Ahh, Creative Gaming – one of the most exciting and playful (pun intended) territories our industry has finally discovered in the last decade. There were gaming cases, of course, back when they started appearing in categories like Social, Influencer, Activation, or Direct. But it’s only in recent years that actual Gaming work has started to get recognized in the context of creative advertising at global industry award shows (the LIA being one of the latest to get a dedicated Gaming category, full report on that soon).
So it does make a lot of sense that Creative Gaming is also… one of the most misunderstood.
A Canvas With No Rulebook
I once heard a Cannes Lions Gaming juror describe it perfectly: “This is a territory so vast, so new, that almost whatever you do will likely be the first time it has ever been done.” In that sense, it feels like the easiest playground for creativity… right? Fewer rules, fewer precedents, and a limitless universe of possibilities. For an industry that prizes the unprecedented, Gaming looks like a dream canvas.
But judging it? That’s where things get complicated. A lot more complicated.
The Judging Problem No One Wants to Say Out Loud
Because let’s face it: many of the people judging gaming work are not actually gamers themselves.
There, we said it. And historically, whenever a new category enters award shows, there’s a period where the industry tries to figure out the language, the benchmarks, and the culture surrounding it (versus, for example, the Film category, where it has a rich 70-plus-year history). Gaming is particularly vulnerable to this.
Without a deep understanding of player behavior, communities, and the culture surrounding them, the category has easily become a magnet for misrepresentation — inflated metrics, imagined gamer habits, case studies that invent player reactions to support a supposedly “breakthrough” insight.
Spend even five minutes inside a gaming forum, Discord server, or subreddit, and you’ll quickly learn: gamers can smell inauthenticity from a mile away.
The risk isn’t just about awards integrity. It runs deeper — we’re talking about cultural credibility and the brands supposedly championing it. Because gamers, who now make up the majority of the global entertainment audience, are also among the most discerning communities out there. They are incredibly sensitive to authenticity. Spend even five minutes inside a gaming forum, Discord server, or subreddit, and you’ll quickly learn: gamers can smell inauthenticity from a mile away.
When brands get Gaming wrong, the backlash is immediate and catastrophic. Anyone remember that Coke esports ad from a few years back? No? Well, gamers do — for all the wrong reasons.
The Answer Has Been in the Room All Along
So what do we do? The answer is surprisingly simple and staring at us from our console screens: listen to actual players. Join the communities. Talk to the young gamers inside your own teams.
I remember another Cannes Gaming juror pointing out something that rang painfully true: “In many agencies, the people who actually play games are the junior creatives, the ones without the authority to approve the work. The gamers report to bosses who don’t game.”
Ouch.
Which leaves us with perhaps the most obvious solution of all, and maybe the simplest way to start: pick up the controller and play. It’s far easier — and above all, more fun — than inventing gamer behavior for a case study video. Which controller, you ask? Well, that’s a topic for another day.
Game On.
