Gaming now takes a double-digit slice of creator budgets by most industry estimates, and most brands outside the category treat that as someone else’s problem. That’s a mistake. Gaming is where creator marketing gets stress-tested first: live formats, fragmented platforms, skeptical audiences, hard questions about proof. If your brand sells anything to people under 40, the playbook is worth stealing.
First, a caution about gaming’s share
Treat the figure as a directional signal, not a precise budget split. Published numbers on “gaming’s share” mix different measures. Some count the share of brands running gaming campaigns. Others estimate dollars. Before you quote it in a deck, check which one you are holding.
The bigger picture is easier to anchor. The IAB reports that creator economy ad spend is projected to reach $37 billion in 2025, a 26% increase year-over-year, about four times faster than the media industry overall. In a market growing that fast, a single vertical holding a double-digit share is not a niche. It’s a proving ground.
Gaming is not a category to copy. It is a laboratory to learn from, because every problem you will face in creator marketing shows up there earlier and louder.
Why gaming creators work as a template
Gaming audiences don’t passively watch. They chat, clip, argue and buy based on what the community says. That behavior produces three habits that any brand can adopt.
- Community fit over follower count. A streamer’s credibility comes from sustained play and live interaction, not polish.
- Long-form, repeatable formats. Streams and series give brands recurring exposure instead of one-off posts.
- Fast audience feedback. Live chat tells you within minutes whether an integration landed or bombed.
The IAB’s research backs the first habit with buyer data. In its report, 58% of brands cited creator reputation and 56% cited audience alignment among their top selection criteria. Gaming has always run on those two filters. Most other verticals still lead with reach.
That gap is a real opportunity. If your vetting still starts with follower counts, revisit how you score brand affinity before your next brief goes out.
What non-endemic brands already prove
Here is the strongest evidence that gaming is not just for game publishers. Streams Charts analyzed non-endemic brands (companies whose main income does not come from gaming) that hosted gaming streams in the first three quarters of 2024. Red Bull led the ranking with 474.8K hours watched, mostly through its own esports events on Twitch.
Look at what Red Bull did. It didn’t just pay for placements. It built an owned property tied to its brand identity, across genres from shooters to fighting games. The same report shows AT&T generating 116.6K hours watched through its Annihilator Cup series. A telecom company. Not exactly a household name in esports.
And Samsung? The same analysis credits it with the highest single peak at 76.8K viewers, for a PUBG Mobile event featuring popular streaming creators. The pattern is consistent: a recognizable brand, a format it controls, and creators who already own the audience.
The lesson for retail, CPG and B2B
You do not need a gaming product. You need a reason to be in the room and a format that earns attention. For a food brand, that could be a recurring cook-along series. For a software company, a live build challenge. The mechanics are identical: own the format, then invite creators in.
Live formats are an operations problem, not a creative one
Brands that borrow gaming’s live model usually stumble on staffing. Who moderates chat? Who approves a creator’s off-script comment at minute 47? Who answers the commerce questions in real time?
Those are workflow questions. Our coverage of how TikTok Live launches turn into revenue makes the same point: the revenue shows up only when the team is ready for it. Plan the roles before the creator goes live, not after the first complaint lands.
- Assign one brand-side producer per live session.
- Pre-approve a short list of claims the creator can and cannot make.
- Give moderators a clear escalation path.
- Record every session so you can clip, license and audit later.
That last step matters more than it sounds. Clips are where the long tail of value lives, and they are also where rights disputes begin. Pricing that reuse upfront is now standard practice, as outlined in our piece on creator content licensing.
The measurement trap gaming exposes
Gaming campaigns generate huge viewing numbers, which makes them seductive. Hours watched is not revenue. Brands that stop at viewership are repeating the reach-first mistake in a flashier format.
The wider market has the same weakness. The IAB’s creator economy findings describe a measurement landscape that is fragmented and platform-centric, and they name proving ROI as the biggest hurdle.
If you cannot connect a live session to a downstream action, you have bought entertainment, not marketing.
So set the measurement plan before you commit budget. Use unique codes or links per creator, define the action that counts (trial, signup, store visit), and agree on a holdout or brand-lift approach where you can. If you pay creators with a mix of fixed and variable fees, make sure your tracking can support it. We covered the setup in hybrid pay and tracking.
Where gaming lessons break down
Not everything transfers. Be honest about the limits.
Audience trust is category-specific. Gaming communities punish inauthentic sponsorship quickly and publicly. That is a feature if you respect it, and a crisis if you ignore it. A brand with no history in the space cannot buy its way to credibility with one big sponsorship.
Platform mix differs. Twitch and YouTube dominate gaming. Your category may live on TikTok, Instagram or LinkedIn. Borrow the format logic, not the channel plan.
Disclosure still applies. Live integrations make it easy to forget on-screen and verbal disclosure. Build it into the run-of-show.
A practical test before you spend
Ask four questions of any gaming-inspired idea:
- Do we have a genuine reason to be in this community?
- Can we own a repeatable format, not just buy a mention?
- Do we have staff for live moderation and approvals?
- Can we measure an outcome beyond views?
Two or fewer yeses means run a small pilot first. Four means scale carefully, and make sure the foundations are in place. Our analysis of creator infrastructure explains why that sequencing protects your budget.
Pick one creator-led live format, run it for four sessions, and judge it on a business metric you chose in advance, not on hours watched.
FAQs
Why should non-gaming brands care about gaming’s share of influencer spend?
Gaming is an early indicator of where creator formats are heading. Live streaming, community-led vetting and owned series all matured there first. Watching how brands perform in the category lets you adopt proven tactics at lower risk.
Is gaming’s share of spend a reliable benchmark?
Treat it as directional. Sources define “share” differently, with some counting brands running campaigns and others estimating dollars. Confirm the definition before using it in budget planning, and benchmark against your own category data.
Which non-gaming brands have succeeded with gaming creators?
Streams Charts’ analysis of non-endemic gaming streams in the first three quarters of 2024 highlights Red Bull, AT&T and Samsung. Red Bull led on hours watched, AT&T built a recurring cup series, and Samsung posted the highest single peak viewership.
How do we measure live creator campaigns?
Define the business action first, then use unique codes or tracked links per creator and compare against a baseline or holdout. The IAB’s report shows advertisers still struggle with attribution and consistent reporting, so a clear plan upfront is a real advantage.
What is the biggest risk of entering gaming communities?
Perceived inauthenticity. Audiences notice quickly when a sponsor has no genuine connection. Choose creators for audience alignment and reputation, give them creative freedom, and make disclosures clear.
Do we need a large budget to borrow these tactics?
No. Start with a small pilot: one repeatable live format, a handful of creators, and a pre-set success metric. Scale only once the staffing, rights and tracking work smoothly.
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