They already advertise in games. I’ve been drinking Nuka Cola for years now, and expect to continue doing so for centuries
Once again, by decades long boycott of EA is paying off.
Mine isn’t even an active boycott. I just don’t care at all for anything they make.
Public statements like this is why EA continually wins “Worst Company” over real assholes like Blackrock.
What happened, EA? Did five minutes already pass before you gave everyone something to hate about your greedy, corporate, pulseless guts?
I swear, nobody can have any hobbies nowadays without execs enshittifying everything.
I never got into Android gaming because 90% of it is adware. If the PC landscape turns into this, you can bet your ass I’ll stop playing that as well.
I wont. There are thousands of good old games I’ve never played.
Games for android do exist that are good and bought outright. But not nearly as many as the other junk that’s out there.
For PC when I think ads in games I think sports games like ads in NHL rink boards and burnout paradise city.
I know they exist but I can’t be bothered to sort through the mountains of garbage to find them.
Well the beauty of PC is that you could always jump ship to another distributor/developer if one turns into shit.
EA is already there, so it’s easy to play games from other devs instead XD
Microslop enters the chat…
LinuxDistros+Proton enters the chat…
There are so many incredible indie games coming out these days too. Its just not worth buying the overpriced garbage big studios are trying con us into.
And if indie goes to shit too, we still have a solid 30 or so years of old games to play.
Nobody owns “The PC Landscape” though, that’s the beauty. Steam has a large share, but even that is not completely unbreachable.
No one owns the Android landscape either
For different reasons than usual, this comment deserves the reply: “Let me Google that for you”.
(Or: Epic/Fortnite would beg to differ)
Why don’t you go ahead and do that and come back with some links.
Here’s a pretty important one:
They’ve been saying this for 20 years.
Honestly I’m for it. I hope all the major players adopt this so we can watch the pillars of the gaming industry collapse.
From the wreckage will be a renaissance of developers whose priority in making games is that they’re good.
I thought EA had already been doing this with need for speed all the way back in Xbox 360 times?
Advertising is brainwashing and should be illegal globally. No more ads!
There are better ways to finance stuff.
Person who has developed a service to put ads in games says companies should think about putting ads in games.
"EA Advertising is a platform that’s directly integrated into Frostbite, the engine EA uses to make its biggest games, from Madden to Battlefield. The idea is to streamline what’s required to create custom ads for clients and then track how players “engage” with the ads. “Advertisers can now collaborate with EA in a privacy-safe way to improve targeting and gain deeper campaign insights,” the company wrote last month. “EA ensures ads are viewable, delivered to real audiences, and measured using industry-accredited standards in partnership with Integral Ad Science.”
I don’t and won’t play games with in-game ads. No matter how good they apparently are otherwise, I’ll never know.
Only one I can justify is the EA sports games. Mainly because I refuse to play those games.
Ads are not required for sports to be immersive.
But none intrusive banner ads is whatever, historically football games have included “fake ads” for charities and inclusion.
If that got changed to opt-in proper ads for a 10€ price deduction we’d be all ears
This is EA we are talking about, the “opportunity” is not to give the consumers a discount.
There are so few games I play in which ads would make sense. Hard to shoehorn a dorito ad in a fantasy universe or on a distant planet. I very much wouldn’t welcome it.
There are a few odd cases I can remember, like freaking Tonic Trouble ages ago that was another Rayman-like from Ubisoft and power-ups in that game (in Europe) were crunch bars from a vending machine. Or back when I played Splatoon they did an event in which you had to fight for a brand of noodles or some shit.
Oh yeah, there’s that absurd thing in Mario Kart 8 where they added 3 mercedes mini-cars out of nowhere. It’s terrible but also so stupid it’s a bit funny, especially since it’s the only product placement they ever did in that game.
Don’t forget the Monster energy drink in Death Stranding…
I’m pretty sure 90% of Fortnight characters are an ad now. Every real car in driving games like Gran Turismo is licensed and an ad. DotA2 did a Monster Hunter collab, which are basically ads.
Honestly I don’t even mind this kind of unintrusive ad. They can stay, and collabs can even be fun or enjoyable. That seems to be what they’re mostly talking about, alongside branded consoles to bring prices down. Or adding sponsored DLC to older games to bring back interest and make side money at the same time.
I think that’s the distinction here. If it’s something that fits naturally into the game and it’s part of the game, it’s ok. We’ve had this for years and nobody is complaining about it. But if they’re talking about animated banners or 30 second ad breaks between matches, they can fuck right off with that.
