


A large chunk of that will likely come from mobile gaming, but Microsoft is also quietly working on an ad tech stack for console and PC games. The company expects to make $1.4 billion from in-game advertising by 2030. The leaked documents mentioned above also laid out Microsoft’s plans for in-game advertising.Earlier this month, it announced a new suite of ad measurement tools to increase advertiser faith in the lucrative but sometimes notoriously low-quality ad format. US mobile game ad spending is expected to reach $6.67 billion this year, per our forecast, and Activision has been preparing for a more aggressive push into the market.It secures Microsoft’s future as a leader of the gaming industry and gives it a strong foothold in fast-growing markets. The long game: Microsoft’s acquisition is about more than just a short-term boost. King is the creator of popular mobile games like Candy Crush Saga and will generate $433.1 million in US ad revenues this year, per our forecast. The acquisition also puts mobile game company and Activision subsidiary King under Microsoft’s ownership.


Those additions could bolster what may be slow growth for the service: Xbox last announced Game Pass had hit 25 million subscribers in January 2022, but documents accidentally leaked by Microsoft revealed that Xbox chief Phil Spencer told FTC investigators that the service’s subscription count had barely moved by October 2022.Activision Blizzard titles will make their way to Microsoft’s gaming subscription platform Game Pass in the coming months, the company said, bolstering the service with some of the world’s most popular games like World of Warcraft and Call of Duty.
