Year in Review: The World of Gaming Influencer Marketing

As we’ve now closed out 2022, we’re taking a look back at some of the key moments and milestones that have shaped the video game industry and Wehype in the past year.

It’s clear the gaming influencer marketing industry has experienced significant growth and evolution over the past year. The gaming influencer space has undergone many exciting developments, from the emergence of new technologies to the changing attitudes of brands and consumers when it comes to gaming content creators.

 

At Wehype, we’ve been fortunate enough to be at the forefront of these trends, empowering game developers and publishers to create successful campaigns and partnerships. In this post, we’ll dive into how the gaming influencer marketing landscape changed in 2022, a handful of the achievements we’re especially proud of, and discuss what the world can expect to see in the coming year from the world of video games and from Wehype.

The Global Gaming Industry in 2022:

Experts predict the number of gamers around the world will continue to grow, to 3.32 billion by 2024. That figure has risen by over 1 billion in just seven years. Gaming is more democratized than ever before, and games are now ingrained in people’s daily lives, helped through the rise of free-to-play monetization and subscription services.

 

After explosive growth in the past couple years sparked by lockdowns during the pandemic, the industry experienced a corrective year in 2022. The global games market value was an estimated $184.4 billion in the past year, a decrease of 4.3 percent year over year. Analysts say this might seem like a big setback, but revenues in the gaming industry between 2020 and 2022 were significantly higher than anyone expected.

Wehype in 2022:

Our community of global content creators is the driving force behind what we do. Wehype set out to support content creators of all backgrounds from all corners of the world, bridging the gap between games and the global gaming community by combining tech with deep industry knowledge and a passion for games. 

The result? More than 2,200 creators participated in campaigns of various shapes and sizes promoting games across platforms and genres. We also took steps to design better tools for more than 110 talent management agencies on our platform, clearing the way for more paid opportunities for content creators.

The many game makers we had the pleasure of working with in 2022 also brought the heat. Partnering with global game publishers and developers, we helped facilitate more than 260 unique campaigns leading to content that was seen more than 121 million times on YouTube, with an additional 722 million minutes of sponsored gaming content watched on Twitch.

Our dedicated and passionate coworkers here at Wehype continued to have an impact in organizations like Women in Games, and participated in events like Gamescom, Twitchcon, and The Game Awards. Wehype was also featured on television, in podcasts like Deconstructor of Fun, and in news articles from outlets including Forbes, Dexerto and EU Startups.

We are gearing up for the year ahead, after significant growth in 2022 that included adding 23 new team members, expanding with offices in New York City and Stockholm, and launching our rebrand alongside our redesigned website experience. 

Wehype’s Roadmap for 2023:

We are looking forward to the year ahead as a company, and are especially optimistic about the future of the gaming industry. Wehype has begun ramping up efforts to improve our platform even more; developing tools to enhance the experience for both our customer and creator partners. The company also partnered with third parties for improvements to our platform, enabling more precise data and insights in order to support the various needs of our clients.

We’re beyond excited to follow the gaming industry as it innovates across all platforms, including the mobile vertical. Mobile games account for about 50 percent of the global games market value, at $92.2 billion. Wehype CEO Robin Åström and Director of Mobile Partnerships Björn Karlsson spoke at Pocket Gamer Connects in London this week about how the influencer marketing landscape is evolving within the mobile segment. We are also integrating with leading mobile analytics and measurement partners to better serve the rapidly growing sector. 

Overall, 2022 was a transformative year for gaming influencer marketing and for Wehype, and we are looking forward to seeing how the industry evolves in 2023.

→ Discover how to kick off your year by working with Wehype on your influencer marketing campaign