Like Mario and Luigi navigating the Mushroom Kingdom, political campaigns face a series of obstacles on the path to victory. There are traps to avoid, shortcuts to discover, and new worlds to explore. Success depends on reaching the goal before the clock runs out.
Just as the iconic pixelated plumbers cannot rescue Princess Peach by staying on the first level, campaigns cannot reach today’s electorate by relying solely on the same familiar media channels. To win, they must reach voters where they actually spend their time. Streaming has overtaken traditional TV for many voters, social media has reshaped engagement, and podcasts have opened new channels for harder-to-reach audiences.
But one major media environment is still too often overlooked: video games.
For millions of Americans, gaming is not a niche hobby. It is a regular part of daily life. For campaigns trying to reach younger and persuadable voters, ignoring gaming means ignoring a large share of an increasingly difficult-to-reach electorate. At DSPolitical, our media consumption data reflects this shift, highlighting gaming environments as an increasingly important part of the modern digital ecosystem.
The Voter Opportunity in Gaming
Gaming audiences are far broader than the stereotype of teenagers playing in their parents’ basement. Today, gaming is mainstream. Mobile gaming alone reaches enormous audiences. More than 160 million Americans play mobile games – think popular titles like Candy Crush, Words with Friends, and solitaire.
Drilling down deeper, our post-2024 survey of voters with Global Strategy Group included compelling data about voters who game:
- Among voters who play video games on a console like PlayStation or Xbox:
- 25% play at least once a week.
- 54% of men and 34% of women between 18 and 44 play at least once a week.
- 56% of swing voters between 18 and 44 play at least once a week.
To explore the full picture, download our webinar featuring DSPolitical CEO Mark Jablonowski with Global Strategy Group for deeper insights from our post-election survey.
These numbers highlight a clear opportunity. Younger and persuadable voters are increasingly difficult to reach through traditional media, as linear TV declines and digital channels grow more saturated.
Gaming environments help fill that gap. They provide another place where campaigns can reach voters who are not always present in traditional political media channels. Gaming can become another effective channel within a broader, audience-first media strategy when paired with DSPolitical’s precise targeting and best-in-class data.
Breaking the Misconceptions About Gaming Ads
Despite the scale of gaming audiences, many campaigns still hesitate to include gaming in their media mix due to outdated assumptions about in-game inventory. When some hear “ads in games,” they imagine low-quality pop-ups from early mobile apps.
The reality is very different.
Modern mobile games frequently include opt-in rewarded video formats, where players voluntarily watch short ads in exchange for in-game rewards such as extra moves or additional gameplay time. Because users choose to watch the ad, completion rates are often extremely high (70-90%) compared to other digital environments.
In other words, the engagement is built into the experience. Watching the ad is part of continuing the game, so players, or voters, are far more likely to pay attention. Campaigns that dismiss gaming as low-quality inventory are missing a key point: gaming can deliver attentive audiences at scale.
Turning Gaming Into a Strategic Channel
In practice, most voter targeting opportunities in gaming come through programmatic mobile placements using these rewarded video formats, allowing campaigns to reach large voter audiences with strong engagement, measurable performance, and the scale expected in modern digital advertising.
Using our award-winning programmatic platform, Deploy, campaigns can incorporate high-quality gaming inventory into their media plans while maintaining the precise voter targeting and measurable performance modern campaigns rely on. Campaigns looking to make an explicit investment in gaming inventory to reach specific segments of the electorate can work with our award-winning Client Services team to develop and execute a targeted strategy.
For well-resourced campaigns, direct partnerships in immersive platforms like Roblox or Fortnite can deliver high-impact visibility and cultural relevance through integrations, events, and virtual experiences. However, their limited scale makes them less suited for precise, large-scale voter engagement.
As part of an omnichannel strategy, campaigns can use data-driven targeting to reach gaming audiences across multiple environments, including in-game placements, streaming platforms, and the wider digital ecosystem.
How Campaigns Should Approach Gaming
Campaigns do not need to reinvent their entire strategy to reach gaming audiences. But they should begin asking the right questions.
- Campaigns can strengthen their digital strategy by incorporating high-quality gaming inventory and reviewing performance closely, as video ads in gaming environments often deliver strong engagement and high completion rates.
- Campaigns should focus on audiences rather than platforms. If persuadable voters spend time gaming (hint: they do), campaigns should reach them there just as they do on streaming platforms or social media.
- For ambitious campaigns with larger budgets, there may also be opportunities to explore immersive activations inside gaming platforms. These types of placements can create cultural moments but require significant planning.
The Bottom Line
Campaigns have spent years learning to follow voters as media habits change. Gaming is simply one of the next steps in that evolution. When more than half of persuadable young voters spend time in gaming environments each week, campaigns cannot afford to treat gaming as an afterthought.
Smart campaigns will integrate gaming into their broader digital strategy. With the right data and targeting strategy, and platforms like Deploy, campaigns can reach gaming audiences alongside other key voter segments across today’s fragmented media landscape. Others will wait and discover too late that they overlooked one of the fastest-growing media environments in modern politics.
Just as Mario and Luigi can’t reach victory by dodging Bowser, campaigns can’t reach the voters they need by dodging gaming. To win the future, campaigns must meet people where they are – and that includes where they game.