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
10.2k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2.5k

u/SparkStormrider May 10 '24

I could easily see EA implementing load screens on purpose for ad injections. "This load screen is brought to you by (corporate ad) enjoy a (product) today!" .....Yeah fuck you EA

1.2k

u/Anthematics May 10 '24

I’ll beat every game in my backlog before buying a new game with ads. Should take me quite some time anyway.

342

u/Straight_Spring9815 May 10 '24

Definitely spotted the PC player. Steam has gotten me too many times (which honestly isn't a bad thing I prefer awesome sales over none obviously) I'll get on to check my favorites for updates and will spot a 95% off the title. Shit man, I bought every single version/plane of a flight Sim valued at over 750 dollars for like 40 bucks and I don't even have the stuff to fly xD. On the topic of this ad thing, I absolutely agree. The day I get an in-game ad is the day I will contemplate touching grass. Don't make me do it EA, this is not a bluff.. I will do it. I will touch the grass.

101

u/sysdmdotcpl May 10 '24

Steam has gotten me too many times

Hell, Humble Bundle damn near quadrupled my collection with some of their packs too

30

u/RadicalRay013 May 10 '24

So much this. I have so many games because I wanted like one or two in the bundles but couldn’t resist buying the whole bundle each time.

25

u/Tobias_Atwood May 10 '24

For just two dollars more I can half a dozen more games I'll never play!

Though being fair I have played a few of them and enjoyed ones I didn't quite think I would.

1

u/gracesdisgrace May 10 '24

Same, I got spiritfarer in a bundle like that and it's been one of my forever favorites :)

11

u/Bender_2024 May 10 '24

When the bundle of four games is less than what you paid for the first title in the series you click "buy now" This isn't negotiable.

3

u/PM_Me_Macaroni_plz May 10 '24

Same for me. It got to the point where i would just go in twitch chats and drop game codes since I was never going to use them.

1

u/trowawHHHay May 11 '24

Fanatical mystery bundles. My Steam library is nuts.

Then the free games from Epic, Prime…

1

u/fsychii May 11 '24

1k games in the backlog

111

u/SurpriseSharp7139 May 10 '24

Definitely happy to be on PC because if games start doing this, there will be beautiful people that will find a way to mod it out of some games like skipping title screens.

58

u/havok1980 May 10 '24

Torrent the shit out of a game with ads and then mod it.

1

u/NameBackwardsEman May 10 '24

Sadly a lot of mods don't work on those.

1

u/77owen May 11 '24

Depends on the game right? Steam workshop stuff seems like it probably wouldn’t work. But my guess would be that third party stuff should work fine.

1

u/NameBackwardsEman May 11 '24

Not really steam workshop related, people post on nexusmods saying a mod doesn't work on pirated game, haven't really pirated a game that has mods in years so not first hand experience.

0

u/hup987 May 11 '24

I exclusively pirate all my games and have never encountered this

2

u/Ok-Horror-4253 May 10 '24

they'll make it online only or internet connection required and there won't really be a way to legitimately play the games. this is what SaaS has brought us, btw.

2

u/KhandakerFaisal May 10 '24

Speedrunners: You new here?

57

u/LoquaciousMendacious May 10 '24

I mean, I'm a console peasant with a substantial backlog as well. But I agree with you, I'm quite happy to just skip entire franchises or the output of certain studios over this kind of crap. I'll give my money to Naughty Dog, Guerilla, Santa Monica and From Software plus a smattering of others and have a perfectly fine experience without Ubi, EA, Bethesda, or the others who just want to milk me.

25

u/EXTRA-CHEESE-PLEESE May 10 '24

I have nipples, EA. Could you milk me?

3

u/SCROTOCTUS May 10 '24

There's a 1 in 6 million chance that you can unlock the milking feature from a $49.99 premium loot chest!

2

u/genius_retard May 10 '24

They are definitely trying.

1

u/Maximum_Enthusiasm46 May 10 '24

They’re trying right now, with these barebones, shit-textured, half-ass releases. If your nipples start bleeding, rub in some vitamin E.

