EA wants to place ads in full-price games, again

midian182

midian182

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Facepalm: It seems EA is suffering from the kind of insanity described by Far Cry 3's Vaas Montenegro. The gaming giant is considering placing ads in its full-price AAA games, again, and presumably expects the outcome to be different this time.

Speaking during the company's latest earnings briefing, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in-game advertising could become a "meaningful driver of growth" for the firm.

Wilson added that internal teams at EA were looking at how they could do "very thoughtful implementations" of ads inside EA titles, though that reassurance is unlikely to placate gamers.

What's surprising is that EA has tried this before, with predictable results. In 2020, EA Sports UFC 4 included full-screen ads for the Amazon Prime series The Boys that would appear during 'Replay' moments. These were absent from the game when it launched, with EA introducing the ads about a month later, thereby preventing them from being highlighted in reviews. It wasn't long before the backlash led to EA disabling the ads.

EA decided to add full-on commercials in the middle of gameplay in a $60 game a month after it's release so it wasn't talked about in reviews
byu/Ydino inassholedesign

In-game ads are almost as old as video games themselves, stretching back to 1978's Adventureland, which included an ad for the game's sequel, Pirate Adventure. Then there was 1983's Tapper, a game about serving Budweiser beer to bar patrons, while the 1990s brought a slew of games with ads – this writer recalls wanting some Chupa Chups after playing Zool on the Amiga.

Also see: A Brief History of In-Game Advertising

The 2000s saw a different method of in-game advertising gain popularity: billboards. By placing ads on background boards in racing and sports games, much like one would see in real life, they feel less intrusive. Barack Obama's campaign paid EA to include political ads in Burnout Paradise in 2008. The company also signed deals with ad firms to bring in-game ads to Madden, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, NHL, and NASCAR games. However, there were also immersion-breaking ads for Pepsi and Intel that appeared in Battlefield 2142.

In 2023, SCS Software announced that it sold ad space inside American Truck Simulator to Schneider National. The company placed job adverts looking for drivers on billboards alongside the virtual roads.

Back in 2022, EA patented a system that generates in-game content and ads based on a person's playstyle. It could, for example, recommend bullet hell or Soulslike titles for someone who keeps diving headlong into tough battles, or suggest buying a specific item or piece of DLC based on a persona.

After announcing it will lay off around 670 people earlier this year, EA somehow made itself even more disliked in consumers' eyes when it talked about how generative AI will make people spend more money on games.

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EA wants to place ads in full-price games, again

 
winjer said:
Another good reason not to buy EA games.
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yRaz said:
I haven't given EA money in years. I haven't given them money since Bad Company 2
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Anyone who still willingly gives EA, ubisoft, activision, or 2k their money deserve this kind of treatment. If over a decade of mistreating customers isnt enough to teach you, you've proven you are nothing but a cow who willingly gets branded and milked. Somehow non gamer consumers can figure this out.....
 
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To moderately smart people it's obvious that the great majority of ads are barefaced lies, ánd most ads don't so much inform the public of the availabilty of products but instead are a sneaky suggestive ploy to make people WANT stuff they don't need.
Unfortunately most people aren't smart (and even the smartest do lots of stupid things).
So...I don't see the advertising business disappear any time soon, even though it should. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
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Theinsanegamer said:
Anyone who still willingly gives EA, ubisoft, activision, or 2k their money deserve this kind of treatment. If over a decade of mistreating customers isnt enough to teach you, you've proven you are nothing but a cow who willingly gets branded and milked. Somehow non gamer consumers can figure this out.....
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But...but...but... I won't be able to use my 4090 for ray tracing if I don't buy quadruple A games!!!
 
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There is a strong need for the complete replacement of all management at EA and to bring in someone that is intelligent enough to survey the market place BEFORE making such foolish moves. Computer games are already over priced and with management groups cutting out all their programmers after a game is completed just to feather their nest with more profits proves it.
 
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Ugh, not this again! EA shoving ads into full-price games? Who are they trying to kid? We already saw how bad it went with UFC 4. There are better ways to make money!
 
"Anyone who still willingly gives EA, ubisoft, activision, or 2k their money deserve this kind of treatment. If over a decade of mistreating customers isnt enough to teach you, you've proven you are nothing but a cow who willingly gets branded and milked. Somehow non gamer consumers can figure this out....."

Dead-on, except the last statement. Remember cable? When it rolled out the sales pitch was that your subscription payment eliminates the ads you would see on free TV. Over time that was abandoned for ads in everything, from cable reruns to their own productions, and very few even blinked at paying for something that was supposed to not have ads, and watching the ads they paid to avoid.

So now they want you to pay full price for a gaming experience and see an ad. An Obozo ad at that. And no discount on the game, and you can't even keep your own doctor......
 
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It's Ok, of course I'll "HAVE" to agree to:
- MTX and skins and 130 Euro (Star Wars Outlaws?) for a female that looks like a troll stepped over her face, because I'm a N@z1 alt-right if I want a pretty face in my game, right? "MALE GAZE BAD!"
- Orwell-like surveillance "for the good of the players" and "for the security of " whatever. because hearing curses will DEFINITELY hurt you as a punch or kick in real life!
Always-online for Single Player
- MUST-have gender quotas and different sexualities in GAMES, despite my choice to NOT have political messaging or any sort of "you MUST do/choose" whatever in my digital escapism
- community managers that look like Jabba the Hut trolling me because I can't stand the above and confronting game fans while trying zero to satisfy the PAYING customer needs
- bashing me over the head with what I should be paying/choosing/loving/hating because I'm (in these companies' opinion) a kid which can't choose how and when to spend my hard-earned money.

