrate their advertisements into games in fashionable manners, the ad spaces can become very lucrative. In the past, in-game advertisements have existed but once a game was released they could no longer be up-dated or changed, however mobile games allow marketers to evolve and update their advertisements as the gamer get farther along, or can offer differing advertisements based on the consumer demographic who is playing their game. It will definitely be interesting to see how mobile gaming continues to grow as their popularity spreads and if traditional platform and PC gaming systems will be able to reclaim advertisers as they search for the next big medium to display their ad campaigns.