The Future of In-Game Advertising ft. Max Albert

Written By Ryan Morrison
 
 

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About Max Albert

Max Albert is the CEO and co-founder of Adrenaline Interactive, an Ann Arbor-based startup revolutionizing in-game advertising. Here are his key accomplishments:

  • National eSports Champion: Captained University of Michigan's Hearthstone team to a national championship on athletic scholarship

  • Top 10 Mobile Game Creator: Built "Deep Pass Jam," an NFL sports game that reached the top 10 sports games in the U.S. with tens of thousands of daily players

  • Bootstrapped Success: Created Deep Pass Jam for under $15,000 using grant funding and NFL player partnerships

  • Venture-Backed Founder: Currently raising a seed round for Adrenaline Interactive after securing early funding

  • Industry Thought Leader: Spoke at SXSW, ADWEEK's Brandweek, and hosts the "Game Jam" podcast featuring gaming industry leaders

 

From Weekend Side Project to Top 10 Mobile Game

Max Albert's entrepreneurial journey started while working as a software engineer at Ford Motor Company. While automotive wasn't his passion, gaming was—so he spent his weekends building mobile games.

In March 2022, everything changed. His NFL-based game called "Deep Pass Jam" hit the top charts, becoming a top 10 sports game in the United States. The moment his game started charting was transformative: "It was like a drug," Max recalls. "You have tens of thousands of players playing it, commenting on it, loving it. I knew right then and there that's what I want to be doing with the rest of my life."

Despite his mother's horror ("She still doesn't really know what I do for work"), Max quit his nine-to-five job at Ford to pursue game development full-time.

The Problem with Interstitial Ads

Even with Deep Pass Jam's popularity and tens of thousands of daily players, monetization proved challenging. Most mobile games rely on ad revenue, specifically what's known as "interstitial ads" or "interruptive ads."

Here's how they work: you're playing a game, and suddenly the game pauses for 30 seconds to show you a video advertisement—often for something completely irrelevant like foot cream. It's a terrible experience for gamers.

"The magical thing that happened when my game was charting was I started to get brand deals out of the woodwork," Max explains. The first was from LHM Financial, a mortgage company that wanted to create a custom level inside the game to teach gamers about their mortgage products.

This approach was a "win-win-win": valuable for the advertiser, lucrative for Max, and a great experience for gamers. That insight became the foundation for what would eventually become Adrenaline Interactive.

 

How Brand Integration Changes the Gaming Experience

The difference between interstitial ads and brand integration is night and day. Brand integration behaves more like movie product placement—seamless and contextual rather than disruptive.

"Imagine playing Fortnite and in the actual level, there's soccer balls that say FIFA on them," Max explains. "It's just a more delightful experience for gamers."

Initially, Max built these brand integrations manually as a service. For example, he created a custom level inside his game for Reebok, which required hiring extra engineers and artists to bring the campaign to life. Eventually, he realized many of these processes could be automated—and that realization led directly to founding Adrenaline Interactive.

The company now places products in video games like Roblox, Fortnite, and Discord, helping brands engage gamers through immersive, playable ads that don't interrupt the gaming experience.

 

Why Major Brands Are Moving Into Gaming

For brands, the decision to advertise in gaming comes down to one critical factor: that's where Gen Z is spending their time.

"When you look at graphs of how Gen Z consumes media, it's very heavy on gaming," Max notes. "They actually play more video games in their free time than social media. And this is terrifying if you're an advertiser because advertisers have really great tools to get their products into television and social media. And the tools that they have for gaming are very immature products."

The numbers back this up: gaming is now a larger media format than movies and music combined. This represents a massive shift—what Max calls a "tidal wave" that will move hundreds of billions of dollars in advertising spend over the next 10 years.

Brands are realizing that if they want to remain relevant Fortune 1000 companies, they need to make gaming a core distribution channel. The top priorities for brands considering gaming advertising are:

  1. Game popularity: Is the game popular with their target demographic?

  2. Audience alignment: Does it reach younger audiences like Gen Z?

  3. Brand safety: Does the game avoid themes of violence, alcoholism, or gambling?

This is why brands gravitate toward sports games and platforms like Fortnite and Roblox—they're massive, they reach the right demographics, and they're brand-safe environments.

