Are Video Games the Best Marketers for Big Brands?

Published: October 7, 2024

Are Video Games the Best Marketers for Big Brands?

By Movieguide® Contributor

Rather than try to crack into the video game market, many brands are now partnering with established brands to reach their target audience.

Disney is perhaps the best example of this, partnering with video game behemoth Fortnite to promote dozens of titles in recent years, including Marvel, Star Wars and Indiana Jones. These collaborations have proven to be so successful that Disney spent $1.5 billion last February to acquire a major stake in the game’s parent studio, Epic Games.

“This marks Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant growth for expansion,” Disney CEO, Bob Iger, said at the time. “We can’t wait for fans to experience the Disney stories and worlds they love in groundbreaking new ways.”

Though Disney has been creating video games since the ’80s, the company has found it better to license out its content rather than compete with the titans of the industry. This has become the strategy for many other brands as well who look to promote themselves through video games.

Minecraft is another marketing powerhouse, collaborating with hundreds of brands since it was released 15 years ago and promoting numerous movie and product releases over that time.

“We often time the content releases with pop-culture moments like a movie release or anniversary celebration, or with relevant global topics like sustainability,” said Ada Duan, Microsoft’s GM of brand management. “The Minecraft team works with our professional creator partners to make fun and engaging gameplay, while our licensing partners share any themes or elements they would like to feature in the game.”

The decision to turn to these mega-popular games rather than trying to crack the market is an understandable strategy given that only 66 video games accounted for 80% of all playtime logged globally last year. At the top were Fortnite (8.4%), Roblox (5.9%) and Minecraft (4.3%). Unsurprisingly, these games collaborate with brands monthly, giving them access to hundreds of millions of players.

Movieguide® previously reported:

Six years after its full release, the video game Fortnite is more popular than ever, thanks to a slew of new additions, leading it to collect more playtime than many other popular series combined.

November and December were Fortnite’s most popular months ever as the gaming staple’s playtime surged by 150% in November to hit 1.6 billion hours played in that month alone. December continued this growth as playtime grew by an additional 9%.

This staggering growth was largely fueled by adding three new game modes – Lego Fortnite, Fortnite Festival and Rocket Racing – giving players old and new a reason to boot up the game.

Straying from the game’s traditional battle royal system, each game mode added something new, like Lego Fortnite’s survival and building system or Rocket Racing’s competitive racing. The game’s traditional format also saw a return to its roots, allowing players to play its original map and game mode.