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!
I don’t and won’t play games with in-game ads. No matter how good they apparently are otherwise, I’ll never know.
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?”
it’s not 90%, it’s 100%. Whenever a new movie comes out or a tv show is popular or a musician releases a new album…whatever there will be an in game “event” and new skins in Fortnite. it’s totally a free to play ad with microtransactions for said ads.
It’s like cartoons of the 80s and early to mid 90s. the cartoons themselves were just ads for the toys. I mean hell the first Transformers movie in the 80s was just a massive commercial to introduce the new toyline by quite literally killing off the previous line. And I for one loved it.
Only one I can justify is the EA sports games. Mainly because I refuse to play those games.
Ads are not required for sports to be immersive.
But none intrusive banner ads is whatever, historically football games have included “fake ads” for charities and inclusion.
If that got changed to opt-in proper ads for a 10€ price deduction we’d be all ears
This is EA we are talking about, the “opportunity” is not to give the consumers a discount.
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…
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.
I wont. There are thousands of good old games I’ve never played.
Nobody owns “The PC Landscape” though, that’s the beauty. Steam has a large share, but even that is not completely unbreachable.
No one owns the Android landscape either
For different reasons than usual, this comment deserves the reply: “Let me Google that for you”.
(Or: Epic/Fortnite would beg to differ)
Why don’t you go ahead and do that and come back with some links.
Here’s a pretty important one:
Reminds me which platform FDroid works on. And Obtainium. And Accrescent. And Epic Games Store. And Amazon store.
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.
Microslop enters the chat…
LinuxDistros+Proton enters the chat…
Not installed one of their products in almost 2 decades now
Games for android do exist that are good and bought outright. But not nearly as many as the other junk that’s out there.
For PC when I think ads in games I think sports games like ads in NHL rink boards and burnout paradise city.
I know they exist but I can’t be bothered to sort through the mountains of garbage to find them.
“This Ring of Fire Resistance should protect you, Sir Bolden. And you know who else can protect you? State Farm!”
“Please normalize this and diffuse the backlash across the industry so it’s not just another thing people hate EA for.”
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.”
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.
Advertising is brainwashing and should be illegal globally. No more ads!
There are better ways to finance stuff.
Once again, my decades long boycott of EA is paying off.
Public statements like this is why EA continually wins “Worst Company” over real assholes like Blackrock.
I’ve sworn off game companies for less.
They’ve been saying this for 20 years.
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”
I understood this reference.
Good job, Captain America! 👍🏼
Metal Gear Solid 5 also has product placement with fashion items like RayBan sunglasses and shit. I think the two biggest reasons DS is only available with the Director’s Cut is that the license agreement for the product placement ran out, and fans also generally hated that particular aspect more than any other issues the game itself had.
Putting Dao’s personal cell phone number and other contact info on the back of every in-game billboard with a real ad would be a nice Easter egg.
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.
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.
