Electronic Arts is looking at implementing in-game ads with a team dedicated to looking into it. The last time the American dev did something like this, it was backtracked due to backlash.
EA head Andrew Wilson revealed in its recent earnings (via TechSpot) call that it would look into the practice as it could be an opportunity of “meaningful driver of growth” for the company with “many, many billions of hours” spent playing video games. That said, it sounds like it’s gonna be a ways away and that it’s considering how to implement them as it builds a stronger community and can “harness the power” beyond gaming and how those ads can help it grow.
“We’ll be very thoughtful as we move into that, but we have teams internally in the company right now looking at how do we do very thoughtful implementations inside of our game experiences. But more importantly, as we start to build community and harness the power of community beyond the bounds of our games, how do we think about advertising as a growth driver in those types of experiences?”
Spinning back to EA, back in 2020, the company attempted to include in-game ads in EA Sports UFC 4 a month after launch, likely to avoid reviewers from discussing the feature. It was later disabled when fans voiced their displeasure, but obviously, good ol’ EA still thinks adding in-game ads will bump up its reputation and not end up with a ton of negative comments if it’s just “thoughtful” about implementing advertising in its full-priced games.
This comes from the same report that asserted the next Battlefield game will house the largest team working on it in the franchise’s history and that it will be a “tremendous live service.”
