With the migration of gaming activities online, and the subsequent expansion of the gaming community, a whole host of behaviors now fall within the remit of gaming even when they don’t actually involve picking up a controller and playing a game.
The rise of spectator gaming has been quick to make an impact in this space; one in four say they have watched a live gaming stream in the past month, and just under a fifth report having watched an eSports tournament.
The appeal for brands here is obvious – as our data demonstrates, spectator gaming has a fairly narrow but very desirable demographic. That said, with over a fifth of 35-44s live-streaming video game footage each month and around 1 in 7 tuning into eSports tournaments, enthusiasm is by no means restricted to Millennials.
eSports in particular is still very much evolving as a platform for brands and advertisers, but the genre’s initial migration from online TV to broadcast media via the likes of Turner and ESPN should increase the appeal for brands still sitting on the fence.
