If you have ever watched someone flick flip through a social feed while a TV spot hums plays in the background, you know this already. Time is quantity. Attention is the quality. And mobile games are where that quality shows up in measurable ways.

What teams should really plan against is attentive seconds. Two simple ideas help make it concrete: attentive seconds per thousand impressions (APM) and attentive cost per thousand (aCPM). APM says how much focused time your media actually earns. aCPM says what you paid for that attention. Minutes in-app can look comforting impressive on a dashboard, but they do not tell you who looked at the ad, for how long, or whether the moment was even on screen.

In 2024, researchers at dentsu and Lumen measured attention across gaming formats and found a consistent pattern. Gaming inventory was 99 percent viewable, with an average APM of 6,736 and an aCPM of about $3.38, which is more efficient than the typical media mix. Rewarded video pushed higher, at roughly 10,043 APM, while intrinsic in-game placements averaged around 3,442 APM compared with about 1,416 for display and social. That is not a rounding error. It is a different kind of moment built around choice and immersion. 

Why does this matter for the next wave of brand growth? Because the audiences who will decide your next five years, spend their best minutes here. Livewire’s 2024 Next Gen Attention Study surveyed 1,801 players across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia and found gaming was the number one entertainment choice for Gen Alpha, Gen Z, and Millennials. The same study reports that younger cohorts are around twenty percent more welcoming of brands in games than Millennials, especially when the creative shows up as immersive, playable moments that feel native to the world. 

Attention that sticks tends to perform. Also in 2024, Integral Ad Science analyzed billions of impressions and millions of conversion events and showed that optimizing toward attention signals leads to stronger outcomes than optimizing to viewability alone. The practical implication is straightforward. Treat attention as a performance lever, not just a branding concept. When you reward real viewing time and design for it, cost per result improves and waste falls away.

Marketer behavior is catching up to that reality. The IAB and Advertiser Perceptions reported in 2024 that many brands now treat games as a continuous part of the mix, often running always on, and they evaluate it with the same measurement frameworks they use in other channels. That takes away the fear that gaming is somehow niche or unmeasurable. It is measurable, it is suitable when you buy it right, and it works across brand and performance objectives.

There is also headroom. Dentsu’s State of Gaming 2024, produced with GWI highlights a global player base in the billions and still finds that gaming attracts less than five percent of ad spend. That mismatch is an opportunity. When an environment produces high APM at an efficient aCPM, and is still relatively underweighted in plans, the brands that move first usually capture outsized returns. You can call it an attention arbitrage if you like. The window does not stay open forever. 

So how do you plan like attention matters more than time? Start by picking formats that encourage opt in and flow with play rather than interrupt it. Rewarded video has an obvious edge because the player chooses to watch and remains present for the duration. Intrinsic in game placements work when they read as part of the world and respect the session. Creative and frequency deserve a rethink as well.

When people talk about TV level impact, this is where gaming earns a seat at the table. The viewer is not half listening from the kitchen. They are holding the phone, eyes on the screen, and actively deciding to continue. That combination of voluntary exposure and short distance between ad and action is why attention in games can rival what brands expect from premium video, without needing to mimic a TV spot.

If you are used to chasing completion rates or time in-app charts, this mindset feels different at first. But it is closer to how people actually behave. A player sits down for a first session. They are fresh, invested, and moving with purpose. They hit a level up, an energy gate, or a reward moment. That is the window when attention peaks, and it is when well-designed creative earns not just a glance, but seconds that count. 

One final practical note. Attention metrics do not replace context, suitability, or verification. They complement them. You still want to buy against premium, verified supply and measure what appears on the screen. You still want to track outcomes the business cares about. The advantage is that attention helps you decide where to lean in next, and where to ease off, with far less guesswork.

How Admazing can help

At Admazing, we treat attention as currency. Instead of chasing vanity metrics like completed impressions or viewing rates, we focus on the high-value moments when players are most engaged. Our expertise lies in crafting native, rewarded, and playable ad experiences that audiences choose to interact with—making every second count. With Admazing Games IQ™, we combine real-time data, verification from trusted partners like IAS and DoubleVerify, and first-party insights to identify when and where attention peaks, especially in that critical first session. And with our proprietary FITO (First Impressions Takeover) solution, we help brands maximize that initial attention span even further. For marketers ready to move beyond surface-level charts and start planning media that actually earns attention, Admazing delivers the strategy, formats, and outcomes that prove gaming is where performance and brand impact converge.