Why brands are shifting ad spend towards the lucrative audience of PC gamers

With advertising budgets continuing to skyrocket towards capturing gaming audiences, PC gamers have become an attractive and sizeable cohort to reach in their marketing mix, says Overwolf’s Noam Korin (VP of brand partnerships). Here’s how brands can capitalize now.

In the world of gaming, where virtual realms intersect with real-world spending power, advertisers are constantly on the lookout for the most lucrative audiences. The spotlight is now shifting towards the global cohort of 1.8 billion PC gamers; a lucrative demographic ripe with potential for brands seeking to make significant impact to their bottom line.

With higher household incomes, diverse demographics, and more substantial time spent in-game (measured in hours, not minutes), PC gamers present an enticing opportunity for advertisers to forge meaningful connections with billions of players globally that are deeply loyal and positive towards the right kind of advertising.

The landscape of gamers: PC vs. console vs. mobile

Traditionally, gaming has been divided into three primary platforms: PC, console, and mobile. While console gaming boasts its own dedicated fanbase and mobile gaming captures a wide, casual audience, it's the realm of PC gaming that is beginning to stand out.

According to Statista, the PC gaming audience holds an estimated 1.8 billion players worldwide. This demographic includes individuals who invest significantly in their gaming setups, from high-performance computers, laptops and top-of-the-line peripherals. Unlike mobile gaming, which often caters to a more casual experience on a handheld device (think playing Candy Crush on the train to work), PC gaming by material price point attracts a more dedicated and wealthy audience devoted to their passion.

Attributes of PC gamers: The lucrative gaming demographic

So what makes PC gamers such an attractive market for advertisers? Several key attributes set this demographic apart:

Higher household income

PC gaming enthusiasts are often willing to invest thousands of dollars in their gaming rigs for premium performance vs their mobile gaming counterparts. Simply put; they tend to have access to more disposable income that can be spent on gaming, in-game purchases, and the products and services advertised to them. A recent 2024 Statista report on PC/laptop gamers in the US found that not only does this cohort hold a high annual household income, but 23% are innovators or early adopters of new products.

Diverse and expansive audience

With over 1.8 billion globally, the PC gamer community spans every age range and demographic. A global 2024 Statista survey of PC gamers in the US found that 41% identified as female. Our own gaming audience at Overwolf (of over 45 million monthly PC desktop app users) stands even more balanced, with 55% male to 45% female.

Engagement levels

By nature of the platform, games powered and often made specifically for PCs offer more expansive worlds than what a mobile device can handle. An August 2022 survey of PC gamers in the United States found that the average single PC gaming session lasted between one to two hours. 

From our own audience data, PC gamers on Overwolf’s platform spend on average 30 hours per week immersed in their favorite titles. Compared to their mobile counterparts which often deal in short bursts of game time measured in single digit minutes, PC gaming provides a far more significant opportunity in-game for brands to capture attention and interact in non-disruptive and impactful ways.

How to advertise to PC gamers

Advertising to PC gamers has been approached in a manner of ways. From an indirect perspective, brands are activating influencers on social platforms such as YouTube and Twitch to reach this audience through influencer targeting. However, this isn’t true engagement in the context of gaming. Here, the audience are in a passive state of consuming entertainment and their levels of attention and emotional responses can not be compared to when they’re in the heat of gameplay.

Those brands with the benefit of larger budgets and longer lead times have gone directly to the game studios to partner with, though this usually means working to a 6-12 month timeline in order to “hardcode” their brand in an authentic way inside a major game. Others have looked to the opportunity of custom branded builds on Fortnite UEFN and Roblox, though even here there is no guaranteed audience who will want to play and the scale is limited to one single game, which in turn can mean limiting yourself to one type of audience.

In 2024, the industry is now seeing advertisers working with innovative gaming ad-tech platforms like Overwolf Ads to plug themselves directly across the most trusted PC game titles (Minecraft, Fortnite, League of Legends, Call of Duty and hundreds more) where they can serve interactive and contextual-based ads during rich playtime at a fraction of the cost, and with less of the risk. 

Here, brands can trigger event-based ads during gameplay across the biggest games in the world with close to 95% viewability due to the nature of the interaction. This also solves the issue of advertisers placing all their eggs in one demographic basket when investing in one game — instead, they can scale across multiple games simultaneously.

Furthermore, unlike more traditional in-game advertising methods that may require significant lead time and resources, companies like Overwolf allow for quick deployment of campaigns, enabling brands to capitalize on timely opportunities such as new game launches when the hype is at its peak.

Capture PC gaming audiences whilst brands aren’t looking

The world of PC gaming presents a wealth of opportunities for advertisers seeking to connect with a lucrative and engaged audience. With their higher household incomes, diverse demographics, and penchant for extended gaming sessions, PC gamers represent a prime demographic for brands looking to make an impact.

Platforms like Overwolf Ads offer a streamlined and cost-effective means of reaching this valuable market, allowing brands to embed their messaging directly into the gaming experience across hundreds of the biggest titles at the same time. By leveraging the passion and dedication of PC gamers, brands can forge lasting connections and drive meaningful results before the rest of the industry inevitably follows.

Overwolf Ads is a world-leading ad tech platform empowering brands and advertisers to reach over 100m+ monthly gamers across hundreds of the world's biggest titles and premium gaming websites.

We’re trusted by global brands and agencies such as P&G, Dr Pepper, AMD, Monster Energy, Nissan, KFC, WPP, Dentsu, Havas and more. Interested? Learn about us here.