EA CEO Andrew Wilson said on the company’s earnings call that the company is internally considering adding ads to future video games. However it’s not a foolproof thing – he stressed they have to be “thoughtful” about it.
“Again, to broadly answer your question about advertising, I think it’s premature in that regard,” Wilson said. “We’ve looked back over the course of our history and thought through advertising in the context of our gaming experience. But, again, When we consider that billions of hours are spent playing, creating, watching, and connecting, and that much of that engagement falls squarely within the confines of traditional gaming experiences, our expectation is that advertising has a chance to become meaningful to us growth momentum.”
This bit of history is noteworthy because this isn’t EA’s first foray into video game advertising. In fact, Need for Speed Dungeon 2 has matured into making billboards ads that players can see while driving, and Barack Obama even controversially placed political ads in Hot Paradise. So, looking at the big picture, the company does have a history of this and it knows what works and how far it can go before people start taking action.
In-game advertising in video games is a fun little experiment that gaming companies have been doing for years—the lure of marketing to a traditionally young audience has proven extremely powerful. When overdone, you start to see people wondering why they paid extra for a game and have it advertised the way they do, but some manage to get away with it. Sports games, for example, successfully immerse them and keep them engaged. But there’s a clear difference between driving a car in Overwatch 2.
Either way, it’s something worth paying attention to. The video game industry is on a very rocky road right now, with litigious companies looking for any opportunity to squeeze growth out of their games and IPs. Fingers crossed that if EA does decide to proceed, the company will take a soft approach.
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