Why In-Game Advertising Is the Attention Economy’s Best-Kept Secret
The science is in. And the numbers are hard to ignore.
For years, brand managers and media planners across Africa have been fighting the same battle: how do you cut through a fragmented, saturated digital landscape and make your message genuinely land? More impressions. More formats. More budget. Yet the challenge of real, sustained attention only seems to grow.
A groundbreaking new white paper, Attention and Emotion in Play by Gameloft for Brands and the COMBO! network, offers both the science and the strategy to change that. As proud partners of Gameloft for Brands across Sub-Saharan Africa, we at A.M.A Digital Media wanted to break down what this research means for your brand and why in-game advertising deserves a permanent seat at your media planning table.
Attention + Emotion Is the New Currency
Before we talk gaming, let’s talk about the broader challenge.
Digital audiences today are not passive. They multitask across screens, skip ads in seconds, and scroll past content that doesn’t immediately earn their focus. According to the white paper, traditional advertising still delivers reach, but its capacity to consistently generate deep engagement and memorability is increasingly under question.
This is where gaming changes the conversation entirely.
With over 3.2 billion gamers worldwide (Newzoo, 2024), gaming is no longer a niche hobby. It is the dominant form of entertainment globally, persistent across all demographics, and deeply woven into everyday consumer life. In South Africa alone, Gameloft’s platform reaches over 12 million unique users across mobile devices, with a balanced audience spanning Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X.
But what makes gaming truly exceptional as an advertising environment is not just scale. It is the quality of attention it commands.
What the Science Actually Found
The research behind this white paper is rigorous. Gameloft for Brands, in partnership with Mediamento Institute (using Tobii eye-tracking technology) and ActFuture (using iMotions biometric emotion measurement), conducted a dual-layer scientific study with 60 participants aged 18 to 40. Three advertising environments were tested head-to-head:
- An interactive in-game video ad served within a live gameplay session
- A 15-second YouTube pre-roll ad
- A 15-second embedded display video ad on a mobile website
The findings are compelling across every metric.
Premium Attention: Gaming Keeps Eyes on the Prize
The eye-tracking data revealed that in-game ads achieved a 92.2% attention rate, meaning players maintained their gaze for an average of 13.8 seconds out of a 15-second creative. This compares to 88.4% for YouTube pre-roll and just 9.5% positive attention on web-embedded video.
More telling than the overall attention rate, however, is the quality of that attention. In-game video ads achieved 84.8% positive attention, compared to 71.8% for YouTube and a mere 9.5% for web display. On YouTube and web environments, a significant portion of gaze is captured by countdown timers, skip buttons, and UI clutter, what the study categorises as “negative attention” that actively dilutes the impact of your creative.
Inside a game, none of that exists. There is no skip button. There is no competing interface. The player’s attention stays anchored on the content itself.
In short: in-game sustained positive attention is 2x higher than average digital media and 18.1% higher than YouTube.
“In this Mediamento study, interactive in-game video ads captured attention for 92.2% of their viewable duration, compared with 88.4% for YouTube pre-roll video ads.”
— Dorothée Rieu, PhD in Neuroscience, CEO of Mediamento Institute
Emotion Unlocked: Why Gaming Puts Audiences in the Right State of Mind
Attention is only half the equation. The research goes further to prove that gaming does not merely sustain focus, it actively elevates emotional receptivity.
Using facial expression analysis and voice-based emotion recognition, the study found that in-game advertising environments trigger:
- +24% more emotional engagement (via facial recognition) compared to YouTube
- 2.2x more happiness (via voice recognition) compared to YouTube
- +17% stronger emotional connection during the ad, as declared by participants
What this means in practical terms is that a player watching your ad inside a game is not in the same neutral or passive state as someone scrolling through a website or waiting out a pre-roll. They are immersed. They are emotionally elevated. They are cognitively active.
The study identified that 74% of mobile gamers reported feeling emotionally involved while playing video games (Gameloft for Brands in-game Survey, “The Emotional Power of Gaming”, 2025). That emotional state carries directly into how they process and remember brand messaging.
What This Means for Brands in Africa
At A.M.A Digital Media, we have been advocates for gaming as a strategic media vertical for years. This research validates what we have seen in practice across our partnership with Gameloft for Brands, the world’s number one mobile game publisher, reaching over 1.5 billion monthly active users globally and 12 million unique users across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Our audience across South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, and Nigeria is privacy-safe, brand-suitable, and highly engaged. We offer the full spectrum of in-game creative formats, from full-screen interstitials and gamified interactive video ads to fully custom mini-game builds, each designed to reach audiences at the precise moment their attention and emotions are most activated.
Dentsu and Lumen Research have shown that ads in gaming environments receive 1.6x higher active attention than online video ads. Pair that with the emotional science from this white paper and the case for gaming in your media strategy becomes overwhelming.
Turning Emotion Into Strategy
The COMBO! framework referenced throughout the white paper outlines a clear path for brands looking to activate gaming environments intelligently:
- Reach at scale — Access to 1.5 billion monthly active users across the global COMBO! network, with a focused Sub-Saharan footprint through A.M.A Digital Media.
- Premium attention environments — Guaranteed viewability within brand-safe, IAS-verified contexts, free from the skip-button distractions of traditional video platforms.
- Emotionally charged creative formats — Interactive video, gamified mechanics, and full mini-game builds that place your brand inside the emotional engine of play.
- Measurable outcomes — Full reporting on viewability, attention, and brand uplift metrics that connect in-game moments to real business results.
Download the White Paper
The full Attention and Emotion in Play white paper by Gameloft for Brands and the COMBO! network is available to download. It includes the complete scientific methodology, detailed attention heatmaps, facial and voice emotion data, brand impact metrics, and case study inspiration for brands ready to harness the gaming moment.
If you would like to understand how in-game advertising can be integrated into your next campaign across South Africa or broader Sub-Saharan Africa, our team at A.M.A Digital Media is ready to build a media plan tailored to your objectives.
Sources: Gameloft for Brands / COMBO! “Attention and Emotion in Play” White Paper, 2026. Newzoo Global Games Market Report, 2024. Dentsu, “The Attention Economy – Play Attention: Calling Focus to Gaming”, 2024. Gameloft for Brands in-game Survey, “The Emotional Power of Gaming”, 2025.