Where Vision Meets Memory: An Eye-Tracking Study of In-App Ads in Mobile Sports Games with Mixed Visual-Quantitative Analytics.

Mobile games have become one of the fastest-growing segments of the digital economy, and in-app advertisements represent a major source of revenue while shaping consumer attention and memory processes. This study examined the relationship between visual attention and brand recall of in-app advertisements in a mobile sports game using mobile eye-tracking technology. A total of 79 participants (47 male, 32 female; Mage = 25.8) actively played a mobile sports game for ten minutes while their eye movements were recorded with Tobii Pro Glasses 2. Areas of interest (AOIs) were defined for embedded advertisements, and fixation-related measures were analyzed. Brand recall was assessed through unaided, verbal-aided, and visual-aided measures, followed by demographic comparisons based on gender, mobile sports game experience and interest in tennis. Results from Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) revealed that brand placement was the strongest predictor of recall (p < 0.001), overriding raw fixation duration. Specifically, brands integrated into task-relevant zones (e.g., the central net area) achieved significantly higher recall odds compared to peripheral ads, regardless of marginal variations in dwell time. While eye movement metrics varied by gender and interest, the multivariate model confirmed that in active gameplay, task-integration drives memory encoding more effectively than passive visual salience. These findings suggest that active gameplay imposes unique cognitive demands, altering how attention and memory interact. The study contributes both theoretically by extending advertising research into ecologically valid gaming contexts and practically by informing strategies for optimizing mobile in-app advertising.