I will, in turn, be very thoutful about buying any of your games.
If in-game ads become the norm, I guess I could either not play games anymore, or I could take my ship out onto the ocean.
There are more “lol fuck you” choices than there are “pretty please let me be bombarded with bullshit” options here.
There are enough games that can be enjoyed bullshit free, that you’ll never have to buy a new game again.
I guess indy devs will pop up faster than corps can buy them out and shut them down, but it’s still a depressing race to watch.
This has been the trend since early 2010. More and more games made by small companies are exploding and outselling AAA games. Stardew Valley had its all time peak 2 months ago despite being 8 years old, Dave the Diver popped off last year, Helldivers 2 broke records before Sony decided to fuck it up and subsequently get dragged through the mud, and Hades 2 is apparently awesome.
The slow death of AAA games has been great to watch. There’s so much more variety than 5 years ago and you don’t have to give your money to soulless corporations to enjoy them.
People are already paying for ads in games. Look at American/European truck simulator where you pay to have Goodyear or whatever other company on your rig.
If they do it tastefully… like a coke can in a cafeteria which would make it more realistic than a generic brand - it could work.
They’ve been doing this in movies for decades.
If it’s shit like pop ups or little red notification dots, they can go fuck themselves with a rusty screwdriver.
my ship sails the ocean because of shit like this for a while now. these people dont deserve money to nickel and dime us.
Meh, I have bought just one EA game in the last 5-6 years (NFS Heat, which was like 95% off).
More people should speak with their wallets.
“We’ll be very thoughtful about how to absolutely maximize our profits from this”
I mean, they’ve already been getting revenue from product placements in their sports games, many of which sell at or near AAA prices already.
To be fair, advertising in sports games is essentially expected. Advertising is all over the place in real world sports.
We all know that’s not what EA is talking about here though. They 100% are trying to figure out how to get that sort of advertising into other shit where it doesn’t fit well. You know they’d put real world ads into a single player Star Wars game right now if they could get away with it.
It’s like how product placement in movies started off super small. Now sometimes it just fucking smacks you in the face where you think is this movie legitimately just an ad?
What do you mean? Sips Corona
I was always wondering how much money shooters set in modern times like BF\COD get from weapon manufacturers and army. It’s both an ad for service and a shooting range with a touch of competition.
IIRC, the US military does not ask for much in money terms, but you can’t show it in a negative light. That’s why most games become thick with propaganda.
“Yousa enjoy Coca-Cola”
The cantina in Mos Eisley is now a Starbucks
Yes, I’m just surprised it’s taken them this long to go from ads in sports games to everywhere else
lol, that sentence was my first thought, too. Thoughtful about WHAT?
But how else can they guarantee infinite growth to their shareholders? Won’t someone please think of the poor shareholders???
“Our research shows that we can fill up to 82% of the visual field before inducing seizures!”
EA CEO password is definitely B055man69.
“You’re saying we can induce seizures in players? Quick, found a private ambulance company and make it a premium subscription, then fry everyone.”
And then we launch a municipal consulting company! with all of those new ambulances on the road, we need to get these city’s to put a $15 million dollar roundabout in every other intersection.
Ohhh so games will be cheaper because they’ll be subsidized right?.. right?..
EA Ads, they’re in the game!
Feel free. I stopped playing EA games and AAA titles years ago. You all enshitificated it enough as it is that I left awhile ago. Adding ads will only harden my resolve to never pick up another title.
Mostly the same, although I did break my accidental EA boycott for Titanfall 2, It Takes Two and Tales of Kenzera.
Oh no! If only there were thousands of other games I could play instead
Oh, ok. I haven’t bought an EA game in over a decade, and the one that I was gifted ended up being broken and nearly unplayable, so I’ll just continue abstaining from them.
It honestly amazes me that people still give EA money. “Vote with your wallet” doesn’t really work when 90% of “voters” don’t care.
I bought BF 4 during covid for $10.
I got about 150 hours worth before most of the guns were unlocked. Pretty happy with that. There was no new patches, seasons or any other junk to deal with
Fuck EA. I’ll never forgive them for Westwood.
Hell yeah, and maxis, them ruining command and conquer and sim city is unforgettable. I hope EA as a company burns to the ground.
I hope they get bought by Microsoft and shut down and their CEOs take a 737.
Still waiting on another Kyrandia game
So we will have to instal ad blocks for video games?
We should be so lucky. Plenty of games (and movies) already have ad placements. The NHL recently added fucking banner ads with motion to the boards. I can’t even watch that shit anymore.
Firefox doesn’t have an extension for that yet.
Fuck. Advertising.
At least that feels sort of organic.
Theres a classy (well… less sleazy) way to do it. if EA want to make the billboards in the next Need for Speed game real advertisements it wouldnt feel as bad as unskippable 30 second video advertisements before each race.