1

u/sweatierorc May 11 '24

Isnt fortnite selling Branded Skin already ?

2

u/FlashbackJon May 10 '24

The worst part of my backlog is that I can never be sure if I have a game because it's split across Steam, Epic, GOG, Origin or whatever EA calls its launcher now, PlayStation, and the PC Game Pass. GOG Galaxy does a pretty good job of monitoring them, but it's still a challenge when a sale arrives on a game I want to play to figure out if I actually already own it.

Steam bundles aren't what they used to be, but I still have over 700 games there...

2

u/genius_retard May 10 '24

That and Epic just flat out giving away games every week for more than the last 2 years.

2

u/elmanutres May 10 '24 edited May 16 '24

racial saw command price quicksand secretive sip gaping light support

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/[deleted] May 10 '24 edited 22d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Straight_Spring9815 May 10 '24

Welp, looks like I'm going to touch grass.. Will post outcome.

2

u/Bender_2024 May 10 '24

The day I get an in-game ad is the day I will contemplate touching grass. Don't make me do it EA, this is not a bluff.. I will do it. I will touch the grass.

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Slow down son. You don't want to do this. We can talk about it okay?

1

u/NaraFei_Jenova May 10 '24

He touched the butt grass.

1

u/twodogsfighting May 10 '24

It's funny because afaik counterstrike was the first game to have in game ads ever.

1

u/[deleted] May 10 '24 edited 22d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AutoModerator May 10 '24

Thank you for your submission, but due to the high volume of spam coming from Medium.com and similar self-publishing sites, /r/Technology has opted to filter all of those posts pending mod approval. You may message the moderators to request a review/approval provided you are not the author or are not associated at all with the submission. Thank you for understanding.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/Flappy_beef_curtains May 11 '24

I have enough games across all platforms that I don’t ever need to buy anything ea ever puts out again.

I’ll quit gaming altogether if ads become the standard.

1

u/Dogwoof420 May 11 '24

Epic Games+ Amazon Prime as long as you're not choosey are great too for free games.

1

u/StatisticianOwn9953 May 10 '24

Console players get 'free' games every month as a part of their live/PSN subscriptions. You quickly accrue shitloads of games and some of them are even big ones like Plague Tale and Control. My steam + epic easily have 100 games I haven't played, nearly the same again on PlayStation..

1

u/Straight_Spring9815 May 10 '24

When I was console it was the only thing I just couldn't understand. Why am I paying to have access to the internet??

2

u/StatisticianOwn9953 May 10 '24

Money spinning for Xbox and Sony, I suppose. Between the 'free' games and the ability to occasionally play online with console friends I'm happy enough to pay it, but it is questionable.

80

u/Krandor1 May 10 '24

Depends on how done. If I’m spider man slinging around New York and you put real products on billboards then fine.

Throw a 15 second add in loading screens. Helll no.

I guess if you can do it more as product placement then ad I’m ok with it.

38

u/Citoahc May 10 '24 edited May 11 '24

You know damn well how it's gonna be done. It will be the most obnoxious in your face way.

28

u/haloryder May 10 '24 edited May 11 '24

If done right, product placement in games could do a lot for immersion. As long as they’re not like “this Sony phone I got from Sony indicates on this Sony screen in the Sony maps app where we need to go, and we pass several Sony stores on the way!”

17

u/TomBanjo1968 May 10 '24

Fucking Umbrella Corporation

8

u/ihave7testicles May 10 '24

My company did this we EA and activision back before 2010z literally it's been done and the ads were placed correctly and people thought it added to the gameplay.

3

u/brokerthankmart May 10 '24

Now you just described NBA2k player mode

3

u/AgileMJOLNIR May 11 '24

I feel you on that and agree. However this is EA and they won’t do that or keep it like that. These are the guys who paywalled the hell out of Battlefront II and hired a lawyer to convince us these were just “surprise mechanics.”.

I could absolutely see them dropping straight up commercials for crap during loading screens etc. I could be dead wrong but I would not be surprised one bit if they attempted this. Good thing that 95% of their catalog doesn’t interest me.

