Introduction
Social media and vlogging are vital tools in many industries. Still, in a sector like gaming, where there’s so much crossover and mutual interest, they’ve become even more crucial tools for gaming companies looking to get their latest titles and ideas seen by the largest chunk of a gaming audience.
Marketing dynamics are a changing, moving target for those who work in the field. To make things even more complicated, gaming is a global market, so marketers construct ideas that often fuse digital, traditional, and forward-thinking ideas. They don’t always work, nor is it an exact science.
But for a sure bet in the world of video gaming marketing, or as sure a bet as any, seeking out the biggest gaming vloggers can yield the greatest return; at the very least, it can lead to the game discussed by the broadest online market.
Exploring The Change
In the 1990s and even the early 2000s, video gaming companies set aside seven-figure sums to advertise via traditional methods, including radio and TV. While the top gaming companies still aim for these traditional methods, the market has shifted to smartphones, social media, and SEO marketing—where the bulk of the marketing funds are now channelled.
The casino gaming industry was one of the first pioneers to identify this change. Although it would be a stretch to say they gambled on this, considering many were digital-only platforms, it wouldn’t make sense for them to advertise on radio or TV.
However, online casinos and the broader gambling industry were competing for valuable digital real estate against some of the gambling world’s juggernauts, creating a much more difficult marketing environment.
Slot gaming companies were able to offer designs and software that catered to a digital audience; they’ve since been able to effortlessly transition this into smartphone and tablet gaming. Casino slots sites don’t have the same dynamic when it comes to gaming vloggers.
There are some gambling vloggers out there who dip their toes into affiliate marketing, and there are also celebrities who have tried to, but given that casino gaming companies use other techniques, such as matched deposit bonuses, refer-a-friend options, and free spins, the vlogging world doesn’t carry as much weight in this area as it does in PC and video console gaming markets.
Subsidiary Markets
Exploring the popularity of subsidiary markets also helps to explain why vlogging remains so crucial for the future health of the gaming industry. Digital platforms command such a colossal part of the gaming world.
They’re the fabric that fuels the multi-billion eSports industry, inspires conversations in digital gaming forums and communities, and have become the platform for some of the biggest names in video console gaming to expand their reach into the digital world.
Some of the best examples of this include Grand Theft Auto V, which has sold over 120 million copies, and a host of the top sports games in the world, with servers that can host competitions between millions of different gamers simultaneously, whether it is FC 25 or NFL Madden.
Musicians and artists scramble to get their songs on the latest sports games, knowing there’s such a colossal market out there. This is compounded when vloggers take a deep dive into the latest games and often comment on the broader audiovisual aspects of the game in question.
Bloggers also play a key role in propping up all levels of the entertainment industry, whether we’re looking for posts about the ideal TV shows of all time or simply looking to find information about the latest gaming news. Digital platforms are now pivotal in the growth of entertainment, spreading the word like wildfire. If gaming marketers pick the right influencers and vloggers to align themselves with, it can be a big part of the battle that gets their brand or product to the largest possible market.
Final Thoughts
Vloggers are vital because they represent the current market. Vloggers and social media influencers are now just as vital for a brand as TV and radio were before the internet. Some social media influencers and vloggers have more followers and listeners than some of the most significant US and UK TV stations.
To ignore this as an evident shift in the fabric of marketing is something that gaming companies would be doing at their peril. Gaming companies that can build a bridge and have a positive relationship with some of the most impactful and influential gaming vloggers on social media are building something that could be a ticket to global success.
Although the world of vlogging and social media influence can be as cutthroat and petty as any other form of marketing, there’s no dispute that the future is now digital. These vloggers and social media influencers act as a spearhead for this change. Hence, gaming companies need to get on board or become resigned to the fact that they will not be able to reach anywhere near the same level of audience as their competitors.
