State Farm has spent five years reaching gaming audiences through creators — and the company’s efforts are paying off with the upcoming fifth season of “Gamerhood.”
Today, July 7, State Farm announced the fifth season of “Gamerhood,” a State-Farm-produced reality show featuring top names from the livestreaming creator space. The first season of the annual reality competition aired in 2022; for the 2026 edition of “Gamerhood,” State Farm has recruited a cast of creators with over 200 million combined followers, including names like Jason “Jasontheween” Nguyen, Brittany “Cinna” Watts, Emily “Emiru” Schunk, Marlon Garcia, Darren “IShowSpeed” Watkins, and Maxwell “PlaqueBoyMax” Dent, who will compete in a mix of physical and video game challenges over the course of the season.
“This is my second time,” said Nguyen in an interview with GamesBeat. “Doing it for the first time made me realize, ‘yo, this is actually fun.’ I got to come together with a bunch of different content creators and compete and play video games, which is something I love doing.”
For creators at the apex of the livestreaming game, like Nguyen and Watts, taking time away from a livestream to film pre-recorded content like “Gamerhood” effectively means leaving money on the table, since these streamers make the bulk of their revenue through ads and subscriptions whose fees are ultimately paid by loyal viewers. But both creators told GamesBeat that the decision to participate in the reality series was a no-brainer, in part because their audiences have reacted warmly to the series in the past. Nguyen flagged that a member of his chat had posted about signing up with State Farm for insurance after an auto accident, although he was unsure if the content of the post was completely true.
“I don’t really get any backlash from doing things like this,” Nguyen said. “My community is very understanding, and State Farm is a pretty big deal, too.”
Both Nguyen and Watts are returning members of the “Gamerhood” cast, reflecting the strength of State Farm’s years-long and ongoing efforts to reach the gaming audience. In addition to creator-powered efforts like “Gamerhood,” State Farm has shown up across a multitude of facets of the gaming space, with notable activations like the integration of Jake, State Farm’s mascot, into NBA 2K in 2022.
“Last year, I begged to come back,” Watts said in an interview with GamesBeat. “So, why would I not say yes again?”
Watts praised State Farm for giving her complete control over how she showed up in “Gamerhood,” telling GamesBeat that she never felt a need to adjust what she said on stream or otherwise censor her content in order to align with the brand’s needs. As an example, she cited her decision to spontaneously call Jake from State Farm while streaming outside the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, to jokingly yell at him for not getting her in.
“For me, it feels like I’m on a production that is almost run by Twitch,” Watts said. “It feels like I’m working with people that are very familiar with the space, and that feels really good.