By Alexander Lee • December 5, 2024 •
Ivy Liu
As marketers grow wiser about the multitude of ways to reach gamers, gaming company Overwolf’s focus on owned-and-operated gaming properties has helped grow the company into one of the industry’s largest ad networks.
Founded in 2010 as a software platform for game developers, Overwolf has since evolved into a holding company whose portfolio includes a range of prominent gaming platforms, including the game modification platform CurseForge, in-game payment service Tebex and gaming ad tech company Nitro. Last year, Overwolf brought in nearly $50 million in ad sales, with brands and agencies such as Universal Pictures, Nissan, Dentsu and Havas buying into the company’s gaming inventory.
Overwolf has continued to grow over the past year. In August, Comscore released data indicating that Overwolf had become the fourth-most-visited gaming property in the United States, surpassing the platforms of competitors including Activision Blizzard and Epic Games. At the moment, Overwolf’s unique monthly user count is now above 100 million, more than doubling its audience year over year, according to data the company shared with Digiday.
The secret behind the expansion of Overwolf’s ad business is the company’s portfolio of original and owned intellectual property. Instead of relying on influencers and creators to supply content, as is often the case for other gaming community platforms such as Twitch or Roblox, Overwolf uses its game modification platform to overlay ads directly on top of gameplay, in addition to serving ads to players while they wait for games to load.
In June, for example, Hasbro partnered with CurseForge to integrate Power Rangers into the action-adventure game “Ark: Survival Ascended.” To access the content, players can download a mod pack for the game via CurseForge, which places Power Rangers characters and assets directly inside “Ark” when used.
“It’s a top-25-ish game on Steam, one of those games that was able to capture a cohort of fans that just keep on playing the game and are dying for new, high-quality content,” said Overwolf CEO Uri Marchand. “When we reached out to [Hasbro], we said that it might not be Fortnite in terms of scale, but there is a good chance that almost all the community playing this game are going to be exposed.”
Overwolf’s approach to in-game advertising could help resolve some of the lingering issues that have kept marketers from diving more confidently into the space.
Game developers are still trying to figure out how to get ad inventory inside their premium console titles, but Overwolf’s game modification focus allows brands and advertisers to integrate themselves into popular games without having to deal directly with the publishers. And Overwolf’s direct ownership of its advertising inventory helps avoid potential brand safety challenges for marketers who are concerned about the toxicity of the gaming community.
Overwolf’s portfolio of owned and operated properties is one factor that convinced former Twitch executive Chad De Luca to make the jump over to the company earlier this week.
“With Overwolf, it’s all about directly reaching gamers during playtime,” De Luca said. “All the inventory is housed within Overwolf’s app library and their Nitro network — it’s all owned and controlled.”
De Luca, who previously spent five years helping lead partnerships for Twitch Properties, Twitch’s own original property department, told Digiday that he views Overwolf’s offerings as complementary to Twitch advertising, with more of a focus on reaching gamers who are actively in-play.
“I view Overwolf as a complementary buy to sites like Twitch,” he said. “Eighty-five percent of our audience is unduplicated, so there’s a tremendously unique audience reachable during and beyond gameplay that is not on Twitch.”
As Overwolf looks to scale up, one potential challenge for the company is that it is not as well-known as some of the other platforms listed in Comscore’s top 10 gaming networks — names like Roblox, Activision Blizzard and Epic Games. Going into the new year, Overwolf will look to further build its reputation among brand marketers, bolstered by experienced hires such as De Luca.
“I think that Overwolf just added a killer sales guy who is going to help them get their brand out there a lot more,” said Max Bass, director of emerging connections at agency Gale. “Their existing sales team was already in my inbox; they hit up my H&R Block client, who was asking me about them, and they’re in talks with our media team. I think they’re doing a good job of getting out there and pitching their product.”
https://digiday.com/?p=562286