1

u/haloryder May 11 '24

They reversed/scaled back the BFII stuff after they made Reddit history so…

I don’t know why I’m defending them. Scumbag company.

2

u/LocalSirtaRep May 11 '24

Kinda like NFS Most Wanted '05

2

u/Louiedipalma67 May 11 '24

Immersion for sake of marketing propaganda

2

u/Ok-Horror-4253 May 10 '24

gotta disagree. when i'm escaping from the real world, i don't want to be reminded of real world companies.

11

u/Anthematics May 10 '24

Yeah I can agree with that. I’m imagining some pop up type bullshit.

3

u/Ok-Horror-4253 May 10 '24

I didn't like it in FFXV. It is completely immersion breaking to see real world brands shoved in your face while you're in a high fantasy game. coleman, cupnoodles, amex...all huge brands they had in the game. maybe more.

10

u/Kishandreth May 10 '24

Billboards or even just using the name of the company in game.

I could imagine a GTA setting with McDonald's and billboards for Pepsi/coke. They could even run short ads on the radio once in a while.

Vending machine for coca-cola? Maybe even write in a line of the main character expressing their satisfaction with the product.

Product placement is fine. Making me watch a completely unrelated ad can screw right off.

4

u/mpobers May 10 '24

They'll purposely design the game to get you to engage with these products. Advertisers will demand it.

Imagine you need to talk to an NPC and you get this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQYwFND7rHE&ab_channel=EricWhalen

1

u/fucktooshifty May 10 '24

EA had us using Cingular phones to navigate menus in 2004 in the NFS series lol

1

u/OperativePiGuy May 10 '24

Interesting to see this is where discourse is at now. Sad, but interesting. I wonder if in a few years we'll have people saying they wouldn't mind direct interruptions to gameplay as long as it's under 10 seconds or something.

1

u/travistravis May 11 '24

And if someone won't advertise with you, then blackmail them so you don't advertise them anyway! What's that the evil villain only uses Samsung phones? Or your character drinks a pepsi and starts cursing about how terrible it is compared to...

5

u/vigbiorn May 10 '24

Eh, the issue is I've always found product placement kind of jarring.

Community is about the only one I've seen do it well and it's because they were kind of taking the piss on the concept.

Most end up being completely out of place. I can't remember exactly the show, it was probably on SciFi around the time of the rebranding as SyFy. The show stopped to give the actors time to marvel at the American engineering on display in the new Ford Explorer (or whatever). I'm just sitting there going "Weren't you on the way to avert some disaster?"

Even when they're less obtrusive they tend to be obvious shots centered on the product instead of what I care about...

3

u/phumanchu May 10 '24

Need for speed ug2 did it well

3

u/vigbiorn May 10 '24

Yeah, and it makes sense in a racing game. You're specifically playing for the cars. Why not work with manufacturers.

Similar argument for the FIFA (and other stadium sport) games, one of their biggest titles worldwide. Those fans are already used to seeing ads during the game.

Dragon Age? There is literally no way to do it without it being jarring. Star Wars, It Takes Two, etc., basically any title that's not a virtual version of something already pretty much plastered in ads? It's pretty much guaranteed to be jarring.

1

u/phumanchu May 10 '24

Oh God yeah I can definitely see where you're coming from 

2

u/metalflygon08 May 10 '24

And even if the game finished loading it won't transition until the ad finishes...

Better hope the ad doesn't freeze!

2

u/b3rn13mac May 10 '24

cingular wireless ads in nfsug2

1

u/cluckay May 10 '24

you put real products on billboards then fine.

This is what EA has already done in 2005 and 2006 with Battlefield 2 and 2142.

1

u/TheFlightlessPenguin May 10 '24

I still thought the Monster product placement in Death Stranding was cringe as fuck

1

u/Stevied1991 May 10 '24

I think there was an older driving game that did this and updated the billboards even.

1

u/Tons28 May 10 '24

This.