 

The Sydney Sweeney Dr. Squatch Campaign That Went Viral

One of Adrenaline Interactive's most successful campaigns demonstrates the power of creative brand integration. The company has run three campaigns in Fortnite so far—for Dr. Squatch Soap, Ball Boys Soap, and FIFA.

"The running joke right now is that we're in the social impact space trying to help gamers discover soap for the first time," Max jokes, referencing the stereotype of gamers and personal hygiene.

The Dr. Squatch campaign featured actress Sydney Sweeney and went "super nova viral." The concept was brilliantly executed: Sydney took a bubble bath in a TV commercial, and Dr. Squatch saved the bath water, smelted it down into 2,000 bars of soap, and sold them in Fortnite and other e-commerce storefronts.

The challenge was bridging the gap between Sydney Sweeney's adult-oriented brand and Fortnite's younger audience. But it worked—the campaign reached over half a million unique Fortnite players.

Other notable campaigns include working with FIFA and Ball Boys Soap, each demonstrating how brands can authentically integrate into gaming environments without disrupting the player experience.

 

Navigating Brand Safety in Gaming

Brand safety is a top concern for advertisers entering the gaming space. Brands don't want to appear in games that are too violent or feature themes of alcoholism or gambling.

Max emphasizes that Adrenaline Interactive has a review process to assess game content before recommending placements. "If a brand is concerned about brand safety and they want to integrate into a game that has themes of alcoholism, we're going to talk them out of it," he explains. "We're going to tell them you don't want to do that campaign because it's going to be super detrimental to your brand image."

This consultative approach helps brands navigate the gaming landscape safely while still reaching their target audiences. Sports games particularly appeal to brands because they're inherently brand-safe environments with massive reach.

 

Building Adrenaline Interactive: From Manual to Automated

The evolution of Adrenaline Interactive is a classic story of "do things that don't scale" before building scalable solutions.

Initially, Max operated as a service business, manually building brand integrations into games. Each campaign required hiring extra engineers and artists to create custom levels or branded elements. While lucrative, this approach wasn't scalable.

The breakthrough came when Max realized that many of these processes could be automated. That insight transformed the business model from a boutique service into a scalable platform that can programmatically place products across multiple games and platforms.

Today, Adrenaline Interactive works across major gaming platforms including Roblox, Fortnite, Discord, Meta Quest VR, and both Apple and Android mobile games. The company is currently raising a seed round to accelerate growth and build new features.

 

The Business Model: How Adrenaline Makes Money

Adrenaline Interactive operates on a straightforward revenue-sharing model. The company takes a percentage of what brands pay for campaigns, with the majority going to game developers and studios.

While Max didn't disclose the exact split in the interview, this model aligns incentives across the ecosystem:

  • Brands get access to engaged gaming audiences without disrupting the player experience

  • Game developers earn revenue from brand integrations rather than annoying interstitial ads

  • Adrenaline facilitates and automates the entire process

  • Gamers get a better experience than traditional advertising

The company works with major brands including FIFA, Dr. Squatch, Ball Boys Soap, and is expanding to include brands like Kroger, Sargento Cheese, and Chipotle.

 

Advice for Brands Considering Gaming Advertising

For CEOs and CMOs considering gaming advertising, Max offers practical advice: start by matching your brand to the right gaming demographic.

"The golden rule is align your product to a game that has a similar demographic," he advises. For example, if you're selling shampoo targeted at women in their 30s, you probably shouldn't advertise in Call of Duty, which skews toward 15-year-old males.

Once you've identified the right demographic match, treat gaming advertising like any other media channel. Use the same metrics and frameworks you apply to television or social media advertising:

  • If you're going for brand lift (improving brand perception), measure it the same way you would in other channels

  • Make it apples-to-apples comparison

  • If gaming delivers better results, lean in

  • If it's not working, lean out and take a break

"You should feel very comfortable experimenting with this channel," Max emphasizes. "If it feels experimental to you, maybe test with an intern and give them like 10K to run these campaigns and just see how it goes."

