How culture became currency in gaming campaigns

• Players engage more when games reflect culture, traditions, and shared experiences.
• Local relevance and authentic storytelling outperform purely performance-focused marketing.
• Community-driven content builds trust, loyalty, and better UA performance.

Ada Mockute Jaime is chief marketing officer at Nordcurrent.

If you know anything about the mobile games industry, you know it’s cutthroat out there. The competition for fleeting attention is relentless.

Algorithms and trends seem to be in a race to see which can change faster.

The only unshakable, unchanging truth is that players don’t just want to be entertained. They want to belong. Belonging is a delicate but potent force and gaming companies can capture it by prioritising culture in their campaigns.  

Besides promoting games, culture-led campaigns tap into the emotions and shared experiences. When a game mirrors real life through familiar traditions, humour or cultural symbols, players don’t just play, they participate! They create, share and bring others in.

Gaming companies fixated on global success are missing a dynamite opportunity in their own backyards. A game like Cooking Fever, for instance, can turn an iconic local dish like šaltibarščiai into a playable feature and make it a global moment. I know this because we did it, and our players, well beyond Lithuania, served 12 million “bowls” of the beloved summer dish in under a month, while social mentions rose 198% and organic videos reached 2.7 million views.

This campaign turned a dish largely unknown outside of Lithuania into an in-game cultural exchange. These exchanges bring meaning to play and meaning drives engagement far better than mechanics alone.

Growing relevance of culture-led campaigns

The mobile gaming industry is saturated with new titles, features and updates every year. For marketing teams, this means player engagement goes beyond gameplay loops or retention funnels. Emotional relevance takes precedence as players increasingly gravitate towards experiences that reflect their world and values.

By being relational rather than transactional, culture-led marketing campaigns capture this experiential bent. It’s not a “go and learn” approach rather a “come and play” one. Players discover traditions, stories or even cuisines not through tutorials and rote explanation but through gameplay and interaction. That sense of discovery makes the connection authentic and emotional.

It also transforms how players perceive the brand. When players feel represented and curious, they become engaged advocates, building stronger loyalty and word-of-mouth advocacy.

Community building through trust

Community is the strongest driver of trust and long-term engagement. Players may come for the gameplay but they stay for the friends they make and, by extension, the sense of belonging and shared enthusiasm.

From a marketing perspective, that trust is measurable. Community-driven content (such as recommendations, creator collaborations or user-generated videos) often outperforms traditional advertising by wide margins. Players perceive them as authentic. When community content is repurposed into UA campaigns, it can convert 20-40% better than studio-produced creatives.

Beyond metrics, community shapes strategy. Marketing teams should closely observe conversations across social platforms, Discord servers, creator channels, and through social listening tools that pick up on discussions and content often hidden in the unseen.

These insights should be used to shape how a game’s unique selling points are communicated and to guide its creative evolution. Community value doesn’t stop at retention, it should be treated as an always-on feedback system that fuels authenticity, creative direction and commercial performance.

Balancing culture and performance

Many studios still rely chiefly on performance marketing to drive growth. But while a performance ad ends when the budget stops, cultural-centric marketing campaigns often continue generating engagement and goodwill long after.

Culture-led initiatives add emotional context to our communication, helping players see themselves within the stories we tell. They don’t just reach audiences, they resonate with them. Well considered collaborations with global partners like sports teams, beverage brands, food chains, TV shows often bring their own worlds, communities and rituals into our games.

From a business standpoint, this approach makes user acquisition smarter. Culture-led stories improve awareness and make paid campaigns perform better because players already feel emotionally connected. It’s not a creative luxury; it’s an efficiency engine and in a world of rising ad costs, authenticity is the most scalable currency.

Building communities that last

Community is a living ecosystem that learns, grows and creates alongside game developers and marketing teams. Capturing its value requires a multi-faceted approach.

User-generated content (UGC) from players sharing stories, achievements and creative spins can fuel credibility and discovery more effectively than most advertisements. Leveraging local voices and collaborating with creators who understand their audiences’ humour and tone keeps our communication authentic and regionally relevant. In terms of capturing tone, text translation is not enough. If audiences are going to feel seen, the language needs to feel natural. 

In-game cultural events like themed global festivals let players explore real-world culture through playful, interactive design. Live activations through challenges, livestreams and player spotlights help sustain excitement between updates.

Together, these touchpoints build genuine, lasting relationships, where players feel seen, heard, and part of the process.

Culture as an ongoing conversation

Over the next few years, culture-led marketing will continue to grow into social spaces where people connect and express themselves. Expect more in-game collaborations tied to real-world events across music, fashion, sports or local holidays. Players love it when their favourite games reflect what they already care about. Creators will play an even bigger role in making those moments feel genuine and immediate. 

To be part of this sea change, marketers must listen to and observe their communities, always remembering that culture-led marketing is about building long-term relationships rather than chasing quick wins. It’s not about following trends, although it’s important to take unexpected opportunities as they emerge. Culture is an invaluable resource but it’s also about celebration and joy.

If you keep this at the center of your marketing, it won’t feel like marketing at all. It will create belonging among players who are eager to belong. Crossing the border between relevance and what truly matters happens through finding this sense of belonging.