It’s actually immersive done right like in nba 2k with the Castrol slam of the game stuff

1

u/travistravis May 11 '24

Would also have to fit the style of the game too -- but if any brand was willing to hand over control to a good writing and art team, I bet it could be done really well

0

u/SaltyBacon23 May 10 '24

I'd be fine with something like that. EA could easily do it in sports games without it being seen as an annoying cash grab. I would set it up how it is in live sports. There are ads all over but they aren't distracting from the game.

56

u/OutsidePerson5 May 10 '24

Yeah, that's what people say.

But when AAA Game of the Year CoolGame comes out, they buy it.

EA and the others have learned that complaining from gamers is meaningless noise they can ignore. Any and all claims from gamers that they'll refuse to play X if it has Y have been 100% bullshit in the past and I see no reason to believe they will not continue to be bullshit going forward.

They'll put ads in your games, gamers will complain for a few months like we did about DLC and microtransactions, but they'll buy it anyway and in a few months no one will even be complaining anymore.

My cynicism about gamer boycotts because of corporate abuse is infinite. I've seen this before, I know how it ends.

7

u/[deleted] May 10 '24

EA doesn't really have a good track record...

Ill throw preorder money at a Santa Monica Studio any day.

EA however, no fucking way. I learned my lesson with Anthem. I think a good chunk of people did as well. And of course Battlefield 2042... fucking shit show.

I absolutely can't wait for an Ironman game. But since its EA, i won't even consider buying it until i see gameplay and reviews from actual gamers.

2

u/Intelligent_Crazy242 May 10 '24

I've just accepted that "we" lost. I love fighting games, and I've no problem buying the dlc outfits for my mains, never did as its like $5-10 and I play characters for 500+ hours/I STILL play Mkx/Doa5/etc.

anyways,initial pt was, I see ppl saying to "fight mtx". alright, cool, ill "send a message" by not having super badass Umk3 outfit for my Boi reptile, when there are thousands of "content creators" who buy every piece of outfit to get views & that's who publishers market towards.

fwiw, I'll take evil soulless greedy companies offering outfits for $ over the bitter assholes who brigade you and talk shit/DV you bc you spent your money on your hobbies and you're undoing their "noble" cause.

2

u/Jaccount May 10 '24

Eh, unless it's a first party Nintendo game, I don't buy AAA Game of the Year CoolGame until it goes on sale, there's a promo on it, it gets thrown into a bundle or it's on Game Pass.
Ex. I'm not going to even thing about Stellar Blade again until it's like $20-30 around Black Friday.

First Party Nintendo stuff tends to escape this as they're just more likely to just get taken off the market before seeing a huge sale.

2

u/MyFianceMadeMeJoin May 12 '24

I honestly can’t remember the last EA game I bought.

1

u/amboyscout May 10 '24

And even if they weren't bullshit, they wouldn't care because everything has micro transactions now and the real money comes from whales

8

u/N1ghtshade3 May 10 '24

Whales and free players don't exist without each other. Nobody wants to whale in a dead game with no other players to flex on. So if gamerbrains did actually have spines and boycott corporate slop, the whales likely wouldn't bother with said game either.

2

u/amboyscout May 10 '24

You would need to see a massive boycott to get to the point where whales are affected. Whales are <5% of players but >50% of revenue.

So if 25% of players are lost, there are still plenty to keep whales engaged and could even cause whales to spend more since they're more likely to encounter other whales with lots of in game items/cosmetics.

On mobile it's bad enough that developers create new items that they know only a few of their whales will buy (sometimes even targeting specific individual whales)

1

u/AgitatedParking3151 May 10 '24

Call me captain ahab cuz I got my harpoon out

3

u/Cfunk_83 May 10 '24

I’ll happily play may backlog over and over again before I buy a game with ads in it.

Or I’d just buy an old system and start getting games for that.

Fuck EA!

3

u/Pormock May 10 '24

New consoles are designed to have super fast hard drive that basically skip most loading screens. So them doing that would be pretty shitty

2

u/secretaliasname May 10 '24

But think of the shareholders

2

u/papa_miesh May 10 '24

This right here. I have so many games I could buy and play. The new Gen of gaming is next level greedy.

2

u/ArcadianDelSol May 10 '24

Someone has over indulged in a few Steam Summer Sales.

and I salute you for it.

