How do brands plan video game advertising on game coverage?

Which video game content suits brands outside gaming?

Game coverage on the open web falls into a few formats, and each gives a brand outside gaming a different reason to be there. A snack, telecom, furniture or banking brand is not selling games, so the question is which reader moment matches the product. A reader comparing graphics cards is shopping. A reader stuck on a puzzle is focused on one task. A reader following a tournament bracket is a fan.

Choose formats first; one site can carry all five. Google's placement documentation (opens in a new tab) says a placement "can be a website or a specific page on a site", so a plan can name a guide section instead of a whole domain where the platform allows it. Building the topic list itself is covered on the contextual topic list page.

How do ESRB ratings inform placement choices?

The Entertainment Software Rating Board gives a rated game a rating category, content descriptors and interactive elements. The ESRB ratings guide (opens in a new tab) defines the categories from E (Everyone), "generally suitable for all ages", to AO (Adults Only 18+), which "May include prolonged scenes of intense violence, graphic sexual content and/or gambling with real currency."

How do you separate game coverage from gambling content?

Start with the ESRB descriptors. Real Gambling means "Player can gamble, including betting or wagering real cash or currency." Simulated Gambling means "Player can gamble without betting or wagering real cash or currency." In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items) marks offers where "the player doesn't know prior to purchase the specific digital goods or premiums they will be receiving (e.g., loot boxes, item packs, mystery awards)."

Loot boxes are not gambling under the ESRB descriptors, but they carry their own scrutiny. The FTC's loot box workshop staff perspective (opens in a new tab) (August 2020) says they drew attention "due to concerns that they promote compulsive or gambling-like behavior or use predatory tactics to encourage addictive consumer spending, particularly in children." Family brands can treat odds guides as a separate decision.

Then check where gambling lives in the platform's taxonomy. In IAB Tech Lab Content Taxonomy 3.1 (opens in a new tab), gambling appears in several branches, so a line built only from video gaming misses the rest. Fantasy sports and lottery pages are covered on the gambling content page.

What suitability issues come with mature rated games?

Mature rated games raise three separate questions. The first is violence: ESRB's M description names "intense violence, blood and gore", and screenshots and trailers embedded in reviews carry that imagery onto the page. The second is sexual content and strong language. The third is other people: the Users Interact element "Indicates possible exposure to unfiltered/uncensored user-generated content", and comment threads under articles behave the same way, as the user generated content page explains.

Platform controls cover only part of this. Display & Video 360 lists Games (fighting) and Games (mature) among its excluded content themes (opens in a new tab), which "apply to YouTube, Demand Gen, and Google Video Partner inventory" (checked October 2026). They are not an open web site filter, so a website plan still needs its own page review. YouTube channel planning is on the gaming YouTube channels page.

How should game coverage read by teens be handled?

Coverage of E10+ and T rated titles is written about games rated for young players. In the United States, COPPA, as the FTC describes it (opens in a new tab), applies to operators of websites or online services directed to children under 13, and to operators of other sites or services with actual knowledge that they collect personal information from a child under 13. In Canada, the Privacy Commissioner launched its Children's Privacy Code (opens in a new tab) on October 20, 2026, covering children under 18.

The Code states: "Organizations should avoid profiling children for marketing purposes." It also says organizations should not "infer characteristics from children's digital activities that can be used to target them commercially." Choosing pages by subject, with no data about the reader, fits that direction. Age restricted products such as alcohol stay off coverage of games rated for younger players. More detail is on the COPPA and programmatic page.

How do esports sites differ from game news sites?

Esports coverage is closer to sports journalism than to game journalism. Its pages follow teams, rosters, schedules and results, tied to the calendar of tournaments and seasons. Game news follows release dates, patches and studio announcements. The IAB taxonomy reflects the split: eSports (682) is its own category under Video Gaming, apart from the genres that reviews map to.

Plan esports as its own line with its own flight dates, since one gaming line blends two calendars and two suitability profiles. Event timing follows the moment marketing method.

What does a game coverage plan look like on a real brief?

How does PlacementGraph read game coverage for a brief?