Early experiments included a custom Mountain Dew stadium “playable experience” in EA Sports College Football 26 and Visa branding in EA Sports FC.
As we do these things, it’s ultimately around like, you know, are the players engaging with it? Are they talking about it? Is it ultimately leading to the brand being talked about and engaged in a positive way?”
I played Alan Wake (the first one) recently for the first time and was surprised to see Verizon billboards, Energizer batteries/flashlights and Lincoln cars in the game.
I personally didn’t mind it and treated it as an Easter egg opposed to an actual ad, if it were a pop-up or something that halted me in my place I would be annoyed sure but minor things like that kinda give it a bit of realism.
Note; I did want to link the Alan Wake x Energizer/Verizon/Lincoln collab here but then I got this pop-up on the first site that came up -
Pop-ups like this make me not want to use your product or service.
Edit; Kotaku didn’t care for my ad blocker so I’ll link them instead of fandom -
https://kotaku.com/alan-wake-remastered-is-ditching-the-energizer-batterie-1847658945
It’s very interesting that remakes and remasters seem to be stripping out the ads / in-game branding because the licensing expired or didn’t extend to the remake of the same game. For example Death Stranding remake is also removing the Monster cans and replacing them with generic energy liquid. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but it is a thing.
They surely won’t let Monster get free ads, what are they? A charity? Either pay up or your cans get deleted!
Drinkus deletus
it’s not 90%, it’s 100%. Whenever a new movie comes out or a tv show is popular or a musician releases a new album…whatever there will be an in game “event” and new skins in Fortnite. it’s totally a free to play ad with microtransactions for said ads.
It’s like cartoons of the 80s and early to mid 90s. the cartoons themselves were just ads for the toys. I mean hell the first Transformers movie in the 80s was just a massive commercial to introduce the new toyline by quite literally killing off the previous line. And I for one loved it.
I mean is even Fortnite a game or a random Skinner box platform at this point? Can’t remember the last time I saw someone mention its gameplay.
Bullshit. What do you play, Pitfall?
Advertising (which includes product placement) is so ubiquitous there’s essentially zero chance you’re avoiding it, you just don’t notice it…
Never heard of pitfall. My recently played games:
Rimworld, Factorio, CDDA, Quasimorph, Against the Storm, Highfleet, Vintage Story.
Putting Dao’s personal cell phone number and other contact info on the back of every in-game billboard with a real ad would be a nice Easter egg.
“This Ring of Fire Resistance should protect you, Sir Bolden. And you know who else can protect you? State Farm!”
Im fine if they actually fit the game. But this means they are basically limited to games that are only set in the real world. I actually liked seeing the Old Spice and Nokia billboards in NFS Underground 2, and seeing them now is an even bigger reminder of the time the game came out. Or the random products in Kojima games.
But seeing real world product ads in games like Halo or Dark Souls? No thanks. I can’t see how you add those to the world and make them feel like part of the game world.
Kind of. Like racing games where they have banners all round the track? I get that it’s “realistic”, but why should we settle for that, when games are supposed to be escapism, better than life? Having ads in games just because they’re in real life is normalising in a bad way.
The only ads I like in games are the pets-by-mail type.
Guess we can’t have real life cars then either, right?
Putting real life cars into racing games, real life athletes into sports games, etc. its only purpose is advertising. There is no other reason than advertising to include any brand logo or product from real life into a video game.
This has been a hot topic among AAA developers for a long ass time. Steam is setting certain requirements, such as engagement with advertisements may not be forced - But product placement that fits within the world is fine
I wonder if that is one of the reasons the original Death Stranding isn’t available on Steam anymore. The healing items in that game are cans of Monster Energy. Totally out of place in a far futuristic post-apocalyptic world. And interaction is forced (can’t progress without drinking a can)
can’t progress without drinking a can
“Drink the confirmation can now”
I understood this reference.
Good job, Captain America! 👍🏼
Metal Gear Solid 5 also has product placement with fashion items like RayBan sunglasses and shit. I think the two biggest reasons DS is only available with the Director’s Cut is that the license agreement for the product placement ran out, and fans also generally hated that particular aspect more than any other issues the game itself had.
I hated it too. I got the original DS for free on Epic. When the Monster Energy came up, I ragequit and uninstalled the game. I have no interest to try the Director’s Cut or DS2
The only ads in games I’ve ever been ok with were the ones in SWAT 4 where they just had dynamic textures that pulled different ads in so it was literally just like, decorative flyers on the walls were real ads instead of fake ones. Of course I could do with most the whole game braking 20 years later because the back end shit down thing.
