Scaling Quality Video Beyond CTV Through Gaming

Challenge

Gaming is a compelling channel for extending video strategies into environments built around active engagement. Unlike passive viewing experiences, gaming audiences are immersed, focused, and spending meaningful amounts of time within the experience itself. According to Overwolf, users often engage for 60–90 minutes per session, with highly active players spending more than 65 hours per month across gaming environments.

For advertisers, that level of engagement creates something increasingly valuable: attentive reach.

Instead of competing with second screens or background viewing habits, video appears in moments when users are already engaged and actively participating. It creates an opportunity to reach audiences when their attention is focused on the experience in front of them.

Solution

To help advertisers capitalize on this opportunity, Overwolf and OpenX partnered on a quality-focused curation strategy designed to deliver greater scale, transparency, and performance across gaming video.

As a programmatic gateway to some of the world’s largest gaming titles, Overwolf gave OpenX access to immersive gaming environments that can be difficult to reach through traditional programmatic channels. OpenX then applied its supply-side curation capabilities through OpenXSelect™, using real-time, pre-auction intelligence to identify and activate inventory aligned with attention, engagement, and video performance signals.

The initiative spanned multiple campaigns across a diverse mix of advertisers and agency groups. The results reflect performance across a broad range of brands, objectives, and verticals.