Bidstack Group, the native in-game advertising platform, is pleased to announce a new collaboration with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, enabling video game developers to monetise their titles by creating advertising space within their currently live and soon-to-be-launched games, via a new Bidstack plugin.

The Unreal Engine is a complete suite of video game creation tools developed by Epic Games, the video game and software development company behind some of the biggest titles in video games including Fortnite, Rocket League and Gears of War.

Developers creating games using the Unreal Engine often use third-party plugins to add effects to their games. The soon-to-launch Bidstack plugin, will give such developers full control to identify and define areas within their games through which they could make native in-game advertising available. This could be any appropriate surface from virtual outdoor billboards and sporting pitch-side hoardings to decal stickers on the sides of vehicles or prints on a character’s clothing. Developers will also be able to retro-fit advertising opportunities into existing games, creating a new revenue stream for their back catalogue.

The Bidstack plugin will mean that in future when a game using the Unreal Engine, which has passed Bidstack’s stringent brand safety checks is published, all new advertising inventory contained within that title will automatically become available to advertisers to buy programmatically through Bidstack’s growing network of demand side platforms (“DSPs”), including Xandr Invest (previously known as AppNexus) with which Bidstack is already working.

James Draper, Bidstack’s CEO commented: “Our collaboration with Epic Games and their Unreal Engine team provides Bidstack with a frictionless opportunity to scale. Previously it was necessary for us to form relationships with games developers on a one-by-one basis. We will continue to do this, but growth from this strategy alone takes time.

“Our new arrangement with Epic’s Unreal Engine enables developers of all sizes, by adding Bidstack’s technology to their game, to open their ad inventory to global media buyers and potentially attract advertising revenue from the world’s leading brands.

“This collaboration with Epic also gives advertisers an expanded access point to the gaming community, making it even more attractive to advertisers seeking to reach gamers, at a time when revenues from video games are larger than music and video combined.”