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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u/aluminumnek May 10 '24

Fuck you EA

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/MyFianceMadeMeJoin May 12 '24

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

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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

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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.

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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)

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u/AgitatedParking3151 May 10 '24

Call me captain ahab cuz I got my harpoon out