Gaming audiences are the most hostile to advertising and also the most loyal when a brand gets it right. That combination makes UGC work very well in gaming and makes almost every brand do it badly.

Why they reject advertising

Because they detect it. This audience spends hours a day on platforms saturated with sponsored content and has developed an extremely sharp radar.

A video that opens with the brand logo, an enthusiastic line or a broadcaster tone is dead within one second. Worse: it generates negative comments the brand sees in public.

What they accept instead

  • The honest opinion, flaws included. "The microphone is excellent, the software is a disaster." That kind of sentence buys credibility for everything else.
  • A demonstration in real use. An actual match, not a staged one.
  • The comparison with what they had before. Concrete, with numbers where possible.
  • The full setup. What it cost, what was bought first, what they would do differently. The best converting format in peripherals and hardware.
  • Self aware humour. Acknowledging that it is paid content, with humour, works far better than hiding it.

Disclosure, mandatory and beneficial

In Spain commercial communication must be identified as such, and in gaming that obligation is an advantage.

A creator who says up front that it is a paid collaboration and then gives an honest opinion generates more trust than one who hides it. The audience would detect it anyway, and finding out on their own is what destroys the campaign.

Specify the wording in the brief. Do not leave it to improvisation.

Which creators to hire

The one who genuinely plays your product's genre. A shooter player talking about a management simulator convinces nobody.

And look for mid sized creators before big streamers. In gaming, the smaller creator has a far stronger trust relationship with their audience, and costs a fraction.

The brief that produces good material

Include: what can be criticised and what cannot, the gameplay context, three hooks, the disclosure wording and what must be visible.

Explicitly authorising criticism of one aspect of the product multiplies the credibility of everything else.

The Spanish calendar

The peaks are Black Friday, Christmas and Kings, major launches and sector fairs. Summer drives volume because of school holidays.

Where to go next

In gaming, honesty is the commercial strategy. Our complete UGC guide for brands explains the rest of the process.

Sources

Checked on 27 August 2026. Thresholds and rates change: where this guide and the official source disagree, the official source is right.