Forecasts predict $175.8 billion in revenue this year alone from a booming gaming industry.
We recently caught up with Adrian Watkins, the Growth and Marketing Director in the APAC region for AdColony, to discuss in-game advertising, brand-safety, and the effects of the pandemic on a growing yet relatively new advertising medium.
Watkins has worked in a number of senior leadership roles within the media industry across Southeast Asia. He’s been with AdColony since late 2020, heading up teams for an advertising platform that’s present in 18 markets across the region.
Over the course of our conversation, we take a deep dive into gaming, one of the latest yet most promising markets for digital advertising. It’s a topic that’s been covered extensively here at Branding in Asia and one that’s almost certain to see extensive growth in the future.
No, I’ve been having actual, genuine, “Hey, video games!” fun with
Cyberpunk 2077, which I played a great many hours of over the holiday season. (With a great many attendant crashes because, well, yeah.) I can’t speak for other paths, but playing through the world of Night City as a high-level hacker turns out to actually be kind of a blast: Once you get out to the edges of the game’s Intelligence skill trees (and buy a better cyberdeck than the extremely limited POS you start with), your character starts picking up abilities that essentially turn you into a digital wizard. It’s gotten to the point where my version of personality-optional mercenary V doesn’t even bother entering the buildings he’s been asked to infiltrate, more often than not. Instead, I’ll Ping an external camera to see everyone inside the facility, find a crowded group to upload a spreading, poison-spewing Contagion on, neutralize any high-level targets by literally shutting off their brains, an