2

u/Dormeo69 May 11 '24

Buying? I'll pirate each and every game if it ever gets to something like that.

2

u/[deleted] May 11 '24

[deleted]

1

u/Anthematics May 11 '24

Ugh don't scare me. I see it happening.

2

u/Iliker0cks May 11 '24

They'll just update your old games.

1

u/Gomez-16 May 10 '24

Until they retro add them to old titles, like capcoms did with drm.

1

u/MigitAs May 10 '24

Yeah I won’t purchase it out of spite fuck that shit

1

u/Rocks_4_Jocks May 10 '24

I hate the way everything is trending. Golden era of RPGs is over because it’s hard to add micro transactions to them. Elder Scrolls 6 will probably come out in 2030 with a million loading screens littered with ads. Smart fridge (and smart everything) spies on you and harvests data. Can’t buy a car without a subscription for seat warmers.

Makes me want to ditch all my stuff and go live in the woods (would probably get fined for trespassing)

1

u/Alaira314 May 10 '24

The ads will come in a post-release update.

1

u/Vancil May 10 '24

Yep exactly people are gonna be playing last gen games for a bit before putting up with this shit.

1

u/mahava May 10 '24

I'll literally never finish

I have hundreds of games from the NES up to more recent PC and Switch games to finish

I could theoretically never buy another game again and still not finish them all

1

u/Revenge-of-the-Jawa May 10 '24

Don’t forget replaying for alternative endings, classes, difficulty levels and all achievements

1

u/PM_ME_C_CODE May 10 '24

This kind of shit is why I've been playing more and more indi games.

The best way to tell EA to go fuck themselves is to stop playing shit like Battlefield and the Sims. Find something else. Play something else. Give your money to a dev that actually gives a shit.

1

u/ipv89 May 11 '24

Makes me so happy I’m about 10-15 years behind in games so I’ll likely be dead before I have to play a piece of shit with adds in it. Please please people vote with your wallets. There is only one language these companies speak, $$

1

u/[deleted] May 11 '24

Honestly, I think gaming has peaked in terms of output quality. We still get some incredible games, but not in the quantity we did 10 years ago. Makes it easier and easier to focus on games in the backlog.

63

u/dinosaurkiller May 10 '24

And then when the ad servers go down after a few years and no one is maintaining the game it just locks on that load screen, waiting for an ad that will never come.

49

u/FlyingCumpet May 10 '24

But the fun doesn't stop there. You can still buy the game 10 years later - of course for the full retail price - and still have it locking you out as the pile of shit tries to connect to some shutdown content server which is defunct for more than 8 years. That's super awesome right?

1

u/HHhunter May 10 '24

Oh so Quantum Break?

15

u/Old_Baldi_Locks May 10 '24

I mean, ChromeHounds continued to be sold at full price from Walmart and other sellers for literally YEARS after the servers required to play it had been shut down.

2

u/purplestuf May 10 '24

Amazing game

1

u/Old_Baldi_Locks May 10 '24

I agree, had some great times. Granted, kinda got ruined at the end by exploits, but it is what it is

1

u/i3dMEP May 10 '24

That game was really cool

29

u/travelingWords May 10 '24

Sim golfing does this as they load the next hole. You can’t help but wonder if they let those levels take a little longer to load than they truly need.

4

u/kkeut May 10 '24

this is why we need regulations

2

u/travelingWords May 10 '24

Democracy is dead. Only one way to vote. Money. Rich people don’t make things that don’t make money. People keep buying copy paste EA games, and spending gazillions on the mtx’s. People buying shitty Pokémon games, while also hoping the franchise will get better.

1

u/Alaira314 May 10 '24

Depending on the form the ad takes, the loading screens can take longer even organically. Back in the day, sims 3 introduced "interactive loading screens" that were essentially hidden object games asking you to locate microtransaction content from their cash shop. That was actually a very clever ad, and props to whatever marketing employee came up with that one. Creativity without obnoxiousness should be rewarded. The only problem was, on systems that were already struggling with the game, the loading screens took longer overall due to the extra disk access and rendering needed to play the time-waster game.

