Earlier ads in games were less, however in today’s time most of the free to play games are ads driven. Despite so much ad integration, audiences are still enjoying those games because either the ads are placed at the right time which will not affect the gameplay, or they are helping in unlocking levels/weapons/skins or gaining XPs/coins, or are relevant to the users playing the games. Finding the right balance between ads and games is crucial for the growth of the sector. And to streamline games, audience and monetization, Tyroo just launched its new gaming vertical, Comet in the APAC region to put special focus in India. Comet will help brands to purchase premium esports and gameplay media.
In conversation with Animation Xpress, Tyroo Technologies chief revenue officer Akshay Mathur shared, “There are 1.62 billion gamers in the APAC region with 430 million based in India alone. The factor for this accelerated growth has been due to the pandemic with mobile/PC games gaining the most followed by console gaming. Time spent on these games have increased in some cases more than those on certain social media platforms. This meteoric rise and change in user behavior leads to interest by brands looking to participate and converse with these audiences. Through Tyroo Comet we want to simplify the buying process for brands in a brand safe environment by partnering with AAA games in the region.”
Activision Blizzard and King have partnered with Tyroo for an exclusive partnership in India. The partnership will allow Tyroo to monetise ABM games in other countries such as Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore and will provide advertisers with immersive and quality audiences across markets. As part of the partnership, Tyroo is building teams and infrastructure to support solution based selling and white glove services to advertisers in the region.
This partnership will open up opportunities for brands across these regions to utilize in-gaming advertising and connect with players in a fan-first integrated advertising experience across mobile gaming.
“Advertisers in the region will also be able to access Activision’s users in western markets such as the US, Europe and Australia. Activision Blizzard, and its gaming portfolio, have a global player base of nearly 400 million players and offer a very exciting opportunity for brands to explore a user-initiated in-game advertising experience. With this partnership it is our sincere attempt to bring in premium audiences and build Tyroo Comet as a single point platform for advertisers gaming needs,” he added.
Activision Blizzard Media offers a variety of ad placement and ad types inside their iconic games portfolio which includes Candy Crush Saga, Call of Duty and Overwatch, and also rewarded video advertising which provides a value exchange for players.
Commenting on how Comet will help in bolstering the growth of the gaming sector, Mathur shared, “Tyroo Comet’s singular aim is to make brands successful and provide them with brand safe, rich and meaningful gaming audiences. For example, in esports we are trying to democratize the way advertising is being bought by providing measurability and transparency to advertisers. That essentially means moving away from packaged sponsorship led selling to more solutioning and audience based selling.”
He further shared that to help gaming companies monetize through advertising, Tyroo Comet will also be partnering with large Gaming companies. “This helps companies to build alternate dependencies from in-app purchases and improve CaC to LTV for each user. We strongly believe in building for our partners a meaningful and long term relationship without diluting the brand’s core values, fan community and visibility. Tyroo is the partner of choice for such companies,” Mathur added.
According to Mathur, globally a large chunk of monetisation for online games has been through in-app purchases. Advertising has been a smaller component of the revenue split. However, in India monetisation for gaming is largely on the back of advertising and such dominance of advertising has been higher in India due to a lower average revenue per unit (ARPU) per user as compared to other developed markets.
He added, “Tyroo Comet was envisioned to bring together gaming audiences for brand marketers in a measurable and transparent format. The aim is to democratize esports audiences and enable brands to be able to reach them through AAA gaming titles such as BGMI, Valorant, and so on. Its esports dashboards allow advertisers to view campaign reports in digital marketer friendly metrics. With more transparency and measurability, advertisers will be able evaluate the efficacy of the campaign performance more effectively.”
At Comet, revenue stream brands and advertising agencies, who are looking to reach gaming audiences, can become part of it. From a partner and supply point of view they work closely with large game IP’s, AAA Games, TO’s and streaming platforms looking for ad monetization revenue streams. Advertisers in search of young and paying audiences in the age group of 18-55 years can find their customers on the platform.
Unlike other gaming markets like the US, China, UK, Japan or South Korea, the Indian gaming ads market is still developing. However lately brands have started recognising gaming as an essential line item to reach out to their potential young customers.
“With global companies focusing more on in-app game purchases; India has one of the lowest ARPU at INR 152 per user, hence limiting product localisation, resources, pricing and focus for large international gaming companies. However with penetration of smartphones, better data speeds, cheaper phones accelerated by the current pandemic, there is a sharp rise in gamers as well as paid users in India. With these changes in the ecosystem, there are immense opportunities for both advertisers and Gaming companies,” he shared.
With the burgeoning popularity of Metaverse, Web3 games, avatar and virtual assets, Tyroo Comet aims “to provide brands with highly engaging solutions within these decentralized environments. The intent is to Celebrate, Engage, Create larger than life social experiences in Virtual worlds – uniquely enabled through “Tyroo” IP capital.