The whole point of my favorite games, especially the single player versions, is the escapism. The “I do not want to think about the current world or its problems”. You start throwing ads in the game, that aspect is completely removed. I will never play a game that has this in it. Walking through Tamriel and some fucking beverage or mobile game pops up and I’m gonna fire bomb some game execs million dollar house.
The funny thing is they did used to do this back in the day with games like Crazy Taxi. It was a decent way to get some development funds as well.
They stopped doing it because I think it was too hard to gauge how much of am effect it actually had.
Knowing EA, they're probably thinking about unskippable slop and not franchising ingame universe with billlboards and locations lol.
It was a hell of an effective advertisement on me for The Offspring.
YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAHHH
Even more product placement? I thought we already did this! Now we're gonna have Google Ads telling me to buy some cheap thing from Temu or Shien that looks suspiciously sexual like a flesh colored body suit?
I never got into Android gaming because 90% of it is adware. If the PC landscape turns into this, you can bet your ass I'll stop playing that as well.
Well the beauty of PC is that you could always jump ship to another distributor/developer if one turns into shit.
EA is already there, so it's easy to play games from other devs instead XD
There are so many incredible indie games coming out these days too. Its just not worth buying the overpriced garbage big studios are trying con us into.
And if indie goes to shit too, we still have a solid 30 or so years of old games to play.
I wont. There are thousands of good old games I've never played.
There are more people making independent video games today than at any point in history.
I just don't understand the all-or-nothing perspective that video game social media pundits have.
Personally, I absolutely prefer indie art films generally, but my preference doesn't mean that Michael Bay blockbusters shouldn't exist, or that Universal Pictures should go out of business...
Not everything needs to be for everyone, and most things created aren't created for ME.
Once again, by decades long boycott of EA is paying off.
Mine isn't even an active boycott. I just don't care at all for anything they make.
To think there’s not a single billboard or radio ad in the Black Flag remake. All those missed opportunities…
Sea shanties of all your favourite radio ads.
1 877 ships for kids
Oh oh oh o’rielly’s pirate ship parts.
I HAVE DLC PAYMENT AND I NEED CASH NOW!
If you or a loved one have scurvy, you may be entitled to compensation.
I'm Wilford Brimley, and I have scurvy.
Had an accident at sea that wasn't your fault?
“Please normalize this and diffuse the backlash across the industry to it’s not just another thing people hate EA for.”
Ubisoft: "Way ahead of you, fam!"
I don't and won't play games with in-game ads. No matter how good they apparently are otherwise, I'll never know.
Only one I can justify is the EA sports games. Mainly because I refuse to play those games.
Bullshit. What do you play, Pitfall?
Advertising (which includes product placement) is so ubiquitous there's essentially zero chance you're avoiding it, you just don't notice it...
Never heard of pitfall. My recently played games:
Rimworld, Factorio, CDDA, Quasimorph, Against the Storm, Highfleet, Vintage Story.
CDDA is full of real world brands...
There are so few games I play in which ads would make sense. Hard to shoehorn a dorito ad in a fantasy universe or on a distant planet. I very much wouldn't welcome it.
There are a few odd cases I can remember, like freaking Tonic Trouble ages ago that was another Rayman-like from Ubisoft and power-ups in that game (in Europe) were crunch bars from a vending machine. Or back when I played Splatoon they did an event in which you had to fight for a brand of noodles or some shit.
Oh yeah, there's that absurd thing in Mario Kart 8 where they added 3 mercedes mini-cars out of nowhere. It's terrible but also so stupid it's a bit funny, especially since it's the only product placement they ever did in that game.
Don't forget the Monster energy drink in Death Stranding…
I'm pretty sure 90% of Fortnight characters are an ad now. Every real car in driving games like Gran Turismo is licensed and an ad. DotA2 did a Monster Hunter collab, which are basically ads.
Honestly I don't even mind this kind of unintrusive ad. They can stay, and collabs can even be fun or enjoyable. That seems to be what they're mostly talking about, alongside branded consoles to bring prices down. Or adding sponsored DLC to older games to bring back interest and make side money at the same time.
