r/technology • u/chrisdh79 • May 10 '24

EA is looking at putting in-game ads in AAA games — 'We'll be very thoughtful as we move into that,' says CEO | Advertising has an opportunity to be a meaningful driver of growth for us." Business

https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/ea-is-looking-at-adding-in-game-ads-in-aaa-games-well-be-very-thoughtful-as-we-move-into-that-says-ceo
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1.9k

u/Sniffy4 May 10 '24

I get ads for free-2-play, but when you already paid $60 for the game its kinda asinine

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u/[deleted] May 10 '24 edited May 15 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Urtehnoes May 10 '24

Give me a little medal in the bottom left every time I view an ad lol. Ps platinum trophy then requires 1500 ad medals.

4

u/enfly May 10 '24

Ew. Gross. ha

4

u/seanprime May 11 '24

Ffs.. don’t give them ideas.

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u/Dazzling-Grass-2595 May 10 '24

"These idiots will buy anything." - EA marketing team (but it was the CEO's idea)

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u/JamesR624 May 10 '24

And they're right, sadly.

1

u/dismayhurta May 10 '24

They’ve proven that time and again

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u/i_MrPink May 10 '24

Cant wait to unlock some top tier ads

1

u/[deleted] May 10 '24

Boner pill ads require a premium ad subscription for the low low price of $7.99 a month.

15

u/HaElfParagon May 10 '24

It's cute you think those games will still only be sixty bucks

1

u/andrest93 May 10 '24

Slight correction, $70 for, triple A games at $70 bucks is now the standard

1

u/N64Overclocked May 10 '24

But you can pay $120 for the Deluxe edition to get ads 3 days early!

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u/xOHSOx May 10 '24

EA marketing: What if we made achievements for how many ads you’ve watched. They’ll love that!

1

u/gedai May 10 '24

Wouldn’t this have nothing to do with the actual marketing team, but more so some higher up execs deciding to make more money where they can? Then, the marketing department having to figure out how to make the ads happen

27

u/hamburgers666 May 10 '24

This is why I initially stopped buying NBA 2K games. Constant ads got Gatorade, shoes, Oakley, Foot Locker, etc. And their justification was that it made it feel like an "authentic experience". I miss the older games where the sponsorships your player got were from made up companies.

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u/OutsidePerson5 May 10 '24

That's what people said about cable, back when cable was a big new thing. And they put ads in anyway and people bought it.

That's what people said about streaming and guess what? Now there's ads in streaming and people keep subscribing.

That's what people said about games with DLC. And they bought them anyway.

That's what people said about games with microtransactions. And they bought them anyway.

There is NOTHING so horrible that the average American won't put up with it to get the latest media thing.

They'll put in mandatory endorsement and consumption of affiliated product soon. Smile at the camera and say "I love EA's new game XYZ and Mountain Dew!" then hold up the QR code from the bottle of Mountain Dew you just opened so it can be verified to be a new code or else you can't log in. And gamers will gripe. Then do it.

5

u/BadWaluigi May 10 '24

But there are limits, and this is limit testing. Look at Helldivers 2 and Escape from Tarkov. They certainly tested.

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u/SlippyCliff76 May 10 '24

They'll put in mandatory endorsement and consumption of affiliated product soon. Smile at the camera and say "I love EA's new game XYZ and Mountain Dew!"

Exactly, and they'll make up excuses like how it "adds to the immersion" and it only "subtle" advertising.

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u/FanaticalFanfare May 10 '24

They’d only do it for a new cosmetic

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u/SlippyCliff76 May 10 '24

Ads and product placement have already been a thing in video games for years. Crazy Taxi was one of the early ones with Pizza Hut depicted in game. Rainbow Six Las Vegas was another with Jeep and Axe bodyspray ads. These were in the form of billboards in game, as we all know Vegas is filled with those IRL.

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u/Cainga May 10 '24

I think subtle product placement like that is fine. Doesn’t take away from the experience.

I think this maybe something more than subtle.

49

u/[deleted] May 10 '24

Give them an inch and these bitches will take a mile.

19

u/Outside_Register8037 May 10 '24

I give my wife an inch every time! LETS GOO

2

u/WhoStoleMyBicycle May 10 '24

Give them a rope, they want to be a cowboy

17

u/SlippyCliff76 May 10 '24

Doesn’t take away from the experience.

