Why smart marketers are investing in 'advergames'

An online space where people from anywhere in the world can do anything.

Construct buildings, run businesses, battle enemies, play sports, attend concerts – together.

This sounds like some hopeful, albeit unrealistic, virtual utopia.

But it’s actually the idea behind the founding of online gaming platform Roblox.

Simple, yet ambitious, especially for 2004.

Today, Roblox has a market cap of $25.93B.

A number that continues to rise as Roblox grows into a corporate marketing playground for brands.

Advertising to children is strictly regulated, but 60% of the platform's 70 million active daily users are under the age of 16. Nonetheless, household brands have flooded the platform with interactive marketing since the announcement of its in-game ad roll out in 2022.

And Roblox aims to rake in a hefty $1B from them.

The eventual goal is to make Roblox a destination for all aspects of virtual life. And to turn a profit in the process, creating a robust digital economy.

But Roblox isn’t just slapping ads on virtual billboards. They’ve created a whole new ad format.

Take Chipotle's Burrito Builder. In this game, players don a Chipotle uniform and make burritos for virtual customers. They can, of course, choose toppings from Chipotles’ real-world menu.

When the game launched two years ago, the first 100,000 players could earn 'burrito bucks.' They could cash these in for a real-life prizes on Chipotle's website.

Chipotle's Burrito Builder is one of many corporate theme parks, or 'advergames', in Roblox.

Consumers see thousands of ads a day, which means capturing and maintaining attention is becoming harder.

But despite seeing such a high number of ads a day, we barely remember any of them. Our brains become fatigued, so we filter them out. So by integrating messages into a game like Roblox, brands can bypass these filters.

Offering advergames contributes to Roblox's broader vision of expanding beyond gaming and working toward becoming a metaverse platform. It's why the brand is beginning to include e-commerce and advertising elements.

As games become more immersive, the lines blur between social and gaming. Is it still gaming if you’re hanging around trading fish on Animal Crossing? The same question applies for ads and gaming. Is it still advertising if you’re earning your own share of revenue, but it happens to have a logo on it?

Is it still even one game if players are the ones creating and playing their own games?

This is where we head into the 'virtual world' territory. These are generally underpinned by robust digital economies. Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, grossed nearly $50M from sales of NFL skins alone.

Gaming has gone from a niche 'nerdy' hobby to a massive global industry across all demographics.

Marketers would be stupid not to go after a piece of the (virtual) pie.

Doing so is a smart way to help your brand stand out and capture attention in the oversaturated marketing landscape we exist in today.

-Sophie, Writer