The key is not to overthink it—apply the same analytical rigor you use for other advertising channels and let the data guide your decisions.

 

The Future of Gaming: AR, Platforms, and Real-Time Bidding

Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, Max sees several major trends shaping the gaming industry.

The Rise of AR Gaming

"Gaming is going very AR in the next 10 years," Max predicts. "I think that's the most exciting transition that I see." While VR has had its moments, augmented reality promises to be the next major platform shift in gaming.

Platform Fragmentation

The gaming industry is experiencing what Max calls "the platformification of everything." Multiple major platforms are competing for user-generated content (UGC) and player attention:

  • Roblox: A collection of user-generated games

  • Fortnite: Evolved into a platform with multiple games

  • Netflix Games: A curated collection of games

  • Apple Arcade: Subscription-based game collection

  • Genshin Impact: The largest anime game globally (bigger than Fortnite), recently launched UGC tools

  • Grand Theft Auto 6: Expected to be another massive platform

Max predicts that some major platforms will die out by the end of the decade, even ones that seem unimaginable today. "What happens if Steam just dies?" he poses. The consolidation and competition will reshape the gaming landscape.

Real-Time Bidding for In-Game Ads

One of Adrenaline Interactive's key development priorities for 2026 is building real-time bidding capability. Here's how it would work: if FIFA places a product in Fortnite, but Nike wants that spot more and is willing to bid higher, algorithms handle the transaction instantaneously.

"It becomes this really fast, really efficient way to target ads and get ads in the right places," Max explains. This feature would bring gaming advertising closer to the programmatic efficiency of traditional digital advertising.

Recent Industry Movement

Max also highlights the massive EA acquisition that happened for $55 billion—the third-largest game studio on earth. "Underpriced," Max argues. "Probably could have gotten to 100 billion." The acquisition demonstrates the scale and value of gaming as an industry that's now bigger than movies and music combined.

 

Michigan's Growing Gaming Ecosystem

The episode wrapped with a discussion of Michigan's emerging entrepreneurship and gaming ecosystem, particularly thanks to Governor Gretchen Whitmer's initiatives.

"She's done fantastic things for the entrepreneurship community," Max notes. "She's done fantastic things for business owners here in Michigan." (He adds with a grin: "She's a Michigan State grad, which is unfortunate. I'm a Michigan grad, so we have a little bit of a rivalry.")

One of the key initiatives is establishing pitch competitions similar to Shark Tank. At the time of recording, Max was preparing to compete in a pitch competition for $250,000, featuring five AI-space companies and a panel of VC judges.

"You don't necessarily need to build in New York or Chicago anymore," Max emphasizes. "You can build it in an underrepresented zone."

The interview concluded with Ryan offering Max encouragement for his pitch competition: "You definitely are in a gold mine of opportunity where technology is headed. And I just hope that the judges see it that way, that they see that this is truly a huge tailwind that you're riding and a very talented founder at that."

 

Memorable Quotes from the Episode

"The moment that my game started charting, it was like a drug. I mean, you have tens of thousands of players playing it, commenting on it, loving it. I knew right then and there that's what I want to be doing with the rest of my life." – Max Albert

"When you look at graphs of how Gen Z consumes media, it's very heavy on gaming. They actually play more video games in their free time than social media. And this is terrifying if you're an advertiser." – Max Albert

"Brands are realizing like shit, if we're gonna continue to be a Fortune 1000 company, we need to make gaming a core distribution channel." – Max Albert

"The running joke right now is that we're in the social impact space trying to help gamers discover soap for the first time." – Max Albert on Adrenaline's campaigns with Dr. Squatch and Ball Boys Soap

"Gaming is bigger as a media than movies and music combined." – Max Albert

"You don't necessarily need to build in New York or Chicago anymore. You can build it in an underrepresented zone." – Max Albert on Michigan's entrepreneurship ecosystem

 
 

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