The problem is they will do both.
I’m pretty sure in game billboards with real ads has been done already
And like, in sporting games having ads where the real stadiums have them isn’t a huge deal to me as long as they don’t interrupt or put focus on them.
Though I’d prefer mock ads GTA style if you need ad space for realism purposes
Wasn’t there ads for Obama in Burnout Paradise? An EA game, too.
We need Ai adblockers as fast as possible. They could even recognize ad banners on video feed and just cover them / fit screen with auto-generated fill based on pixels around
Depends how they do it—given a game is running locally, they don’t need to connect elsewhere to get ads. They could easily bundle a load of ads with the game installation. In this case, it would need game mods, and they’re not gonna be the kind of mods EA will ignore, they will actively combat it.
If they do function like a regular ad platform and fetch ads as they’re needed, something like pihole will be able to block it.
The point of advertising is bidding and tracking, so they will be loaded online, always. But they f they go over the same connection as the game itself then pi-hole can’t block it.
The point of modern PPC style advertising, yeah. But traditional advertising models (such as TV spots, billboards) are based on upfront payment for a given amount of time. They don’t require the tracking aspects and the ad selection could be kept up to date via patches
It also would mean they can get ads in front of people playing offline and that they’re much harder to block using traditional methods
I’m not saying this is the way they would go, but they don’t have to go the PPC style route.
If they can use PPC then they will. It’s far more lucratieve.
You might be able to prevent that (single player) app from accessing the Internet at all using a firewall. Of course they probably won’t allow that, either.
I usually don’t like the cracked version for games. Pirated executables are sketchy. Even if they work, you don’t know what may have been added.
Modders might be able to get rid of ads but since empress stopped cracking denuvo we’re probably screwed.
I will continue to not play EA games. Business as usual.
I’ve got a game that I purchased on Steam during a sale that sat in my backlog for a while before I went to install it. But checked the reviews again first and saw complaints about the EA launcher and realized “oh no shit, it’s a star wars game, of course that’s EA” and installed a different game instead.
I was then just tempted by a massive sale on mass effect complete edition (actual name might be wrong, but one that includes most or all of the games in one package). Like it is pretty much at the automatic buy level, but again looked at reviews and saw complaints about the EA launcher and moved on instead.
Though now I’m wondering if there’s a workaround or something to de-EA their games.
Pirate them
The games aren’t even that good that it’s worth it tho. They are like 7/10s at best and at worst… yikes.
Companies used to do this, but stopped when every game reviewer called them out on it. It was always in kinda shitty games too. You can rest assured that EA is fully capable of making shitty games with ads in them.
Head Tap Meme Can’t get called out by game reviewers if there’s no functional games media.
There’s very little decent media criticism of any kind left thanks to the ongoing media implosion, and games media is especially unprofitable.
I don’t mind it if it makes sense. Driving around in GTA if there’s a gap billboard I don’t care. I don’t want banner ads in the equipment menu though
GTA is filled with parody ads, which are actually fun content and not intended to make you buy something. The second they become real ads, you’ll have brands complaining about being displayed next to gun violence or prostitutes, and all the fun goes away.
There’s a reason there’s no real car brands in GTA, because none of them want to be associated with running down pedestrian and drive-bys
How about when they inevitably share user data with advertisers (assuming that isn’t the plan from the start)?
Loved the ones in Burnout Paradise. It had billboards for CompUSA. Which had liquidated almost all their stores shortly before the game released.
To be fair, the ads might bring a sense of pride and accomplishment to the game.
EA ads… it’s in the game!
pure gold… do they even use that slogan any more though?
Nice
Let’s add EA to the list of companies I’m boycotting.
Oh? What a coincidence; it was already there.
Cocks a Cola! The official sponsor of this refreshing boycott is proud to announce a whole new cock flavor! Try cherry cock! And the all new mango cock!
This just in…cock!.. Cock is not how you pronounce it? Couck? Oh okay, I’m sorry. But how about Pecksi? Pa pa pa pa pa! I’m loving it! So eat fresh papayas!
I don’t get people bringing Coca Cola when talking about a company fucking its consumer in the ass (here is a cock analogy for you, you seem to like those). Boycotting Coca Cola because it’s a company with terrible practices on their employees will probably not work because it doesn’t affect the consumer experience. It’s not like Coca Cola puts lead in its product or some shit that might affect the taste. Here the company reduces the quality of its product. For instance, boycotting Roku because they put ads in their HDMI cables that triggers when the user hits pause would probably work because it makes the experience shitty.
If you think boycotting doesn’t work with gaming, you haven’t paid much attention recently.
Oh I think we’re actually in the choir together. Boycott Crookacola! And Nintendo.