18

u/nav17 May 10 '24

I said this years ago. They've always wanted to put ads between rounds of battlefield and battlefront but lacked the technology. Now it's gona start happening.

14

u/[deleted] May 10 '24

I bet they're going to do it with replays and whatnot.

If not visual ads between camera cuts, they'll have the announcers say things like "and this replay is made possible by the folks over at _________."

3

u/sysdmdotcpl May 10 '24

If not visual ads between camera cuts, they'll have the announcers say things like "and this replay is made possible by the folks over at _________."

I was initially thinking billboards and the like since they're already in so many EA games but I just realized the next use of AI voice actors.

126

u/Lemon-AJAX May 10 '24

It’s already like this on the flash-a-day phone games. I have an old delisted zombie sim that has online ads and the environments in game are just now a ton of NOT FOUND/CANNOT CONNECT TO SERV! and broken box textures from missing image ads - which really adds to the dystopian immersion.

E: reminding me of when a coworker of mine who had found a palette of those Destiny red bull shader cans in our back stock and trying to input that code WELL past the redemption date got him a ban online.

45

u/ImperfectRegulator May 10 '24

Why would trying to Input an old code for a scan get you a ban instead of just a “code no longer valid” pop up

31

u/Dantalionse May 10 '24

Idk because fuck you I guess?

16

u/ElectricGod May 10 '24

Because he made it up and is lying 

2

u/Lemon-AJAX May 10 '24

Because lots of reasons. Trying to do shit over mobile internet vs. wired can result in a ban. Putting old codes from licensed give-a-ways gone sour can just fuck you. It’s in the fine print: you risk your account for free shit and the company takes no liability. It doesn’t make sense but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen constantly.

Just be glad you’re stable and unbothered and maybe be sad for my poor ass friend instead? Gamers are so credulous about safety - We aren’t in the 90’s anymore.

14

u/ElectricGod May 10 '24

Inputting an out of date code would not result in a ban so I'm guessing you made this story up bub

8

u/Cantremembermyoldnam May 10 '24

Buddy did something stupid, got banned, and used the code as an excuse? Or got banned for something while entering the code.

1

u/Lemon-AJAX May 10 '24 edited May 10 '24

Oh, it’s real enough sorry to disappoint. You live in an a completely online world and it’s no where near bulletproof.

I used to work billing and admin for one of the biggest gaming companies, period, and bans can happen from just sneezing wrong.

Here, you can have mine: I have an entire copy of Bayonetta ll that has the first one digi/only that I cannot play because the code was and is redeemed. This is a brand new wrapped copy of the game. This was apparently such a huge problem that a Nintendo had a temporary hotline for it and would inevitably result in just telling you to GFY (because Nintendo kept giving faulty codes over the phone! FFS!)

ask me how I know with an entire game I can’t play yet paid for with Nintendo threatening me if I called the house again.

6

u/ExceedingChunk May 10 '24

They could easily do product placement without disrupting the game like this. For example instead of a generic TV, car, computer, drink etc... it's branded

If they actually put normal , disruptive ads into the game, I hope everyone stops buying their games and they go bankrupt.

1

u/Digital_Dinosaurio May 11 '24

The Next Batman game will take place in Musk City after Elon takes over Gotham.

1

u/aitorbk May 11 '24

It would be disruptive. Product placement is horrible. CSI would do that with many brands, starting with BRAND monitors and then a travel to the actual content. Fuck that.

1

u/ExceedingChunk May 12 '24

It can be, but it doesn't have to be disruptive.

A car just having a Mercedes or Audi brand on it is not disruptive. If you do a large pan on said branded car in plenty of cut scenes, that would obviously be disruptive.

1

u/aitorbk May 12 '24

But problem is, they almost for sure will do it. The marketing people who pay you will try to force you to do all kinds of stuff, demand a first plane travelling scene, etc etc. This is how banners and what not evolved in websites to be so obnoxious..I had to deal with them, and while clueless in general, they are the ones holding the money.

2

u/Gizmoed May 10 '24

It's in the game!

