Gen Z games for nine hours a week, challenging brands' attention assumptions
Gameloft and GWI research explores Gen Z gaming habits, ad disruption and why brands need to earn attention through participation.
Playing for hours is not unusual when a game gives people a challenge to solve, friends to meet or a reward to chase. That makes gaming an interesting test of the familiar claim that Gen Z simply cannot concentrate. Attention can last, but the experience has to be worth staying for.
A Gameloft for Brands and GWI report, highlighted in a sponsored Marketing-Interactive article, puts Gen Z's average weekly gaming time at nine hours and 11 minutes, compared with eight hours and 31 minutes on social media. The figures point to a difference in how young people choose to spend time, not a guarantee that every ad shown during a game will be remembered.
Table of contents
Jump to each section:
- Why Gen Z gaming time challenges the attention narrative
- How Samsung made participation part of the game
- When in-game ads break the experience
- What gaming attention means for marketers
Why Gen Z gaming time challenges the attention narrative
Gaming asks players to do something. They make decisions, respond to obstacles and, in multiplayer settings, spend time with friends. A session can be entertainment and a social gathering at once, which helps explain why an audience may commit more attention to playing than to scrolling.
According to the Gameloft for Brands and GWI research cited by Marketing-Interactive, 91% of Gen Z plays games and about three quarters use smartphones. Among Gen Z players surveyed through Gameloft's COMBO! mobile gaming environment, 76% said they were fully or mostly focused in their latest session. That measure reflects what respondents said about their own attention, rather than an independent test of ad effectiveness.
The same reporting says Gen Z gamers were 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. For many players, the game is not just content on a screen. It is a shared activity with its own rules, rewards and relationships.
How Samsung made participation part of the game
A Samsung event inside Gameloft's Asphalt Legends offers a concrete example of what it looks like when a brand gives players something to do. The sponsored, time-limited event let players compete for device-related rewards rather than merely watch an interruption between races.
Marketing-Interactive reports that the event generated 251,000 races and participation from 21% of players. Those are activity figures supplied in the campaign coverage. They show that players took part, but they do not establish incremental sales, brand lift or long-term loyalty.
The distinction matters. A sponsored challenge can fit the rhythm of a racing game because competition and rewards already belong there. An identical mechanic might feel misplaced in a slower, story-led game. The lesson is not to put rewards everywhere, but to understand why people entered a particular game in the first place.
When in-game ads break the experience
The study also offers a warning against treating gameplay as an unlimited advertising opportunity. Among Gen Z mobile gamers surveyed, 31% said in-game ads can completely break immersion. At the same time, 48% said brand or product placements can fit naturally into gaming, while 42% said rewards improve the experience, according to Gameloft's first-party summary.
These findings can coexist. A player might welcome an optional challenge that offers an in-game benefit and resent an ad that appears during a crucial moment. Format, timing and relevance shape whether a brand feels like part of play or an obstacle to it.
Gameloft also reports that 29% of surveyed Gen Z COMBO! mobile gamers remembered the brand from the most recent in-game ad they saw, while 21% felt more positive about that brand afterward. These are self-reported responses, not proof that all gaming placements outperform other channels. And the underlying research comes from a business that sells gaming advertising, an important context for interpreting its recommendations.
What gaming attention means for marketers
Gaming gives brands access to attention that is often active, social and emotionally invested. It does not follow that gamers are waiting for more ads. They are there to play, compete, relax or spend time with people, and those motivations should shape what a brand contributes.
For marketers, the useful question is less about how many hours Gen Z spends in games and more about what earns a place within those hours. Samsung's racing challenge suggests one answer: a branded experience that extends something players already enjoy. The reported survey results suggest the opposite risk too: advertising that breaks the experience may lose the very attention it was meant to capture.
The broader shift is from buying an interruption to designing a reason to participate. That is a higher creative bar than simply placing an ad inside a popular game, but it is also more respectful of the culture brands hope to join.