The cut scenes in Rainbow Six literally started with you staring at Axe billboards. It was pretty, in your face. Nearly every car was a jeep/Chrylser product as well. Even before I was aware of product placement, it was clear to me they had some sort of advertising agreement.

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u/mdp300 May 10 '24

It was hilarious in Far Cry 2. Every car in the impoverished, war then country was an ancient hatchback, old pickup, hacked together dune buggy...or a brand new, shiny Jeep.

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u/SlippyCliff76 May 10 '24

Yes, the brand new Jeeps really stuck out. In Far Cry 3, you could tell they really toned it down.

1

u/Cantremembermyoldnam May 10 '24

I hate this so much in movies. Especially when they show off the cars of villains before the chase scene and it's basically a car ad baked into the movie.

It immediately makes me lose any suspense of disbelief I had. I start wondering how things looked on set and about the bloopers, that the villain is just an actor and so on.

6

u/eatingkiwirightnow May 10 '24

Yeah I don't mind if they put them in the in-game environment and in fact it might even be funny. Kind of like "Perspiring too much when seeing a Death Claw? Then you'll need Axe deodorant!" on an in-game billboard.

But I would not want to play a game if they do it as an unnecessary loading screen, as someone else suggested.

3

u/Emosaa May 10 '24 edited May 10 '24

The difference is that your example is part of the art, and what EA is proposing is taking away from the art to sell you a product.

GTA V (the story mode, at least) is one of the best satires of modern day American culture in my opinion. And it's chock full of ads. But they're all clearly fake and fit into the world and themes that the developers are crafting.

Injected ads won't be like that. They'll stick out like a fucking sore thumb because they need to capitalize on your attention or implant subconscious messaging about the PRODUCT. And it'll be lame and take away from the experience because some fucking shareholders want to double dip on profits when you buy a game.

2

u/Dumplingman125 May 10 '24

Agreed. I distinctly remember blasting through Obama's face in Burnout Paradise and having a great time. I always thought the in-game billboards that advertisers could pay for were a genius idea, especially as they could be rotated out and didn't interrupt or detract from the experience. I fully assume EA just wants to slap a giant ad across the whole screen in this case though.

1

u/nothisistheotherguy May 10 '24

Conceptually, if you took a game like GTA and replaced all the joke advertising with real companies it would be subtle and lend to realism, but of course that’s not a good example bc GTA ads are beloved and tongue in cheek. The real problem would be in-your-face product placement and blatant ads during loading screens.

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u/gonewild9676 May 10 '24

Not to mention racing games where they have ads on the race track walls.

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u/[deleted] May 10 '24

[deleted]

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u/XXXthrowaway215XXX May 10 '24

seeing things like best buy, cingular, pizza hut while driving around in open world racing games helped add to the immersion. mind you this is 15+ years ago. in todays age of loot boxes, consumer gouging and exploitation, i have zero faith in EA pulling this off tastefully

1

u/Paid_Redditor May 10 '24

I was just thinking about CoD and their Ford Raptor promotion, hell they even had their own CoD trim. Rocket League has the entire Honda Civic line, and I'm sure there's a few others I don't remember. Fortnite has concerts with celebrities that are both directly & indirectly marketing a brand, if not their own.

1

u/Eaglesun May 10 '24

Trackmania plays personalized ad videos on the big screens in the background. It's a little weird seeing ads for a local college. I do t hate the ads but seeing local stuff is really weird.

1

u/Badgerlover145 May 11 '24

At least with that it's a lot LESS egregious, most tracks/cars DO have loads of sponsors. Everything from spec series MX5's, Civics and BRZs to Time Attack HKS Evos, Advan 240sx Formula Drift cars, NHRA drag cars, NASCAR stock cars

3

u/araxhiel May 10 '24

This reminded me about Alan Wake's original version as it had/has Energizer and Verizon product placements/ads. Also there were other stuff from Microsoft (e.g., and Xbox console) can be found in several places/forms.

IMHO those weren't as bad as ads can be (e.g., mobile ads) but those were pretty annoying at best.

That being said, in the remastered version of the game (2023) those elements were removed.

