The Rise of Influencers in Gaming: Navigating the New Landscape

The gaming industry has rapidly evolved from mere entertainment into a powerful cultural and economic force, influencing the digital landscape in profound ways. As gaming continues to shape our society, economy, and culture, it has become crucial to understand its growing significance.

In the run-up to GAMEXX Summit and Awards 2024, Adgully’s marquee event for the gaming and e-sports industry, which will be held in Mumbai on November 6, a special trilogue was held yesterday on ‘The Rise of Influencers in Gaming: Navigating the New Landscape’. The session was chaired by Sandeep Suvarna, Ex-CMO Asia Pacific, Twitch, LinkedIn, and the panelists included Soham Thacker, Founder & CEO, Gamerji, and Sumedha Mahajan, Head of Marketing, India, Ampverse DMI.

Commencing the discussions Sandeep Suvarna remarked, “In 2023, the global gaming population crossed about 3 billion users for the first time. And when you look at the modern gamer, they’re not just a player anymore. These folks actively participate in online communities, interact with creators and influencers across a range of social media sites. And that shift has given rise to what we now have called a gaming influencer.” He went on to ask the panelists about the trends and insights that they have come across within this space over the last 12-18 months.

Soham Thacker responded by saying, “The gaming industry now is not a subset of entertainment anymore, which once upon a time it used to be. That is the evolution that has happened in the last about 15 years, obviously starting from the west and Southeast Asia and then moving on to the other parts of the world. Content creation is something which really kicked off in the last decade where initially it started from the likes of Twitch and YouTube gaming.”

Emphasizing on the evolution in competitive gaming landscape, he said, “In competitive gaming, which enhanced the content quality itself rather than gamers just coming and just creating entertainment value, it also started creating a lot of tips and tricks and also a lot of skill value out of gaming streams as well as content. That is definitely an evolution that we have seen. And now obviously with the technology that we have and also the accessories that are given or are provided to the influencers it is as parallel to watching a television or a movie.”

Sumedha Mahajan said, “I am personally a big believer in content and community. Content, community and creators are the three Cs I always see. It’s not just creation, or a face coming and saying, ‘hey, XYZ, buy this’; it is also what kind of content they are creating through that and how are they leveraging the community.”

Citing examples of Platforms like instagram, she said, “Instagram now has broadcast channels. We are seeing a lot of trends there. You have subscriber only content now, I see a lot of collaboration, a lot of trends coming in that area. It’s like what kind of Reels are performing. If you see, it is not just branded content directly plugged in, that’s performing. Personally, what we’ve seen at Ampverse also is a lot of content that’s organically placed or just fun content that's behind the scene that gets people to know them.”

Speaking on the difference between the new and old generations, Mahajan said, “If you look at Gen Z and Gen Alpha today, it’s not how it was with millennials. They are very, very smart with respect to what is paid. They’re very smart and they acknowledge it, but their focus span is lesser. But they also want very regular content. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to talk to them, it has to be trending – the Reel, content, the language, the slang, the song. That’s something we’ve been seeing for the last one year while working with influencers.”