EA is rethinking in-game ads

One of the biggest publishers in the world is once again toying with the idea of inserting ads into AAA games, which game fans look forward to every year and are willing to pay more than 60 euros for. But for this price, everyone expects to receive a flawless game. Not only have we seen more and more game releases full of bugs and errors in recent years, we will obviously have to worry about having to put up with ads for that money. Indeed, Andrew Wilson, director of EA, is thinking about their introduction.

"It is too early to draw conclusions. Throughout our history, we've been very thoughtful about advertising in the context of our gaming experience. But when we consider the many, many billions of hours we spend playing, creating, watching and connecting, and how much of that engagement is at the edges of the traditional gaming experience, we expect advertising to be a whole new opportunity for growth.

We're going to be very careful about that, but we have teams in the company right now looking at how we can very thoughtfully implement advertising within our gaming experiences. But more importantly, we're starting to build a community and harness its power beyond the boundaries of our games."

These are not words that the average game fan wants to hear, but they are words that decision makers and investors are very keen to hear. Let's remember that EA once experimented with ads, and the end result was nothing but rage from their fans.

They already experimented once

In 2020, ads were inserted into the UFC 4 game to promote Amazon. The ad was playing while the user wanted to watch the clip backwards. American fans, however, had to endure advertisements of the then US President Barack Obama within the Burnout Paradise game.

Even Ubisoft has already tried this kind of game monetization. Last year, while playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey, there was a "technical error" that started showing ads in the game. These were at least partially related to the game franchise, but still users were appalled that they paid so much money and still had to watch ads. Ubisoft quickly fixed the mistake and apologized, but a bitter aftertaste remained.

In all likelihood, any ads will now not play in such an annoying way. Unfortunately, we won't know what "thoughtful ad placement" means until the first game with ads is released. Accusations immediately appeared online that publishers and developers are trying to copy the success of mobile games, where they earn fabulous amounts through aggressive monetization and ads.

Do AAA games even need ads? EA ended 2023-2024 with a turnover of US$7.56 billion, up 2 % from the previous year. AAA games like Jedi Survivor contributed 2 billion of that. Judging by these numbers, the games are doing well and don't need ads to survive. The problem we see is that if they succeed, other publishers could follow suit. This would lead to a new era of gaming, in which a game that can cost more than 60 or even 100 euros would be flooded with ads.