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.
Fuck EA of course but that AI pic is horrible. The fuck does a U-shaped Ferrari sitting in front of an Obama campaign billboard have to do with EA putting ads in games?
Spot the part in the article how they want to do it “again”? Now think what that implies.
Hint: Burnout Paradise, a racing game published by EA, was released in 2008.
I know that I’ve played EA games before, but I don’t think that I’ve played stuff from them recently, so I don’t have a personal preference on their games.
As long as they also provide some option to pay more and not have ads, I don’t really see an issue. It just becomes another option to buy the game – if you want ad-supported, can do that, and if you want to pay directly, you can do that.
If they don’t have any option to pay for an ad-free experience, then it seems like it could be obnoxious for people depending upon their ad preference.
I think that all the games that I would play – setting aside the issue of EA specifically – I’d rather pay for an ad-free experience, but eh. Games with ads – as well as the option to buy an ad-supported or ad-free version at different prices – are a major thing on, say, mobile, so obviously there are people who would prefer the ad-supported route.
Back in 2022, EA patented a system that generates in-game content and ads based on a person’s playstyle.
Personally, I don’t really think that I want to have my activity logged and data-mined either way, though. I would pretty much always rather pay more than have my activity recorded. I care more about that than the ads. I’m fine paying more for that, but I want the opt-out. I’d also really prefer that vendors like Steam make it very clear that if a game is being subsidized by extracting data on a user, what data is being extracted. Right now, it’s kind of a free-for-all, and the games aren’t running in a jail, so they can do pretty much whatever.
Counter point, if I paid $60 for a game, i don’t want ads in that game
If I paid >$0 for a game I don’t want ads in that game.
Season passes, in game stores, and every other mtx in a game I paid for is insulting and generally ends up being intrusive and annoying since they tend to shove it in your face.
Counter-counter-point, “Devil’s 🥑,” games have cost $60 ($70 with the most recent generation) since, what, 2006? 2007?
$60 in 2006 is over $90 today.
So we’re paying less upfront for games now than we were in 2006. Yet costs to develop AAA games have gone up significantly.
I’m not saying ads in games is a good idea, I fucking hate ads. I also hate microtransactions. But every time prices go up people get angry. Remember the backlash when Xbox Series X and PS5 prices were standardized at $70?
I don’t know the solution. But the current trends are unsustainable. Just like everything else in late-stage capitalism.
This is an argument publishers love to make, but it’s bullshit. Yes, games (assuming you ignore in game purchases/DLC, which you obviously shouldn’t but I digress) have got cheaper in real terms due to inflation lowering how much $60 is really worth, while games have stayed at that level.
It’s also true that development costs have went up.
Now, here’s the part that game publishers conveniently never talk about: distributing games is far cheaper now. We’re usually not shipping pallets of discs that take up loads of space and cost money to physically create, while also having to build in a profit margin for all the middlemen along the way, including for the retailer. We predominantly buy games digitally.
On top of that, gaming used to be niche, now everybody does it. The market is far larger, so they don’t need to charge a lot to still make bank.
Now, here’s the part that game publishers conveniently never talk about: distributing games is far cheaper now. We’re usually not shipping pallets of discs that take up loads of space and cost money to physically create, while also having to build in a profit margin for all the middlemen along the way, including for the retailer. We predominantly buy games digitally.
On top of that, gaming used to be niche, now everybody does it. The market is far larger, so they don’t need to charge a lot to still make bank.
Great points! And yes, they’re almost never talked about!
Even though costs of AAA games have gone up for some games (certainly not all) because of the size of teams/labor hours, so have the volume of sales. Publishers have made more and more profit while the average price of AAA games had stayed about the same for a long time.
Games selling in the hundreds of thousands was considered really good decades ago but now those are in the tens of millions.
Publishers aren’t having problems with profitability, so much so that they’ve been buying up large swaths of development houses and IPs and then dismantling them when they have a single flop.
EA’s gross profit in 2010 was $1.6B, in 2014 was $3.03B and in the past 12 months have been $5.8B right now according to macrotrends.
But the current trends are unsustainable
The current trend in profitability is increasing, not decreasing. It isn’t a minor trend or minor increases either.
Major publisher profitability has vastly increased in spite of stagnant game prices. They don’t have to increase prices to increase growth. It is simply that the market allows the increase of the price with more profitability and so they do.
They also have far better scaling on sales than they did in 2006, with tons of storefronts and easy access for anyone to download and play a game without needing to go to a physical store.
People like to complain about steam taking 30% of a sale, but it isn’t like game companies were getting 70% of a boxed game on a shelf. They had manufacturing, shipping, and a ton of other costs for physical media that they don’t spend on digital sales that can scale infinitely in an extremely short period of time because it can’t sell out locally.
If they are spending too much for their return, then they need to scale back their spending.
It’s not our responsibility to help their shareholders make money.
We are purchasing a product from them, or a service, and we expect it to work, and not market us when we are using it.
If the cost of manufacturer is not being covered in the sales price to the customer, then they need the raise prices, or go out of business.
Or tell their shareholders to go pound sand.
A business model wherein the thing someone makes and sells brings in a profit just by customers buying the thing, without the long tail of continuing to sell the customers’ eyeballs to whoever forever after, is not an unreasonable concept. Countless indie games and smaller publishers have managed this for generations and still do.
If EA and the other massive blockbuster publishers can’t figure out how to make their business model work in a non-exploitative manner, too damn bad about it. We don’t actually need them.
I was going to read all of this until I got to “provide some option to pay more and not have ads” . Zero chance this would ever end in a consumer friendly way after that first payment.
