Gaming has 600 million players, but brands still cannot tell who saw the ad

New Delhi: India’s gaming industry has an unusual problem. It can count its audience in hundreds of millions, but a brand spending inside a game may still not know how many people actually saw its advertisement.

It may know that a tournament generated 10 lakh views. It may know how many times an in-game banner was served. It may even know how long players remained inside a branded map.

What it may not know is whether those 10 lakh views came from 10 lakh people or a much smaller group returning repeatedly. It may not know whether the banner appeared within the player’s field of view, whether the intended audience saw it, or how that exposure compares with an advertisement on television, OTT or social media.

The scale is no longer in doubt. India has roughly 600 million gamers. Yet gaming accounts for less than 5% of global media investment, while in-game advertising is projected to receive about 2.3% of digital advertising expenditure.

This gap is no longer only about advertisers being unfamiliar with gaming. The bigger problem is that gaming has built a large audience and several advertising products without giving media buyers one trusted way to compare them with other channels.

Plenty of inventory, but no single way to value it

The measurement problem is visible from both sides of the advertising market. 

Gourab Das, Partner – Gaming, Mindshare, works with brands and media planners attempting to evaluate gaming alongside established channels.

Trupti Latur, Marcom and Strategy, Apps, Games and Esports at JioGames, has worked on building gaming products, advertising formats and commercial systems from the platform side.

Both point to the same barrier. Brands may believe in the size and attention of gaming audiences, but they still need proof of what their spending delivered.

“Nearly two thirds of marketers say the thing that would make them spend is simply proof that it works. They are not sceptics. They are waiting for a receipt,” Latur said.

There is no shortage of places for brands to appear. They can run rewarded videos, sponsor esports tournaments, place logos on virtual objects, work with streamers, build custom maps or introduce products within gameplay.

Gaming platforms are also becoming larger content and community destinations. BGMI, for instance, now spans esports, social experiences, entertainment collaborations and user-created maps.

“With more than 50,000 custom maps already created, players are no longer just consuming content, they are building it, shaping it and sharing it with others,” said Srinjoy Das, Director of Marketing and BGMI Product Management at KRAFTON India.

For platforms, this creates more engagement and more inventory but for advertisers, it creates a measurement puzzle. A completed video, a branded motorcycle and a three-hour livestream cannot be judged through the same number.

The maker-checker conundrum

Game publishers have access to deep first-party data. They know when users enter, how long they play, what they interact with and how often they return.

Advertisers usually receive only the information chosen by the publisher and displayed through its own dashboard. “There is a well-known principle in advertising: the maker of a report cannot also be the checker of that report,” Das said.

He said publishers remain protective of their audience information and generally involve third-party tracking only to the extent that control of the data stays with them.

This creates a market of walled gardens, with each platform defining, selling and reporting its own audience. The issue becomes more serious when gaming moves beyond a small experiment.

Das said that once brand commitments reach Rs 10 crore to Rs 15 crore, even endemic advertisers begin asking whether the money could have delivered stronger results through another channel.

Latur similarly argued that advertisers do not need to be convinced that gaming has attention. They need the systems required to verify who watched, for how long and what happened afterwards.

“Our industry loves talking about immersion and the future. Nobody wants to talk about measurement. And measurement is the entire problem,” she said.

Different formats need different metrics

A common measurement system does not mean forcing every gaming product into the same box. Rewarded video can be judged through viewability, completion, unique reach, recall and post-view action.

An in-game billboard needs to establish whether it entered the player’s field of view, how large it appeared and how long it remained visible.

A tournament sponsorship requires average audience, unique reach, frequency, exposure time and changes in brand awareness. A custom map needs visits, repeat users, time spent, interactions and brand outcomes.

Globally, brands created 335 integrations inside existing games and virtual environments in 2025, compared with 252 brand-owned worlds. New owned worlds fell 57% year-on-year.

Latur said this shows that brands are moving away from building separate destinations and entering games that people already use. “You do not build a destination. You show up inside a game people already love and you make their game better,” she said.

BGMI’s collaborations with Ferrari, Spider-Man and Naruto reflect this approach. “Our 4.5 update reflects that approach, with BGMI continuing to bring global names like Ferrari, Spider-Man and Naruto into the game to create authentic experiences that resonate across audiences, that feel fresh and immersive for the players,” Srinjoy said.

The brand may receive substantial playing time inside such an experience. But time spent alone does not show whether the brand was noticed, remembered or acted upon.

Creators bring attention, but not always unique reach

Creators are central to gaming marketing in India. Latur estimates that more than 70% of gaming creators’ income comes from brand partnerships because platform payouts remain limited. She placed YouTube payments to Indian creators at around Rs 20 to Rs 40 per thousand views. Other businesses have grown around gifting, private rooms, tournament access and passes.

Latur cited Rooter as an Rs 82 crore business built partly around virtual gifting, with creators receiving 90% of the amount.

The creator economy proves that users are willing to spend within gaming communities even when they do not buy subscriptions. But creator campaigns return advertisers to the same questions around unique reach and frequency.

A user may watch the same streamer several times. A creator may be Live for three hours while the brand appears only at selected moments. Total viewing time cannot automatically be assigned to the sponsor.

Commerce offers a clearer outcome

Gaming has traditionally been sold through attention, participation and brand affinity. Commerce can connect that attention with a transaction.

Latur said live commerce is moving towards one-fifth of e-commerce and can generate conversion rates around 10 times those of a standard product page. She also cited data showing that seven in 10 consumers trust live hosts more than reviews, while half of Gen Z is likely to buy a product after trying it virtually.

India’s UPI infrastructure could make such purchases quicker and suitable for low-ticket products.

“You can argue about attention metrics forever, but you cannot argue with a sale. The platforms that put a working checkout inside the experience will stop having to justify themselves,” Latur said.

Commerce cannot solve measurement for every category. Automobiles, paints and financial services may not generate immediate transactions after an in-game campaign.

They will still require measures such as awareness, consideration, recall and intent. But a direct sale gives gaming an outcome that both marketing and finance teams can understand.

Gaming wants a place in the main media plan

Gaming’s case for advertising investment is not weak. Research has claimed that gaming produces 2.5 times the attention of social and web advertising and twice the purchase intent.

Nearly half of gamers say an in-game advertisement has led them to make a purchase, while only one in five says they dislike advertising inside games. The weakness is that these claims are not yet supported by one widely accepted system across platforms and formats.

Latur argued that asking for a separate gaming budget may actually keep the medium small because it creates another approval process and makes gaming easier to cut. “Gaming should sit inside the video budget, be measured on exactly the same currency as everything else, and win or lose on merit. It wins,” she said.

For that to happen, gaming needs verified impressions, unique reach, frequency, audience profiles, exposure time and brand outcomes. It also needs metrics suited to each format rather than one number stretched across videos, maps, livestreams and virtual objects.

The industry has already proved that people play. Its next job is to prove what brands get when they pay.