Esports and Visual Attention: Evaluating In-Game Advertising through Eye-Tracking during the Game Viewing Experience

Abstract

In recent years, technological advances and the introduction of social streaming platforms (e.g., Twitch) have contributed to an increase in the popularity of esports, a highly profitable industry with millions of active users. In this context, there is little evidence, if any, on how users perceive in-game advertising (IGA) and other key elements of the game viewing experience (e.g., facecam and chat) in terms of visual attention. The present eye-tracking study aimed at investigating those aspects, and introducing an eye-tracking research protocol specifically designed to accurately measure the visual attention associated with key elements of the game viewing experience. Results showed that (1) the ads available in the game view (IGAs) are capable altogether to attract 3.49% of the users’ visual attention; (2) the chat section draws 10.68% of the users’ visual attention and more than the streamer’s face, known as a powerful attentional driver; (3) the animated ad format elicits higher visual attention (1.46%) than the static format (1.12%); and (4) in some circumstances, the visual attention elicited by the ads is higher in the “Goal” scenes (0.69%) in comparison to “No-Goal” scenes (0.51%). Relevant managerial implications and future directions for the esports industry are reported and discussed.

Cultural symbol value in animated advertisement model: systematic review

“…When combined, the in-game advertisements (IGAs) can draw in 3.49% of the users' visual attention. In certain situations, the "Goal" scenes generate more visual attention from the advertisements than the "No-Goal" scenes [50].…”

The application of neuromarketing tools in communication research: A comprehensive review of trends

“…There was unprecedented growth in neuromarketing research evaluating persuasion in animated ads in online contexts and social networks (such as Facebook). In this regard, Mancini et al (2022) and Greussing et al (2020) evaluated attention in in‐game sports and animated–interactive online ads, respectively. Along the same line, Bigné et al (2023) combined eye‐tracking and face‐reader to evaluate how visual attention moderates negative emotions on brand trust and intention to share cause‐related posts.…”

What Is behind In-Stream Advertising on YouTube? A Remote Neuromarketing Study employing Eye-Tracking and Facial Coding techniques

“…Two eye-tracking metrics, referred to as total visual attention (%) and viewable to seen (s), were employed to assess viewers' gaze behavior. The total visual attention, also called "total viewing time" [141] or "total visit duration" [142], reports the total amount of time the participant spent looking at an AOI, and like other similar eye-tracking metrics, once divided by the time frame of interest (total ad duration in our context) and expressed in percentage, provides the advantage of maintaining a strong connection with the study context [18,51]. To address RQ1, the total visual attention associated with the "key ad elements" was computed for each participant as the sum of the total visual attention scores obtained for each "key ad element" of interest.…”

“…Similarly to Twitch and Facebook [18], YouTube services are provided at no cost to end users thanks to the company's business model based on advertised-financed streaming services (AVoD), which strongly relies on ads available in multiple formats, such as skippable in-stream ads (also known as TrueView in-stream ads), non-skippable in-stream ads, in-feed video ads, bumper ads, outstream ads, and masthead ads [19,20]. In this context, skippable and non-skippable in-stream ads are the most popular formats, both playing in the video player, typically before the video starts (pre-roll ad) or by interrupting the video viewing experience (mid-roll ad) [21,22] and include several non-advertising elements, which are overlaid on the advertising content mainly to provide the viewer information about the ad duration and/or an option to skip the ad.…”