Which gaming conventions transfer to commerce, and which do not

This piece is now part of a longer guide: What commerce brands should take from mobile gaming UA.

Gaming is a harsh creative environment and the habits it produces are mostly good ones. Mostly.

Transfers cleanly

Throughput. Treating creative as a supply problem rather than a craft problem. Consumer brands are dramatically under-producing relative to what a performance channel can consume.

Concept systems over finished films. Defining what can vary before producing anything.

Reading below the asset. Hook, format, device, message as separate variables rather than one score per ad.

Transfers with care

Exaggeration. Works in gaming, works in some consumer categories, actively damages trust in health, finance and anything where the buyer is already sceptical.

The fail-state device. Depends entirely on whether your product has an obvious wrong way to use it.

Does not transfer

Mechanic-led openings. In gaming the mechanic is the product. In commerce it almost never is, and leading with how the thing works instead of why it matters is the most common mistake gaming people make on their first consumer account.

The honest note

We made that last mistake ourselves, more than once, before we wrote it down.