I think that's the distinction here. If it's something that fits naturally into the game and it's part of the game, it's ok. We've had this for years and nobody is complaining about it. But if they're talking about animated banners or 30 second ad breaks between matches, they can fuck right off with that.
Early experiments included a custom Mountain Dew stadium “playable experience” in EA Sports College Football 26 and Visa branding in EA Sports FC.
"As we do these things, it’s ultimately around like, you know, are the players engaging with it? Are they talking about it? Is it ultimately leading to the brand being talked about and engaged in a positive way?”
I played Alan Wake (the first one) recently for the first time and was surprised to see Verizon billboards, Energizer batteries/flashlights and Lincoln cars in the game.
I personally didn’t mind it and treated it as an Easter egg opposed to an actual ad, if it were a pop-up or something that halted me in my place I would be annoyed sure but minor things like that kinda give it a bit of realism.
Note; I did want to link the Alan Wake x Energizer/Verizon/Lincoln collab here but then I got this pop-up on the first site that came up -
Pop-ups like this make me not want to use your product or service.
Edit; Kotaku didn’t care for my ad blocker so I’ll link them instead of fandom -
https://kotaku.com/alan-wake-remastered-is-ditching-the-energizer-batterie-1847658945
It's very interesting that remakes and remasters seem to be stripping out the ads / in-game branding because the licensing expired or didn't extend to the remake of the same game. For example Death Stranding remake is also removing the Monster cans and replacing them with generic energy liquid. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but it is a thing.
They surely won't let Monster get free ads, what are they? A charity? Either pay up or your cans get deleted!
Drinkus deletus
I'm all for it. Everywhere there's space for an ad to be blended into the background of the game to subliminally market to me should be utilized to its fullest.
The games will be free, right? The ads are what pays for it, right?
Advertising is brainwashing and should be illegal globally. No more ads!
There are better ways to finance stuff.
Do these execs really not grasp how many sales they slowly bleed by making modern triple A games unbearable...? Like they don't actually have a captive audience, people can and do just play indie and old games instead.
Making games genuinely unbearable and pissing everyone off seems like such an obviously bad business decision, but being a VP requires being dumb as a brick I guess
Person who has developed a service to put ads in games says companies should think about putting ads in games.
"EA Advertising is a platform that’s directly integrated into Frostbite, the engine EA uses to make its biggest games, from Madden to Battlefield. The idea is to streamline what’s required to create custom ads for clients and then track how players “engage” with the ads. “Advertisers can now collaborate with EA in a privacy-safe way to improve targeting and gain deeper campaign insights,” the company wrote last month. “EA ensures ads are viewable, delivered to real audiences, and measured using industry-accredited standards in partnership with Integral Ad Science.”
Honestly I'm for it. I hope all the major players adopt this so we can watch the pillars of the gaming industry collapse.
From the wreckage will be a renaissance of developers whose priority in making games is that they're good.
I've sworn off game companies for less.
This has been a hot topic among AAA developers for a long ass time. Steam is setting certain requirements, such as engagement with advertisements may not be forced - But product placement that fits within the world is fine
I wonder if that is one of the reasons the original Death Stranding isn't available on Steam anymore. The healing items in that game are cans of Monster Energy. Totally out of place in a far futuristic post-apocalyptic world. And interaction is forced (can't progress without drinking a can)
can't progress without drinking a can
"Drink the confirmation can now"
What happened, EA? Did five minutes already pass before you gave everyone something to hate about your greedy, corporate, pulseless guts?
I swear, nobody can have any hobbies nowadays without execs enshittifying everything.
I thought EA had already been doing this with need for speed all the way back in Xbox 360 times?
The only ads in games I’ve ever been ok with were the ones in SWAT 4 where they just had dynamic textures that pulled different ads in so it was literally just like, decorative flyers on the walls were real ads instead of fake ones. Of course I could do with most the whole game braking 20 years later because the back end shit down thing.
Certain games this might be ok in, depending on the game. I mean say like in games like Cyberpunk and there are ads everywhere. It’s part of the world. Maybe that. But some ancient fantasy game, fuck no.
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