Get in the Game: How to Level Up Your Business with Gaming, Esports, and Emerging Technologies - Hardcover

by Jonathan Stringfield (Author)

An essential guide for marketers and execs wishing to integrate their brands with modern games and esports

In Get in the Game: How to Level Up Your Business with Gaming, Esports, and Emerging Technologies, decorated gaming and social media research and marketing executive Jonathan Stringfield delivers a roadmap to understanding and navigating marketing and business integrations into the gaming ecosystem: who plays games (and why), how modern games are created and oriented around the world of esports, and where brands can get involved with modern games.

This book explains the breadth and depth of the gaming audience, describing the rapidly changing demographics of modern games and the various motivations gamers have for playing games. It also unpacks the history of gaming and how it has impacted the creative processes and output from the industry. Finally, it offers a practical guide for brands wishing to integrate themselves into new gaming environments, with an emphasis on maximizing success for marketers, developers, content creators, and fans.

Get in the Game provides:

• A thorough introduction to why marketers and executives must pay closer attention to gaming, as well as existing roadblocks to understanding the gaming industry
• Comprehensive explorations of the psychology and motivations of gaming, and implications towards messaging and brand safety.
• Practical discussions of gaming as a competitive platform or streaming viewing experience.
• In-depth examinations of gaming ad placements, deep marketing integrations between companies and games, and future directions for the industry and how it relates to the emergence of the metaverse.

Perfect for marketing strategists, brand managers, and Chief Marketing Officers, Get in the Game will also earn a place in the libraries of executives seeking to connect with the misunderstood yet largest segment in consumer entertainment.

Front Jacket

Gaming and esports are among the largest and fastest-growing consumer entertainment spaces. Games are where consumers are spending their time in amounts out-pacing other forms of media. But the business community pays remarkably little attention to what is now at the very center of popular culture. Marketers and business executives responsible for reaching these markets need a better understanding of what goes on inside the minds of game fans. Get in the Game: How to Level Up Your Business with Gaming, Esports, and Emerging Technologies takes readers inside the industry, inside consumer behaviors, and inside the expansive modern gaming ecosystems.

This book offers a fast-track understanding of who plays games and why, how modern games are created, and how brands can get involved in smart and sustainable ways. Technology marketing and research veteran Jonathan Stringfield clears away the misconceptions surrounding gaming, offering readers insider information on how to make connections with the millions of people who play or watch video games. Contrary to popular belief, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy to marketing in the gaming space. Readers can and should add nuance to their approach in the gaming space--and this book shows the way.

Get in the Game will appeal to all decision makers who hope to reach consumers in gaming and esports.

Understanding the unique ways consumers interact with games and virtual worlds is now an essential part of every decision maker's toolkit. This book fills the gap with empirically back information and insights that will give readers the edge when it comes to capturing attention in this space of lightning-fast growth and major opportunity.

Back Jacket

PRAISE FOR GET IN THE GAME

"In Get in the Game, Jonathan Stringfield presents his unique perspective of a grizzled industry exec who's been dealing with every possible question that companies unfamiliar with video games have thrown at him over the years. Relying on his wit and candor, Stringfield identifies several of the most important themes to describe the transition of games from a fringe activity to a mainstream form of entertainment."

--Joost Van Drunen, Author of One Up

"Dr. Stringfield places today's gaming ecosystem in a cultural and historical context, allowing us to better understand the current state while forcing us to consider how gaming will stay vital and vibrant as it continues to evolve. He manages to breathe excitement and vibrancy into exploring why gaming has evolved into its current state. In the process he's uncovered how it emerged from a cultural novelty into the most dynamic, diverse and creative entertainment medium worldwide."

--Ross Siegel, SVP, Medialink

"Gaming's ever increasing influence on culture, the continued rise of esports, plus the promise of the metaverse has many brand executives asking their teams: Should we be in gaming? Get in the Game provides the background reading into intent of developers and the fundamental reasons why fan's play and watch today. This foundational reading is critical for any brand looking to authentically connect to the culture and community of gaming vs. merely interrupting it."

--Dan Holland, EVP, Dentsu Gaming

"Gaming is a way to make the consumer the hero in your brand story, yet marketers remain wildly confused about how to leverage gaming as a marketing channel. Jonathan not only provides readers with a schematic for understanding gaming and esports and the marketing opportunities each presents, he also takes readers on a journey into the cultural, economic, and technological shifts that shaped gaming, its audience, and its stereotypes. A must-read if you want more than a surface-level understanding of the gaming ecosystem."

--Zoe Soon, VP Experience (Gaming, VR, Esports), IAB

Author Biography

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD, PHD, is a research and marketing executive specializing in technology and gaming, having spent nearly twenty years at companies such as Facebook (Meta), Twitter, and Activision Blizzard. He is a regularly published contributor and speaker in technology on topics ranging from ad-tech to marketing science and consumer psychology. Jonathan holds a PhD in Sociology where his work concentrated on how users of new technology think about topics such as personal identity and privacy and is a lifelong gaming fan.