Not long ago, companies tried to sell us that we had to buy their products no matter what because they had no ads: Netflix, Prime Video, video games… The future was going to be ad-free. It was. In the past. In the end, not only streaming services have given in: everything points to Electronic Arts trying to sell us things through their own video games again. Yes. Again.
EA, it’s in the advert
In 2020, EA attempted to include ‘The Boys‘ ads in the middle of fights in ‘UFC 4′, but the public response was so negative that they had no choice but to backpedal. However, they still believe that forcefully shoving advertising down consumers’ throats is a good idea for increasing profits, and their CEO, Andrew Wilson, has already talked to investors (the industry’s big evil) about the possibility of introducing “dynamic ads” but with some taste. In his mind, it sounds spectacular.
“We currently have teams internally in the company looking at how we can implement it sensibly in our gaming experiences”. Do you know that saying “the customer is always right”? It’s a maxim that died a long time ago: the investors are the ones who are right, and if they want ads in their completely disconnected from reality world, then they will have ads. Of course.
Moreover, from EA, looking at a non-existent reality, they have stated that they intend for ads to help grow their community. These are senseless statements, but we should not be surprised if in the coming months we are bombarded with advertising in our favorite games out of the blue.
Don’t you want players in the next ‘FIFA’ to look at the screen while enjoying a good Pepsi Light? Or for the new Mako in ‘Mass Effect’ to have the Nissan logo? Tough luck: as consumers, we could only dream of a world without advertising before they decided, among all of us, that we were going to eat it up whether we liked it or not.