Gaming Terms Every Marketer Should Know

Many marketing experts still underappreciate gaming marketing. There are many reasons, but the main one is a lack of understanding of games and gamers. Whilst most gamers (about 60%) are under 34; the average marketer is slightly older than this, doesn’t have first-hand experience with games as a marketing channel, and needs to gain the knowledge to communicate with the gamer audience. To help you, we’ve prepared a list of gaming marketing terms to ensure your position in the industry. Read on!

Table of contents
General Terms
Live streaming
Esports
inStreamly

General terms

Advergames – a marketing technique where a game is developed by or in collaboration with a brand. This type of game is explicitly designed around the brand and its product or service. 

Casual games – games that have simple gameplay and don’t require any special skills from a player, which makes them accessible to a mass audience. 

Cosy games – similar to casual games, designed for stress-free fun and calm gameplay.

Content Creator – creates entertaining or educational material to be distributed through any medium or channel. All streamers are creators, but not all creators are streamers.

Discord – an app that allows users to voice and text chat 1:1 or on thematic servers. It’s popular among many internet communities, especially in gaming.

Event sponsorship – sponsoring gaming events of many kinds. The sponsorship may be via financial support, media partnerships, and providing products or services.

Gamer – a person that is a part of the gaming community. They may be interested in games and esports, events or streaming.

Gamification – including game elements to the marketing artwork of brands that are not gaming related.

Gaming community – a community that is centred around games, esports, games streaming or other activities that are related to gaming.

Gaming events – events that connect gamers to the community. They include, for example, conventions or esports tournaments.

Gaming influencers – people who are popular on social media and create content about gaming.

Gaming cross-promotion – combining the brand’s offer with a special offer in the game.

Giveaway – a promotion in which brands provide a product to one or a few winners. In gaming, brands can organise giveaways in collaboration with streamers, esports teams or pro players.

Hardcore gamers – types of games that require a lot of time and skills from a player. They include long or demanding sessions to enjoy the game’s content fully. Many hardcore games are included in esports.

In-game ads – an umbrella term for all ads placed in the game’s space. They usually take the form of billboards, flying banners or bands but can be done in other formats as well.  

In-game branded content – branding elements that appear as part of a game.

Influencer – someone in a niche or industry who has built a reputation in a particular field with a steady following. Like content creators – a streamer can be an influencer, but an influencer doesn’t have to be a streamer. 

Influencer marketplace – a website that gathers influencers in one place, making it easier for marketers to research.

Metaverse – is a massively scaled and interoperable network of 3D virtual worlds rendered in real-time.

Micro-sponsorship – partnership with influencers that have a small audience. 

Mid-core games – types of games that are more complex and require more time than casual games but are more accessible to a regular player than hardcore games.

Pro player – a person who plays games on a professional level, for example, an esports player.

Product placement – a marketing technique where products are featured in video productions. In gaming, product placement appears mostly in games or the content created by influencers.

Meta proto-worlds – platforms and games that have some attributes of Metaverse. You can find the bearings of the metaverse, such as experiences, creator economy, and simple human interface in those platforms.

Live streaming

Category – used to classify the type of content on live streaming platforms. They are divided into different games or real-life streams.

Concurrent viewers – viewers that are watching a stream live.One of the most reliable ways of measuring a streamer’s popularity as it shows the real viewers’ engagement.

Donations – any form of financial support to a streamer by their audience. Viewers send small amounts during the stream.

Live streaming – creating video content displayed live, allowing the creator to interact with their audience in real-time.

Mid-roll ads – video ads that appear in the middle of video content.

Pre-roll ads – video ads that play before video content.

Streamer – a person that creates live streaming content.

Streamer sponsorship – a partnership between a brand and a streamer, usually takes place in paid or barter form. 

Streaming platforms – websites or apps that allow users to run and watch streams. The most popular streaming platforms are Twitch and YouTube, but there are hundreds of other websites like Glimesh or Vimeo. There are also many niche streaming platforms like Altair or Boothaus.

Streaming platform ads – ads that display during the streams.

Vstreamer/Vtuber – streamer that uses a virtual avatar instead of showing their face.

Watch hours – the total time viewers spend watching one’s videos or streams. 

Esports

Esport – a sports competition in video games. As esports is a significant part of the gaming market, the main events and tournaments are organised on a big scale, bringing the interest of people and brands worldwide. 

Esports Team – a professional team of players participating in esports competitions. 

Esports Organisation –  a company that connects multiple esports teams across different games. 

inStreamly

Artwork – content displayed on live streamers via inStreamly technology.

Content display – branded artwork displayed during a live stream.

Display views/campaign views – consolidated number of people who were watching the stream at the time the sponsored campaign was displayed.

Dynamic campaign – a campaign with many views in a short time

Gaming Product Placement – a unique sponsorship animation promoting specific games or services.

Gameplay Reaction Mechanism – Real-time in-game action recognition mechanism developed by inStreamly and Overwolf.

Mechanism – various tools that allow inStreamly to create interactive artworks on streams. The most notable mechanisms are Gameplay Reaction Mechanism, Chat Voting, and Chat Nicknames.

Sponsored campaign – a promotional campaign created for a specific client available for multiple streamers to join and automatically display on their streams.

Streamcoi – inStreamly’s SaaS. Streamcoi assists in managing sponsorship animations for teams, agencies and organisations with their streamer networks.

Final words

Gaming marketing is a new thing, and it keeps evolving constantly. Therefore, knowledge of gaming terms will be useful while planning and executing a strategy. 

If you still feel the thirst for knowledge, we have more for you: the Gaming Marketing Course. It will help you discover the gaming marketing world for free in the form of 6 short modules

What will you learn from this course?

• Insights about the industry
• Gamer motivations and ways of reaching them successfully
• Gaming, esports, and live streaming marketing tactics
• How to work with gaming influencers
• Our predictions about marketing trends
• Gaming terms
• And more!

Join our course today and gain new skills! Hopefully, you’ll find this dictionary and Gaming Marketing Course helpful in your gaming marketing journey.