This is some of the most corpo boot licking drivel I’ve read in a long time. It sounds like someone who has been locked in a tiny cell and forced to watch shareholder presentations on repeat then only are released until when can explain why all people want to be marketed to.
Pay extra for a non-ad experience? Ad preference?
Get the fuck out, and stop making shit ass mobile games.
gluck gluck gluck please let me pay even more money for the privilege of not being advertised to, corpo-daddy
“Oops we spilled some ad juice on the game server better pay us some more so we can have all the ad juice removed.”
EA already did this. Many games had real ads on billboards in the world. Need for speed underground 2 was sponsored by cingular wireless. Your ingame pager was product placement and the company’s logo was on screen whenever you were doing free roam.
This is very EA with historical precident.
Tbh, having advertisment on billboards in a racing game is the less intrusive and immersive way to do in game advertisement.
But then again billboards in real life are an eye sore. /shrug
Burnout paradise city. Which also was one of my fav games of all time. No ads would be cool.
I’m really struggling to remember when 's the last time I played an EA game. I can’t really…
Let them monetize everything until oblivion,no one’s gonna stop them anyway,so they might as well slowly die.
They’ve got EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA) and madden though, they’re never going to die.
Maybe not, but individuals can choose where to spend their money. The masses will still buy this shit, but I am the kinda guy will will make his own life harder based on morals.
Like I ain’t shopped on Amazon for years. Some stuff I just can’t find anymore. Not used WhatsApp for many years, makes it harder to join friend group chats. Etc.
The masses will still buy this shit
The dark side of the XKCD comic Ten Thousand is that there’s always a new pool of suckers entering the market - people who haven’t gotten burned yet and think they’re getting something real.
I am the kinda guy will will make his own life harder based on morals.
I wouldn’t even call it morals so much at Once Bitten, Twice Shy. There’s a point at which you don’t want to keep doing business with people who make you miserable.
Yeah I agree completely, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that companies are going to go bankrupt because a minority of users are absolutist about in-game ads, or will sacrifice social connections to avoid using Meta products.
This is my argument.
I don’t believe my choices have an impact at all, in fact they impact me more negatively than the things I avoid.
But I can sleep at night knowing I am not giving them my money, or my business, etc.
It’s like with the Reddit exodus and people thinking it would / will be the death of Reddit. The truth is they barley noticed we left and they certainly don’t care, but again morals.
You never know, this thread could make more people think like this and make conscious choices where you can, for yourself so you know you tried to not be a part of the problem.
Good thing seeing that a game is published or developed by EA, or one of its subsidiaries, is 9 times out of 10 enough for me to not bother with the game to begin with. They don’t make a thing that is worth dealing with them to get to play.
That company burned all of its good will and trust with me years ago. So sure go ahead and put as many ads as you want EA. I know for sure I won’t be seeing them.
This is another reason I tapping out of gamepass now. With whats happening with streaming, I don’t even want to support a “good deal” when I know the prices will go up, they’ll make tier pricing and add ads somewhere. I want to own my shit. I’m done with ads. Amazon last change to prime made me cancel all services except youtube and bought a 14tb hdd. EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard are all on do not buy list for me.
If they’d just be smart about it. Make the ads in-game. Like a Nike poster on a wall or a can of Pepsi on a table or something. I wouldn’t have a problem with that. Making them the entire focus - however brief - just makes me hate them immeasurably.
You can’t really sell ads on a per impression basis with just product placement. They want the ad sales to be recurring revenue.
Even then they should still be held to a higher standard.
Especially now in the era of generative AI.
The poster should have a well known character in the world lore holding the Coke, or a location in the map for the car ad, etc.
The ads should feel like they are actually a part of the world, and shouldn’t be put in a game unless this can be accomplished.
In game ads don’t have to suck. But because the power dynamic is such that shit ads can be shoved down players’ throats with the only response being to not buy that publisher’s games, the medium isn’t going to find an acceptable equilibrium.
In game ads in live service games for in game assets may not suck too much though (an inevitable part of the future).
Soon the game world will have speakers with ads, that will not really follow volume settings or distance attenuation.
The tutorial will have you collect “refreshing Pepsi Colas”.
Cinematics will always look to the big billboards.
And the game will have strict anti tampering/mods and will require internet connection to support this adds.
EA doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt anymore
I’m pretty sure their goal is to bring ads in the same form as the mobile games, not as part of the in-game world. If they can do it on mobile, why shouldn’t they on pc or consoles?
I think this will be an important thing for gamers to unite against, because if there isn’t enough push back, every big studio will do the same.
My last EA title was Red Alert III which they swaped for a version that required origin. I miss Westwood.
I do hope someone works out how to mod this to replace all ads with KPop.
There are many independent developers who deserve your money more than EA. Vote with your wallet.
Dead Space from 2008 is such a good game. EA has fallen so far. I don’t see myself ever buying another EA game at this point.
they don’t make games. they’re a publisher
That’s all they are now. RIP EA Redwood Shores. 🥲
*they’re buying studios who make legendary games and kill them.
They are a parasite to the gaming landscape.
That role is more on Embracer now
i just want to fucking play battlefield 1 when i want that i own. i don’t care about your EA live services, i don’t care about your ads. i already gave you my money because i liked the game. but i fucking hate you so much EA, like you’re on top of the list
Only game I play from EA is apex. Everything else is…rented…online…indefinitely. 🏴☠️
Guise, it’s this or they literally go broke. I know I’m going to keep my perpetual pre-order for every EA game ever made.
Idiots.
Last EA game I bought was Battlefield 1 at launch, since I was a Battlefield fanatic. Haven’t given them a penny since. I’m doing my part.