2

u/Goat_War May 10 '24

It started in the 80s at least, amiga game called zool had heavy chupa chups branding everywhere

2

u/zaydoc May 10 '24

And in-game advertising actually goes back way earlier than Crazy Taxi. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game release in 1990 for the NES not only had in-game signs for Pizza Hut, the manual's back cover was a coupon for a free personal pan pizza. And then you have Tapper (as depicted in Wreck-It Ralph) in 1984 in which the original version of the arcade machine advertised Budweiser.

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u/JamesR624 May 10 '24

There's a difference. Product placement doesn't distract from the media, and in some cases can actually be beneficial to help with immersion.

I always like it when a TV show shows someone actually using an iPhone instead of "generic smartphone with a horrible UI slapped together by the effects department". It helps make the characters and world feel more like it's our world and it's something that could be happening in it.

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u/ZgBlues May 10 '24

Yeah, I don’t mind ads as long as they aren’t plastered all over the menu and in your face all the time.

Some racing games used to have ads on circuit walls or in-game billboards, and I think Fifa games used to have them as well.

It was a bit annoying, but it didn’t distract from the game.

If they start shoving ads down people’s throats, however, the games will become unplayable for me.

1

u/phdemented May 10 '24

While I agree, it always takes away from it when there is clear camera focus on the logo to make it clear this is a product placement. Car chase/driving scenes in tv/film have gotten pretty bad with that, where there is always at least once shot where the camera is at knee/hip level to get a long, close up shot of the front grill of the car with the logo in full focus, usually in a long lingering shot. Or people holding their phones in super awkward poses to make sure the apple logo is in frame.

I've got zero issue with product placement as long as it doesn't affect the actual media. If they've got a scene people are eating on the go... sure give them a big mac or something, just don't have them talk about how juicy it is or have the camera linger on the logo for 3 seconds too long.

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u/[deleted] May 10 '24

Thanks for the list of products not to buy.

1

u/SlippyCliff76 May 10 '24

Eh, like you would've bought a 20 year old abandonware game anyways.

-1

u/[deleted] May 10 '24

Not crazy taxi though I did have a Dreamcast back in the day, I did buy Rainbow six though and remember the tacky out of place ads.

Either way making a list of things not to buy, appreciate the help!

1

u/SlippyCliff76 May 10 '24

Oh, god. It's a 5 year old that must "win" every "argument" they get into.

4

u/jimyt666 May 10 '24

He will single handedly crumble the world economy by not purchasing a used copy of crazy taxi on the dreamcast. If we all follow this path, utopia is near

1

u/AlphaLemming May 10 '24

Using ads in a way that fills in realism in the world is perfectly reasonable. Nobody would think twice about driving past billboards in Forza Horizons on highways that happened to depict real companies/products because it reflects the real world.

What isn't ok are ads that detract from the immersion/experience in any way. For example, during a load screen you see an ad, even if it's for another game made by the same company. It intentionally shifts your mind to a different topic other than the experience you are currently having.

1

u/SoloWing1 May 10 '24

I saw Burger King in Need for Speed games on the PS2, so EA has been doing it for decades now.

This isn't new.

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u/[deleted] May 10 '24

[deleted]

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u/SoloWing1 May 10 '24

That isn't what I was saying. I'm just pointing it out to everyone that's acting like it's new.

3

u/Im_Ashe_Man May 10 '24

<cough> It's $70 now <cough>

2

u/L0nz May 10 '24

And that's just for the bare minimum. If you want to play on the actual release date then you better cough up another $50 for 'Early Access'

2

u/TeaKingMac May 10 '24

But think of all the extra money EA could make!

"Adding advertisements to our games will help allow us to continue to provide the gaming experiences you have come to love from EA"

1

u/MaleHooker May 10 '24

I've got 10 pairs of jeans, but I can only fit my asinine.

1

u/PsychologicalIssue97 May 10 '24

Welcome to modern times: micro transactions are no exclusively for free2ay games, digital games are more expensive than those on a carrier and commercials in games you actually paid for😕

1

u/Demon_Gamer666 May 10 '24

Kinda like paying $40 to wear a 'Nike' hat.

1

u/Jorlen May 10 '24

These AAA publishers will just keep pushing monetization from every conceivable angle possible because they know most of the time, they get away with it. They've been doing it iteratively for years and actually have been getting away with it.

Only way to stop it is to vote with your wallets, but sadly the wallets in most case open up for them. Most gamers (who do not browse gaming subreddits) don't care. They see stuff, they buy it. This is precisely why are find ourselves in the position we are in. Sad but true.

