Gaming is becoming a line in the media plan

IAB UK is holding its Gaming Upfronts in London today, 15 October. Upfronts are where TV has long sold next year's inventory to media buyers, and gaming getting its own tells you where buyers have started to file it. The agenda reads like a media plan: Xbox Media Solutions, VML and King on the KitKat and Candy Crush Saga partnership, plus sessions from Overwolf, ESL FACEIT Group, Unity and Snap.

The rest of the fortnight's news points the same way. Brands are treating gaming as an ongoing media line, and the formats and the measurement rules have caught up with them. GEEIQ tracked more than 450 new brand activations across Roblox and Fortnite in the first eight months of 2026, between 40 and 80 every month. The part still missing is a way to plan it.

Panda Express made gaming always-on

Panda Express has moved its gaming activity from a campaign to a permanent part of the media plan. Its agency, The Many, told Marketing Dive that "gaming is a core pillar of our marketing strategy." The second half of 2026 brings three more Fortnite map integrations and persistent in-game billboards across a six-month flight, and the brand's Roblox obby has been relaunched as a standing destination with monthly content updates.

The decision followed the measurement. Super League, which runs the programme, reported a Nielsen study that found a 3-point lift in awareness and a 5-point lift in purchase intent over 30 days, with consideration up from 64% to 67%, at 90% statistical confidence. "Repeat investment only happens when the results are there," said Rhiannon Apple, Super League's EVP of client strategy.

It is one of 44 activations by food and drink brands on Roblox and Fortnite this year to the end of August, joint third behind media and entertainment at 138 and IP and franchise at 85.

The formats look like media

Roblox's own ad products are moving the same way. Rewarded video, where a player chooses to watch an ad in exchange for an in-game reward, is open to every ads-eligible creator. Roblox has been testing a "Join with Reward" prompt that plays the video before a game loads, and MediaPost reported from Roblox's developer conference that a pre-gameplay placement is due in the fourth quarter. That puts a brand at the start of a session, the slot buyers already know from pre-roll video.

Integrations can be bought at media prices too. DAISE ran a multi-experience Roblox integration this year at a blended CPM of $0.68 across 145 million impressions, and measured an 8.2-point awareness lift among over-16s. Of the activations we tracked from January to August, 268 were item drops, 135 were integrations into existing experiences and 62 were brand-owned worlds. The formats being bought are the ones that fit a media plan.

The time those formats buy is measurable. On Roblox, a session inside an experience that hosts a brand integration lasts about 10 minutes on average, against just over 8 for the platform as a whole and between 6 and 7 inside a brand-owned world, according to GEEIQ's benchmarks. Yahoo and OMD measured Gen Z giving a social ad 1.3 seconds.

So is the audience. LifeTogether RP, where DAISE's integration sits, drew 102 million visits in September. Driving Empire, which carries more than 20 car brands, drew 94 million, and FIFA Super Soccer, with five brand integrations live, drew 53 million. Those are host visits, the monthly audience a slot in that experience reaches.

There is a standard for counting an impression

The first question a media buyer asks is whether anyone saw the ad. The IAB and the MRC answered it for games in their Intrinsic In-Game Advertising Measurement Guidelines. An in-game ad counts as viewable when at least half of it is on screen for one continuous second, or two for video, and its visible part covers at least 1.5% of the screen. The guidelines recommend an angle of no more than 55 degrees to the player's view.

Roblox's Giovanni Gardelli walked through the same tests on 12 October, for brands asking how they know their in-game ads are seen. The answer is now the same kind of answer they get for display and video.

What's still missing is the plan

Gaming media is sold by game publishers, by UGC platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite, by ad networks and by in-game advertising specialists. Each has its own formats, specs, minimum spends and reporting, so comparing them means working through one media kit at a time.

Our view is that this is the next problem to solve. The evidence that gaming works is now strong enough for a media agency to call it a core pillar, and the harder part is planning it alongside everything else in the budget.

GEEIQ tracks every activation and every host across Roblox, Fortnite and ZEPETO, whoever sold it. That is the view a media plan needs and the one no seller can give you.

If you're planning gaming media for 2027, talk to us.