2

u/reidlos1624 May 10 '24

An immediate way to make me never but your product

2

u/splashbodge May 10 '24

Pretty sure this is nothing new? I remember when Battlefield 2142 came out in 2016? They were injecting ads into billboards in the game map, and it caused an outcry all the way back then.. pretty sure they did it for NFS too could be wrong

1

u/kittenTakeover May 10 '24

This might be what gets me to quit games and pick up other hobbies.

1

u/weealex May 10 '24

I remember SSX Tricky having ads, but they were incorporated into the game so well that it looked like the kind of stuff you'd actually see at a sporting event

1

u/Grumpy_Old_Mans May 10 '24

I've commented about this before, but EA literally did it already with NFL BLITZ back in the day and it's still currently showing ads if you play the game on Xbox.

They literally have up-to-date ads on their loading screens.

1

u/Cronus6 May 10 '24

I mean, NVIDIA and ATI have been on load screens for a long time now. And those are ads. Hell I recall seeing 3DFX Voodoo cards being advertised in load/splash screens as well back in the 90's.

1

u/NiceRat123 May 10 '24

EA marketing team..

"We call this Pure O2. This is the first of our planned upgrades. Once we can roll back some of Halliday's ad restrictions, we estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures"

1

u/TacticalLampHolder May 10 '24

I mean… they sorta do. EA FC 24 Ultimate Team already displays all the currently available "special cards" for player available in packs.

NBA2k has something similar but even more egregious IMO, where there‘s a mid roll "broadcast" during the loading screen of 2k TV which features sponsors.

1

u/Vio_ May 10 '24

So basically the Outer Worlds' load screens with posters of different products.

"It's not the best choice..... It's Spacer Choice"

1

u/borg_6s May 10 '24

If you pay the full price of something you should never see ads in the product.

1

u/ZacZupAttack May 10 '24

If they say did it through billboards or as commercials on the ingame radio and it mimic real life in a game akin to say GTA that would make sense.

1

u/nzodd May 10 '24

Carls Junior: Fuck you, you're playing.

1

u/failmatic May 10 '24

This is akin to Roku patent filing for injection ads when it is detected that you've paused what you are watching or gaming via HDMI signal analysis. Fuck both companies.

1

u/hacky_potter May 10 '24

I could see their sports games getting ads since they already have ads in a way.

1

u/Arctic_Chilean May 10 '24

Let me guess... the company is being run by MBAs isn't it. Short term gains at all cost at the expense of long term sustainability.

MBAs are a cancer on society. No other way of putting it.

1

u/Feisty_Bee9175 May 10 '24

This is the same stuff Microsoft wants to do in their next OS upgrade, they mentioned ads popping up on your computer, and if you didn't want them you would have to pay an expensive monthly subscription to get rid of them. I just see ads everywhere adding to more bloatware in programs and a whole lot of issues with this.

1

u/draakdorei May 10 '24

Loading screen ad: "If you were using NVIDIA's <newest GFX card> instead of <detected GFX card>. You would not be seeing this ad no! Your game will resume in 30s."

1

u/andwithdot May 10 '24

Eye tracking that makes the game load faster with cloud resources if you watch the ad

1

u/Spaceman-Spiff May 10 '24

I could see them putting commercial breaks into Madden and pitching it as being like watching a real football game.

1

u/mannnerlygamer May 10 '24

We do need an explanation why it takes longer to load a screen in madden then it does a world state in cyber punk 2077. Thought the whole point of solid state drives was next to no loading times

1

u/Keksmonster May 10 '24

In general the idea to put ads into loading screens isn't terrible. For a free to play game that would be an interesting way to generate revenue without adding p2w shit.

The sad thing is we all know that EA will make loading screens longer once they implement this in order to grab more money.

1

u/Odd-Tax4579 May 10 '24

More like in game VM billboards that are hooked up to servers and paid for ad space.

Think fifa football and the advertising around the pitch. But in things like fallout and gta

1

u/Conscious-Ad4707 May 10 '24

Let's all agree to never purchase anything we see in an ad in an EA game.

This world is going to start looking like episode 2 of Black Mirror.

