When David Carson at Mediapost said this week the “Nintendo Wii ad for “Wario-Land Shake It” on YouTube is the best ad I’ve seen all year, in any medium“, it reminded me I have yet to address the topic of gaming among Millennials. (BTW, it really is a great ad, click here to see it.) I admit one reason I haven’t written about gaming is that we are not really a gaming household. Yes we have a Wii, Playstation 2, and PSP, but they don’t seem to get much use. We just never got the heavy-duty gaming bug, aside from passing addictions to Bejeweled2, the Sims and Spider Solitaire.

My 14-year old son is a typical. 44% of The gaming statistics, especially for males are staggering; 44% of 12-17 year old males say playing video games is one of the ‘favorite activities’ (Mintel, see chart). That makes games big business; the Sims alone has sold 100 million copies, worth about $4 Billion (Fast Company). The release of Spore is a media event that rivals the biggest blockbuster movies.

From a marketing perspective, it is important to note that up until now, gaming has been largely a male phenomenon, most likely due to the high levels of violence in many games. This is a problem Spore’s marketers hope to change. Spore is reportedly more about creating and building than destroying. (Young women are much more likely to blog, while both sexes are equally likely to be spending time social networking.) This makes gaming an especially targeted medium for marketers trying to reach young men. Little wonder product placement in video games is hot and getting hotter.