Want to Reach a Gaming Audience? Nothing Beats Video (and that's Scientific Fact)

It’s never usually a good idea to generalise. After all, gamers aren’t a monolith, they are an incredibly diverse audience that encompasses a wide range of demographics.

Yet there are some things they have in common. For one, they’re passionate, often spending hours every week in virtual worlds, or engaging with other members of the community.

They view things differently. They know, for example, that your beautifully choreographed takeoff sequence is a hidden loading screen, and that the room with loads of ammo means a boss is near.

In short, they’re an alert, informed, and often vocal bunch. That’s not just observation, that’s science:

In 2020, a study was undertaken by researchers at the snappily-titled Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (which I shall henceforth be calling MOEKLFNATUOESATOC, not because that’s a recognised acronym, but because this is my article and I can do what I want).

The wizards at MOEKLFNATUOESATOC wanted to test the sensorimotor and visuospatial processing skills (I know) of gamers, specifically people who play games like League of Legends. So they selected 38 gamers and put them to the test.

19 of the subjects were expert level players, with years of experience. They were considered to be in the top 7% of LOL players, by Riot’s official ranking system. The other 19 were non-expert players, with only a casual knowledge of the game. This group was in the bottom 37% (approx.) of players.

Both groups were put through a series of ‘attentional blink’ tasks wherein they were shown a stream of digits and letters in rapid succession and asked to hit a button when they saw one of two target letters.

In all of the 480 tasks completed during the study, the expert level players outperformed the non-experts. Years of dodging Teemo’s shrooms had given them the ability to stay focused, absorbing peripheral stimuli without missing the target. In other words, their experience with a visual medium like gaming had given them abilities beyond those of a non-gamer.

Teemo. Once described by internet user Dundebuns as 'a hell spawn rat creature from the 7th abyssal plane of misery'

So what does that have to do with the marketing campaign for your new must-have game?

Chances are you’re going to use all the standard tools that every other game has: a logo, maybe an icon for social channels, brand guidelines to help you present a pixel perfect identity, perhaps even some beautiful key art that sells the vision.

But it’s video that will reach your audience.

Whether a dev diary that inspires, a narrative trailer that excites, or a gameplay 101 that informs, video is the tool that will ultimately convert your audience from interested to actively engaged. It’s video your audience will be paying most attention to. It’s the medium they have been training on throughout their lives. It’s literally what their brains have been wired to receive at a deeper level.

Don’t thank me, thank our friends at MOEKLFNATUOESATOC.

For anything else, including video enquiries, there’s signals@readyaimfire.tv.