JUST KIDDING. NO. HELL NO.

OK, put ads in. Increase prices, ask for skins, pre-orders, voice recording and ID, phone, face, and so on. See how far this gets you.
I'm MORE than happy paying for indie or OLD games from GOG, Steam, old AAA which allow your own LAN, servers, mods and so on.
Last new game I bought was Cyberpunk. And I'm the happy owner of hundreds of old games on Epic, GOG, Steam and so on.
Let's see how well this goes, I have MORE patience in my brain than the FOMO Activision/Microsoft/EA/Blizzard/EA/Ubisoft and the other scum can try to market at me.
I can bet a million dollars that I can live the rest of my life without playing any PC/console game and I'd rather quit playing than align to this corporate crap.
Go ahead, EA. GO AHEAD WITH LIVE SERVICES AND ADS! Let's see:I can play Counter Strike on an ancient machine and still not touch (EVER) Battlefield "WOKE" editions. And laugh all the way to the bank.
 
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Even the threat of ads is a problem because there is nothing stopping them from pushing mandatory updates to games you already bought and adding ads.
 
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They should be focusing on not screwing up next bf game, but it seems they did not learn their lesson the last how many times, 2?
It seems to me that gaming companies have reach a point where they want money so much that they would do anything to get it. But since getting it at any cost actually costs pretty much, they often lose money.
In they are trapped in this vicious circle of trying to squeeze as much money sacrificing quality and gamers' approval while at the same time blowing their chances again and again.
It would be good for the industry if some of them went bankrupt, it would be
a lot healthier. You can't make art when all you think about is money.
That is not art but a product. That is not what we want, and not what we will pay for.
Btw, EA's FIFA 2024 would be a financial disappointment if it wasn't for loot box addicts sinking billions trying to get those elusive OP cards. It was one of the fastest FIFA game going on sale, and then the one going on one of those huge discounts soon after. It was because they are making mistakes, running with a glass of water catching rain, but ultimately spilling more.
 
I don't mind non-intrusive ads like those seen above, on the fight stage, the border ads in soccer stadium in-game or those on in-game signboards, which does not affect gameplay experience ( other than the odd feeling of seeing Pepsi ad while fighting aliens in another world).

But if EA wants to include ads in full-priced games, then it's a middle-finger to EA. Either EA should release the games absolutely free or reduce the selling Day 1 price to 50%, at least.

But what's the use... Teens with their parents' credit cards are going to buy them anyway. But worst of all, the grown ups, who still buy these trends are absolutely .... *****ic. To put it nicely.
 
Welp! Just like television where you pay for most channels but still get ads... It's part of the certainty in life: death, taxes and ads.
 
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I consider this almost a non-issue. If said game is good/popular and single player you can almost bet with 100% certainty modders will find a way to block them or remove them.
Or review bombs and epic backlash will ensue. Not sure why some publishers seem to magically think this will work this time around.
Do you, as a publisher really want to add further risk into your already very expensive and lengthy developed title just to watch it get black balled into the review dustbin of oblivion?

This is a market driven economy and consumers do hold quite a bit of leverage here, any publicly traded publisher would be foolish to think otherwise. Don’t believe me? Look at helldivers 2 as one example.
 
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Hey, we fought this before and won! And we also made sure no other company would consider it at the time.
I mean, we couldn't think of anything worse than the 3 seconds it takes to sprint by an in game billboard!

Then the studios raised the price of their games $10.

We Won!!
 
scavengerspc said:
Hey, we fought this before and won! And we also made sure no other company would consider it at the time.
I mean, we couldn't think of anything worse than the 3 seconds it takes to sprint by an in game billboard!

Then the studios raised the price of their games $10.

We Won!!
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Despite your sarcasm, the only way to actually win is not to play the game, as an 80's movie fan posted above.

There is more to life that being held captive by a company's force-feeding of ads while charging premium prices. Many of us actually did "win," by halting our purchases from said companies years, or in some cases, decades ago.

But apparently there are still many, many others who stand in line chanting "Soma! Soma!" and gladly pay for their fix.
 
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mgwerner said:
Despite your sarcasm, the only way to actually win is not to play the game, as an 80's movie fan posted above.

There is more to life that being held captive by a company's force-feeding of ads while charging premium prices. Many of us actually did "win," by halting our purchases from said companies years, or in some cases, decades ago.

But apparently there are still many, many others who stand in line chanting "Soma! Soma!" and gladly pay for their fix.
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Well I wasn't being sarcastic.
And while I agree with the first part of your post, and the last line too (y) (Y) The core gamer has absolutely zero backbone, and wildly and openly bitching and moaning is their only response, because they will never just "not play the game"

And I could counter your end comments by saying there is more to life than letting the smallest parts of life absolutely ruin their outlook and keep them hiding under their beds.
Why in the world does walk past an in game billboard for cheese puffs just ruin their frilly little lives? How can anyone go through life so fragile?
And do they want another price increase?
 
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