Netflix’s partnership with Rockstar Games is a signal to how the streaming giant is building its advertising ecosystem… and it’s not playing by the rules.
Netflix has hit the headlines many times over the last few years on how it’s building its advertising engine. From simply partnering with big name brands to developing its own tools to stepping into live sports and events.
Now the streaming giant is making its play to activate gaming audiences… and it’s changing the rules of advertising with its partnership with Rockstar Games.
Rockstar Games has been given the green light to advertise GTA 6 in Miami Beach, just weeks after it launched an exclusive viewing on Netflix.
The Boucher Brothers beach chairs and umbrellas will have the roman numerals of ‘VI’ or the words ‘Vice City’ printed on them. The campaign is due to run from 15 October to the end of the year (but will be paused during Miami Art Basel fair in December).
The games maker is not just ramping up… it’s gone big with its marketing of Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6). And it is paying off.
GTA 6 is already expected to generate up to $5.2bn in revenue in its first week, when released in November, according to Newzoo. A near decade in development, GTA 6 has reportedly cost Rockstar Games and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive, approximately $2bn to produce.
To put that into context, Spiderman: Brand New Year, which was one of the biggest blockbuster releases this year made $1bn globally in gross revenue in six days – and that was one of the highest first-week earnings in cinema history.
In 2025, Netflix surpassed $1.5bn in advertising revenue. However, advertising accounted for just over 3% of the streaming giant’s $45bn total revenue, which remains overwhelmingly driven by subscriptions.
The next phase of Netflix’s commercial growth will depend on its ability to deepen audience engagement and offer advertisers more creative ways to reach viewers. If Netflix can deliver, it could establish itself as a credible alternative to Meta and Google for mass-market brands.
Fans paying to watch an ad?
Mark Palmer, founder of Maverick Planet argued that Rockstar and Netflix’s partnership flips the rules on advertising.
Netflix paid Rockstar for a six-hour exclusive window to premier the 27-minute, extended gameplayer trailer for GTA 6. It was then uploaded on to Rockstar’s YouTube channel shortly afterwards.
Ahead of 27 August – the date the trailer aired on Netflix – the streaming giant saw more than 100,000 new subscribers in the US, GamesIndustry.biz reported.
The trailer itself on Netflix saw 31.1 million views and approximately 14 million hours of watch time in just four days. It was ranked the most watched title globally across 87 countries on the platform.
And since being uploaded to Rockstar’s YouTube channel, the trailer has accumulated 28 million views in just over three weeks.
The figures are impressive and it has got marketers talking. For the first time, diehard fans are paying to watch an ad, and the ad itself has become a form of entertainment.
Palmer calls this “vacuumtainment”.
He wrote on LinkedIn that this could signal where “Netflix might be taking its business and what audience it might want to attract next”.
Based on that logic, Netflix bought an ad to attract a gaming audience to subscribe to its services, which suggests it’s capitalising on cultural moments.
It was already starting to do that with its investment in live sports. The streaming platform has a 10-year deal to broadcast the WWE; the global rights to five regular-season NFL games for the current season; a three-year deal to show select Major League Baseball matches; and has also secured the rights to the FIFA Women’s World Cup in the US.
Tom Gray, chief strategy officer at Imagination, says: “Netflix’s new focus on ‘moments’ – from major sports events through to concerts certainly means that marketers should be looking at them as not just a streaming channel, but as a platform for cultural moments.”
Netflix’s ‘fight nights’ are a key example of how it is flipping the rulebook. The streaming platform does not just broadcast, but organises high-profile boxing matches. As it does hold a boxing promoter license, Netflix has partnered with major promotional entities to bring fight nights to its platform.
Biggest set-ups include Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul, Canelo Álvarez vs Terence Crawford, Jake Paul vs Anthony Joshua, and most recently, Tyson Fury vs Arslanbek Makhmudov.
In doing so, Netflix maintains full control over its live sports events – completely disrupting the traditional sports broadcast model – and is able to transform it into an Hollywood-esq entertainment show.
It can now create custom ad inventory such as venue signage and digital billboards, as well as control commercial breaks across its connected TV (CTV) slots. It can also use its advertising suite to integrate its gambling, tech and retail sponsors through creating customised pre-game betting segments and real-time split feeds tailored to individual markets.
Advertising as entertainment
All this signals how Netflix is transforming advertising into premium entertainment. And if you “combine this with their focus on gaming on demand”, it’s provided the platform with a blueprint for how it can promote its movies, TV shows and video games to its premium subscribers.
For gaming brands, “it’s a short hop from there if you want to create credibility for your game launch, to use it [Netflix] as a platform”, adds Gray.
“It’s arguable that this launch (GTA 6) is the most highly anticipated gaming trailer of all time, so yes, it’s a no-brainer that this big moment could and should find a place on Netflix,” he says.
Given that gaming has already become a bigger entertainment channel than film and music combined, it’s not surprising that Netflix is making this part of its play.
I’ve already discussed in a previous column talking about the rise of gaming as an advertising channel. But this move from Netflix cements it as a global stage for identity, commerce, and culture.
The gaming environment has become a key place for discovery, influence and even consideration. The ripple effect from the Rockstar-Netflix partnership can already be seen in the rise of users purchasing Playstation and XBOX games consoles.
So for marketers, the question now isn’t whether gaming is a viable advertising channel? It’s how do I create content my target audience actually wants to watch?
