If Gen Z can game for nine hours, then attention isn’t the problem

This article was written in collaboration with Gameloft for Brands.

Marketers have spent years trying to solve Gen Z’s supposed attention problem. Yet, Gen Z spends an average of nine hours and 11 minutes gaming each week, more than it spends on social media (eight hours and 31 minutes).

Gen Z also spends more time gaming than watching online videos (six hours and 21 minutes) or streaming services (five hours and 10 minutes). The issue, then, may not be a lack of attention, but where Gen Z chooses to give it.

According to Gameloft for Brands and GWI’s new report – “Gen Z & Gaming: Understanding Gen Z’s attention, emotions and gaming behaviours” – 91% of Gen Z plays games and around 75% say they do so on smartphones.

Among Gen Z COMBO! mobile gamers, 76% said they were fully or mostly focused during their most recent gaming session. For Florent Vallauri, managing director of APAC at Gameloft for Brands, this means brands need to rethink what it means to capture their attention.

“Gen Z’s attention is there, but brands have to earn it. The key is relevance and respecting the experience they have chosen to be in,”

Vallauri said.

This means brands must go the extra mile to understand context and fit naturally into the experience. When advertising adds to the moment rather than compete with it, attention becomes much more meaningful.

Attention looks different when you’re playing.

Unlike scrolling and multi-tasking on platforms such as TikTok or Instagram, gaming requires continuous active and engaged participation. Players make decisions, react, solve problems, and interact with the experience, creating a different kind of attention: one built around active participation rather than passive consumption.

“Scrolling and gaming may happen on the same screen, but they evoke very different behaviours,” Vallauri said.

“Gaming should not be seen as duplicating a social mobile strategy; it should require understanding gamers’ codes to show up in the right way. It gives brands access to a different kind of unfragmented attention moment: one built around active participation and focus.”

Overall, gaming plays multiple roles in Gen Z’s lives, serving as both a social connector and a source of personal challenge. Gen Zs are 39% more likely than the average gamer to have played online with friends they know and 25% more likely to game as a way to socialise with friends. Additionally, they are 11% more likely to game for the challenge, underscoring both the social and competitive appeal of gaming for this generation.

“Taken together, we get an insight into how important gaming is as a space for them to hang out, and also for perhaps providing an alternative to doom scrolling,” said Jason Mander, chief insight officer at GWI.

For marketers, it raises a broader question: how can advertising add value to these moments rather than interrupt them?

When gaming ads disrupt the experience

But attention can disappear just as quickly when advertising disrupts the experience. Thirty-one per cent of Gen Z mobile gamers say in-game ads can completely break immersion. At the same time, 48% say product or brand placements can fit naturally into the gaming experience. This opens the door for exciting opportunities for brands to play a meaningful role in premium gaming environments through immersive and measurable activations.

“If you ask for a player’s attention, give them something meaningful and an authentic branded gaming experience in return,” Vallauri said.

In Asphalt Legends, for example, Samsung created a sponsored, time-limited event, that let players earn device rewards. The event generated 251,000 races, with 21% of players participating, showing how brands can give players a reason to engage rather than simply interrupt the experience.

But another consideration is that not every Gen Z gamer is looking for the same experience. Across APAC, Gen Z mobile gamers play a range of genres – from shooters and action-adventure to battle royale and strategy games. Their motivations can differ just as much, with some seeking competition and achievement, while others look for creativity, discovery or rewards.

“There is no single ‘Gen Z gamer’,” says Vallauri, adding:

"The brand should adapt and blend into the player experience, not ask the player to adapt to the brand. This will be one key to drive marketing effectiveness."

The findings add to Gameloft for Brands’ wider research into the role of attention and emotion in gaming, explored in its “Attention & Emotion in Play” white paper.

Read the full “Gen Z & Gaming: Understanding Gen Z’s attention, emotions and gaming behaviours” report here.