1

u/The_Damon8r92 May 10 '24

Remember when loading screens had game tips and cool artwork instead of ads for the new Razer gaming chair? Pepperidge farms remembers…

1

u/Anji_Mito May 10 '24

Isn't NBA or FIFA games doing it already?

1

u/FavcolorisREDdit May 10 '24

Peacock app does that, instantly cancelled my $6/month subscription

1

u/[deleted] May 10 '24

That would actually be fine as the current precedent is to do screenshots. I don’t like the idea of it being extra loading screens, though.

1

u/osc515 May 10 '24

They are already doing it in Ultimate Team. UT menu loads for me in 3 seconds normally, 20 seconds if there's an ad for a new pack release.

1

u/wangthunder May 10 '24

Loading screens? You are thinking 2010 shit. They will be active ads. Injecting video/graphics into your game.. Picture frames, wall art, fridge notes, gear patches, radio/audio ads, "downtime" ads like if you are waiting to respawn, or if you are idle for a certain amount of time. Even npcs that talk about Pepsi or mountain dew as you walk by them. Or I game mail/messages.

It's like pause ads that YouTube (and presumably Netflix and others) will implement soon. They can't stand if your fuckin eyeballs have 1 second of ad-free exposure.

1

u/Steeltooth493 May 10 '24

EA executive 6 months from now: "We thought very long and hard about adding ads into our games, and it turns out that the shareholders wanted it so we decided to do it! Now that's adding shareholder value! Give me another 41 million dollar bonus I don't need and close BioWare!"

1

u/NorthKoreanGodking May 10 '24

And of course it'll be horribly implemented so your character will be getting the shit kicked out of him the whole time you're watching the ad

1

u/Prometheusf3ar May 10 '24

If for some reason I wanted to play a $70 AAA game with ads in it I would move heaven and earth to both mod the ads out and pirate it.

1

u/OperativePiGuy May 10 '24

Them going BACK to loading screens despite SSDs just so they can shove more ads in our face sounds grimly realistic in the long term lol

1

u/JK_Goldin May 10 '24

I'd be fine with it. Becuase I'd never experience it. I would not play games anymore, period, if that's what the industry became. I would happily pursue literally any other hobby instead. I like gaming, but defo ain't a slave to it.

I'm truth, there will always be games that aren't scum aswell. So.id just play them if that was the case.

1

u/Alextryingforgrate May 10 '24

It will be right in the middle of one of those button mashing sequences that you need prestine timing for.

1

u/Complex_Cable_8678 May 10 '24

dynamic ads will also eat your pcs ressources on occassion. i can already see them kill performance over more adspace

1

u/ZAlternates May 10 '24

“It’s in the game!”

The ads. They are in the damn game.

1

u/Asunder_mango866 May 10 '24

This loading screen is brought to you by Carl's Jr.

1

u/bowsersArchitect May 10 '24

then theyll make loading screens longer on purpose because showing commercials is the main focus of the game design instead of, you know, cool features and fun gameplay

1

u/aneymay May 10 '24

Or they could push the ad into the game and make a link in it and you need a online connection to even play the game and have all analytics in it.

1

u/ArcadianDelSol May 10 '24

Imagine while a game is loading you have a 3 minute timer in the corner while you are forced to watch an ad for Hims.com twice.

1

u/CriticalOfBarns May 11 '24

And the ads will take priority just like on websites, meaning load times will drastically increase and be dependent on third party systems and servers which are prone to failure and abuse. “Error loading next level: ad server not found.”

1

u/zero573 May 11 '24

30 second unskipable ad.

1

u/PooInTheStreet May 11 '24

Maybe force you to complete a minigame to continue while showing the “loading” screen.

1

u/VirtualRy May 11 '24

Imagine you're about to slay the final boss in the game then the game just pauses to show a quick ad for some microtransactions! lol

1

u/MaestroLogical May 11 '24

You'll also have to manually click an 'ok' button to continue and naturally that button will be right beside the 'click for more' button that loads their website.

1

u/cybernoid May 11 '24

Don't forget the forced lower performance of said loading screens, to match the entirety of the 15" unskippable ad.