BITES // 05.02.24 // GAME ON
Every month we collect six of the best pieces of content published on the web and share them with you because we believe that the most extraordinary thinking is inspired by looking to unexpected places. BITES is a reading list for those who want to bring a little of the outside in.
OVERVIEW -
Video games have steadily risen in popularity for years. And with the social benefits of video games becoming more apparent, the trend has only accelerated. Culturally, gaming will only continue to become more mainstream and with tech innovations, it’s only helping shape the future of video games. There is much buzz around new technology adoption and game releases. The gaming industry is poised for a revolutionary leap forward. The convergence of cutting-edge technologies promises to redefine the gaming landscape, providing players with immersive experiences like never before. It’s not just game developers that are jumping on the train, advertisers, celebrities, musicians, and more are getting in on the growing trend and developments to reach more people, more authentically.
- IN-GAME ADVERTISING IS BOOMING
The gaming industry saw a lot of disruption over the last year, including the consolidation of major publishers, layoffs and canceled game releases. On the ad side, however, marketing budgets for gaming are growing. Advertisers plan to increase spend on in-video-game advertising by 40% this year, according to a new study, with total ad spend set to reach $8.5 billion in 2024 and increase to $11.5 billion by 2027. In IAB‘s “Changing the Game: How Games Advertising Powers Performance” report, it was revealed that 86% of advertisers surveyed said gaming ad spend is “brand safe” , 85% are confident in their ability to measure the reach of games advertising and 79% say that buying the ads is relatively easy. The study also found that 90% of ad buyers find gaming ads to be effective in reaching “valuable, hard-to-reach audiences with relevant messaging,” with an estimated 213 million gamers in the U.S. Because many gamers are highly invested in and passionate about their favorite games, marketers who engage gamers see results across the consumer journey. A third of current gaming advertisers have carved their spend out of their general media budget, and over half have budgets committed to specific games or devices.
2. NVIDIA AND UBISOFT ARE DEVELOPING AI-POWERED NPCS
NVIDIA has been working on adding generative AI to non-playable characters (NPCs). The company is hoping a newly-announced partnership with Ubisoft will accelerate development of this technology and, ultimately, bring these AI-driven NPCs to modern games. Ubisoft helped build new what they call, “NEO NPCs”, by using NVIDIA’s Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) technology, with an assist from dynamic NPC experts Inworld AI. This technology creates characters that don’t repeat the same phrase over and over, while ignoring the surrounding mayhem going on in the game. They are fully fleshed-out characters, the NEO NPCs are said to interact in real time with players, the environment, and other in-game characters that have environmental and contextual awareness in addition to being collaborative and having strategic decision making abilities. NVIDIA says this opens up “new possibilities for emergent storytelling.” Ubisoft’s narrative team built complete backgrounds, knowledge bases and conversational styles for two NPCs as a proof of concept.
3. ROBLOX LAUNCHED A $35 MILLION CREATOR FUND
Roblox officially has its own creator fund. While Roblox has previously offered a fund for game makers and designers, the expanded $35 million fund will encompass developer studios and users who want to build things beyond games on the server and will become one of the first partners of a short-form video service, nudging into the social media landscape. The newly titled Creator Fund, previously Game Fund, is one of the many programs they have in place to support creators as they build next-gen experiences on Roblox. Roblox is expanding the types of content funded by the program, bringing new opportunities for Roblox’s network of creators across the globe. The Creator Fund will allow even more creators and IP holders to join the program while still staying true to its original mission of empowering creators who want to build something that has never existed before. Roblox joins a long list of tech companies competing for creator attention. Around the launch of Instagram Reels in 2021, Meta was offering creators bonuses up to $35,000 in an effort to grow the platform. Snapchat launched its creator fund for independent music artists in 2022, which it expanded last year, and some creators have reported making thousands of dollars a month on Pinterest’s creator program. As far as TikTok sunsetting its $1 billion creator fund in November of last year, it replaced it with another revenue-share program that encourages long-form video posting on the platform.
4. MUSIC ARTISTS ARE DROPPING NEW SONGS IN GAMES
The hottest playlist to be on these days is from a hit video game. Video games aren’t just the most popular form of entertainment for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they’re also becoming a key way for both established hitmakers and up-and-coming artists to debut new music. As the war between Universal Music Group and TikTok continues, UMG and other labels are taking advantage to create new partnerships with upcoming games to fuel a new era of music discovery. Fortnite and Roblox have hosted several in-game shows over the past few years including Diplo, The Kid Laroi, and Weyes Blood releasing new music during performances and experiences. Rappers, Big Sean and Sheck Wes, debuted new songs on the game NBA 2K that is constantly updating its playlist with new tracks. Atlantic Records licensing executive, Joe Khoury, said “strong licensing income and are huge marketing drivers as well.” When Eminem dropped his single “Godzilla” in 2020 during a Fortnite event, it shot up to №63 on the Spotify charts in the US the very next day.While song clips can go viral on TikTok and Reels, whole albums can be easily consumed while people play games, and the virtual concerts typically have a playable element keeping people engaged.
5. PARIS HILTON’S SLIVINGLAND GOT A LOT OF BUZZ
Roblox’s user-generated platform reaches more than 216 million active monthly users with many celebrities using it to engage young people who aren’t easy to reach via brand advertising. Hilton has always been a gamer and undercover nerd. Since 2021, Paris Hilton has launched two Roblox worlds, introduced new brands to the platform, and shaped the future of immersive marketing campaigns with pioneering partners. Previously, Paris Hilton embraced platforms like Twitter, as early as 2009, before many brands. Slivingland represented 11:11’s first metaverse-native intellectual property and Roblox was the first place Paris Hilton’s new lifestyle brand, Sliving decided to appear. As of February 2024, Slivingland had over 3.4 million visitors, more than Paris World. A TikTok by Paris Hilton promoting Slivingland was viewed over eight million times. The results were the equivalent of $60 million in ad spending, the report found. Slivingland drew an average of 11 minutes per daily active user in January 2024. So far, more than 400 brands have done activations on Roblox, up from 28 in 2021. Beauty and fashion brands were the first movers on Roblox, and now the brands on the platform come from luxury, toys, celebrity skincare, cars, movies, entertainment, travel, retail, makeup, apparel, sports, music, food and drink and hotels.
6. UNREAL BRINGS A METAHUMAN AVATAR IN FORTNITE
At the Gamers Developers Conference last year, Epic Games launched a robust new creative tool called the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN). This year, the company announced some major new features that are on the way for it. The company’s MetaHumans are hyper realistic human characters that can be animated using only an iPhone and are available in UEFN. Users can import any characters made using the MetaHuman Creator tool and the MetaHuman Animator into UEFN, where they can then be used as NPCs in player-made games. While MetaHumans are the highlight, a couple of other notable features are coming as well. The UEFN will be getting more camera options later this year as well, including a much-requested first-person perspective. Additionally, UEFN will be getting “physics sandbox gameplay,” which includes “the option to use physically-simulated characters in UEFN and Creative and simulate any static mesh.”
TAKEAWAY-
Video games, once confined to the realms of arcades and living rooms, now permeate every aspect of our lives. In 2023, an estimated 3.26 billion people worldwide, roughly 41% of the global population, are actively engaging with video games. It is not hard to believe that the video game industry is growing by leaps and bounds, maintaining its status as one of the most lucrative industries. Both commercially and technically, the industry has surpassed every benchmark. Technological trends like immersive technologies (AR, VR, MR) have encouraged developers and players to play on different platforms and with the rise of streaming video games it’s only reaching more.
