A new Havas study finds half of Australians identify as gamers and gaming is now a mainstream social space. The mistake brands keep making is treating gaming as an ad slot to buy rather than a culture to contribute to.
The Take: A new Havas study says half of Australians identify as gamers, and gaming is now where people build friendships, not just pass time. The mistake brands keep making is treating gaming as another ad slot to buy rather than a culture to contribute to. The players can tell the difference.
The read: Havas surveyed 11,000 adults across 25 markets, including 513 in Australia, in the first quarter of 2026, Mumbrella reported. Half of Australians identify as gamers. Six in 10 said gaming made them more socially connected, and the same share said friendships formed in games matter as much as offline ones. This is not a teenage boys' pastime, it is a mainstream social space that cuts across age and gender.
Australians who now identify as gamers on Havas's 2026 read
The catch: Nearly 9 in 10 Australians in the study could name a way brands add value inside gaming, Campaign Brief noted. Read that again. The audience is not asking brands to stay out. It is asking them to turn up with something useful rather than another interruption bolted onto a screen people came to for fun.
The gap: Gaming now competes for Australian attention with television and social, yet most local media plans still file it under experiment. The brands that win here are the ones that treat a game like a place rather than a billboard and show up with utility or entertainment the community already wanted. The distance between where the attention sits and where the budget sits is the whole opportunity, and it will not stay open forever.
For Australian operators: Treat gaming as a culture you join, not a screen you rent. Contribute something players value, whether that is utility, a real in-game experience or support for a community, instead of pre-roll they skip. Test with a hypothesis and a real budget, not as a novelty line at the bottom of the plan. Measure attention and participation, not just impressions served, because presence in a space people love is worth more than another view they ignore. Show up where the audience already is and the attention costs less than the channels your rivals are all bidding on.