If you think that the advertisements in the game are just roadside billboards at best, you may be a bit naive. Recently, EA announced that it is cooperating with advertising technology companies to launch a new solution called “In-Game Ads”. The goal is no longer just to put advertisements into the game scene, but to allow advertising content to be more deeply integrated into the player’s gaming process. After the news was exposed, it immediately sparked heated discussions in the player community. After all, when it comes to EA and advertising, many players’ warning levels are not low.
Advertisements not only appear in the background, but may directly participate in the game experience in the future.
According to EA’s public information, this new system hopes to allow brand content to appear in the game in a more natural way, rather than simply presenting it in the form of pop-ups or banner ads. Officials stated that the goal is to allow advertisements to interact with the game world, further increasing player participation, while also bringing higher exposure to advertisers. In other words, in the future, players may not just see background boards, but some brand content that is directly linked to tasks, activities or game mechanics. Although EA emphasized that it would not affect the player experience, many players still immediately became alert after seeing the news.
What players fear most is actually not ads
In fact, advertising in modern games is nothing new. From brand sponsorships in sports games to virtual billboards in open world works, many players can actually accept them. What really worries players is that ads start to affect the game content itself. After all, no one wants to have an NPC suddenly ask you to drink a certain brand of drink when you receive a mission one day; or when you open the map, an ad will pop up before you can continue playing.
Although EA has not stated that it will go to this extent, many players have begun to imagine the worst. After all, there is an old saying in the gaming industry: when players start to worry about something, it usually means that someone in the industry has actually done it before.
EA’s name makes things more sensitive!
To be honest, if the same news came from other companies, the response might not be so big, but this time the protagonist is EA. From microtransactions, Ultimate Team card packs, to various business model controversies over the years, EA has always been one of the most discussed companies among players. Therefore, whenever the words “new profit-making method” appear, the community will automatically enter alert mode. Some players even joked that now they only see advertisements in the game. In a few years, they might not be able to save the game until they watch the advertisements.
Advertising and immersion are ultimately a tug-of-war
From a manufacturer’s perspective, advertising is indeed a huge source of revenue. But from the perspective of players, everyone spends money to buy games because they want to escape the advertising bombardment of the real world. Therefore, the question is never whether advertisements can appear, but to what extent. At least judging from the current public information, EA’s new technology is still in its early stages, and the actual application method has not yet been fully disclosed. But one thing is certain, when players see the sentence “Advertising will be more deeply integrated into the gameplay,” the picture that comes to mind is probably not exactly what EA imagined.