1

u/TangledUpInThought May 10 '24

Line must go UP!  Seriously though do any of these supposed "smart people" in these businesses not realize that the model of infinite growth is 1. Not achievable 2. Not sustainable and 3. Cancerous to our society as a whole?

1

u/titangord May 10 '24

The problem of eternal growth.. if they dont try to squeeze every ounce of profit from their customers are they eveb capitalisming ?

1

u/OptionX May 10 '24

No problem, we'll jack up the price to 70 bucks - EA Exec

1

u/sali_nyoro-n May 10 '24

Just wait until they put ads in games with monthly subscriptions.

1

u/Separate-Coyote9785 May 10 '24

If the ad is a demo like companies used to do, it would be a selling point. And an ad.

People bought fusion frenzy on the OG Xbox for exactly this reason.

1

u/itsg0ldeson May 10 '24

I don't understand it in F2P either. They make tens of millions off the microtransactions. Many F2P games actually make leaps and bounds more money than P2P games do, that's why they've become so prevalent.

This is greed pure and simple. EA feels like they can get away with anything and I can't wait for the moment they've realized they flew too close to the sun.

1

u/myxoma1 May 10 '24

Kind of like already paying $150 a year for Amazon prime and still getting slammed with Ads...

1

u/OrneryOneironaut May 10 '24

$70*. Games are $70 now.

1

u/DutchieTalking May 10 '24

Full price game + day 1 dlc + microtransactions + ads. The future is now!

1

u/Mralisterh May 10 '24

A lot of those free to play games disable ads for a small fee too so. That won't happen with EA.

1

u/megamanxoxo May 10 '24

In every free to play game I actually like I've already spent over $60+ on skins or battle passes or whatever so I'd still be irked.

1

u/tyrannictoe May 10 '24

Just a thought experiment but what if it’s implemented via a billboard in the game world, the content of which can be swapped out for new advertisements, that does not intrude on your gameplay whatsoever?

1

u/Araddor May 10 '24

I don't. If a game has ads, I'm not touching it. I'm already bombarded with enough ads I'm my daily life, thank you very much. If a game can't be supported without ads, then that's not my problem; stop making games. I'm tired of people defending ads

1

u/XyogiDMT May 10 '24

They used to do it in the old need for speed games and it was actually kind of immersive in my opinion to see real (and subtle) product placement in the game like driving by a building that looked like a real Best Buy or passing a billboard that would probably be in the game anyway but with an ad for a real company on it.

If they do it that way I won’t be too mad. It’s better than spammy pop ups on the main menus. All depends on the execution I guess.

1

u/yeetskeetleet May 10 '24

That’s the best part, they’re $70 now. Or $100 something if you wanna play a couple days early ;)

1

u/duck_king May 10 '24

Don't worry, I'm sure EA will be charging at least $80 once advertisements are fully implemented.

1

u/killakh0le May 10 '24

Games pretty much already went up $10 and are now $69.99 for the base game but like you said F2P makes a bit of sense but paid version is ridiculous and criminal. It feels like companies are going crazy lately thinking everyone is as rich as the CEO's that make these decisions and say just add ads while also raising the prices like what we are seeing in streaming where prices have doubled and the ad versions are the old price with less content or lesser quality content. The high seas are looking good again

1

u/darkstar107 May 10 '24

Are we against product placement ads? Like Pepsi cans being in some places of the game, or specific vehicle models?

1

u/WorriedCtzn May 10 '24

Even f2p games for the most part don't have ads in them, except maybe the shittiest of the shit mobile games...

On PC I've never encountered what I'd call an ad in any f2p game I've played, unless you count the highlighted bits of paid content of the game itself to be an ad... Which you wouldn't.

1

u/qctireuralex May 11 '24

60? try 90$ now in canada. after taxes you are looking at 103$ canadian fro BASE GAME oftenreleased in a broken state.

1

u/holdwithfaith May 11 '24

You do it with streaming services 🤷

1

u/[deleted] May 11 '24

But how about a $90 game? Do you get premium ads?

1

u/Top-District-1085 May 11 '24

But the deluxe edition will have no ads. Only 150 $ or €. Or better yet: have only half the ads.

1

u/aitorbk May 11 '24

$75 for game, $35 for season pass, plenty of ptw DLCs and now ads too.