EA has tried this before, with predictable results. In 2020, EA Sports UFC 4 included full-screen ads for the Amazon Prime series The Boys that would appear during ‘Replay’ moments. These were absent from the game when it launched, with EA introducing the ads about a month later, thereby preventing them from being highlighted in reviews. It wasn’t long before the backlash led to EA disabling the ads.
Good, do it.
Let your player base dwindle some more. I already outright refuse to play EA crap. Fill it with ads, make ads mandatory before and after all loading screen.
Want to equip new gear? Forced ads Want to save? Forced ads
Put so many ads that you make bajillions. Do it ea I dare you.
I hope they do it, shorting their stock will be easy af.
Here’s another great idea: persistent ads. Have ads take up a portion of the screen always. Players may want to shop while fighting a boss or taking a shot on goal.
Different portions of the screen
Otherwise it’s too vulnerable to a common blocking technology
An EA exec got hard reading that
Get fucked EA
Double fucked
Triple fucked
I hear Ubisoft is now offering quad A fucks
They can fuck off too
I too choose for this company to get fucked.
Running fuck riot!
I cannot buy fewer EA games. The last EA game I bought ran on the Super Nintendo.
I cannot buy fewer EA games.
Not with that attitude
The last EA game I bought ran on the Super Nintendo.
Have you checked Babbage’s return policy?
*Babbage’s’s
Babbages’
*Babbages’s’
*Bbabbbagesssss
*FuncoLand
Babbage as in the steam-driven mechanical game engine, version 2?
I remember the controllers being kinda clunky.
Heh
For reference for anyone
Now GameStop
Oh, it won’t be exclusive EA-exclusive enshittification, I’m sure.
I used to buy FIFA and NHL games, once every few years. But they’ve gotten so shitty I just gave up on them. I haven’t played a soccer game in years now. PES used to be a good alternative but I’ve heard it’s not great anymore either.
I haven’t bought any EA games in many years as well. I don’t have any EA games in my Steam library, though I probably have some Xbox 360 games around. The only one I know for sure was Rogue Squadron II on Gamecube
Wait, Rogue Leader was Lucasarts and Factor 5. EA didn’t have anything to do with it, did they?
Maybe not, I don’t know if EA was handling Star Wars yet.
I hope gamers will unite. Though it seems far more likely that kids will just buy it because “wooooo hype. Who cares about ads, I already watch a bazillion a day when doomscrolling Instagram”.
Get off the gaming market EA.
I can’t believe I’m actually going to have to become a retro gamer. Sigh.
Or you know, indie.
The real answer here. Indie scene is BOOMING
Once you discover the sea of great indie games you won’t even care what AAA is doing anymore. Some of the AAA games remove cash shops after the game loses relevance anyway, like Shadow of War, meaning you get rewarded for not buying the game until it is 90% off.
gamers, unite!
I hope gamers will unite. Though it seems far more likely that kids will just buy it because “wooooo hype. Who cares about ads, I already watch a bazillion a day when doomscrolling Instagram”.
Something tells me they will, at least it’s on the latest generation to step up.
Previous generations of always pushed back against this, and won.
Pretty sure the Hell Divers 2 backlash was the only time I’ve ever seen gamers win over a corporation. Blizzard fans have made me absolutely cynical about gamer boycotts.
Yes, and consider what insane amount of pressure was necessary to achive this. Over 200.000 negative reviews for HD2. That makes it very unlikely to happen again. It shows how little gamers can achieve and how little their concerns are heard if they are not accumulating to a critical mass.
Pretty sure the Hell Divers 2 backlash was the only time I’ve ever seen gamers win over a corporation.
There’s been others, over the decades. This isn’t the first time they tried putting ads into games. All the other times were pushed back successfully.
Blizzard fans have made me absolutely cynical about gamer boycotts.
True-ish, but people really did step up more in more recent days, and voted with their wallets. The pop dropped was bad enough and for long enough that the company got sold off to Microsoft to recover, and Bobby is gone.
All the other times were pushed back successfully.
Was it or was it just poorly implemented and the metrics were looking good for the companies buying the ads? Not sure Microsoft firing Bobby because he was a bad leader or just cause it’s an easy way to trim fat and make the purchase look better for their investors.
I’m really struggling to remember when 's the last time I played an EA game. I can’t really…
Let them monetize everything until oblivion,no one’s gonna stop them anyway,so they might as well slowly die.
They’ve got EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA) and madden though, they’re never going to die.
Maybe not, but individuals can choose where to spend their money. The masses will still buy this shit, but I am the kinda guy will will make his own life harder based on morals.
Like I ain’t shopped on Amazon for years. Some stuff I just can’t find anymore. Not used WhatsApp for many years, makes it harder to join friend group chats. Etc.
Yeah I agree completely, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that companies are going to go bankrupt because a minority of users are absolutist about in-game ads, or will sacrifice social connections to avoid using Meta products.
In these cases an individual can act for any number of valid reasons, but it takes a much bigger collective action to influence the outcome, which requires a much bigger reason/scandal.
This is my argument.
I don’t believe my choices have an impact at all, in fact they impact me more negatively than the things I avoid.
But I can sleep at night knowing I am not giving them my money, or my business, etc.
It’s like with the Reddit exodus and people thinking it would / will be the death of Reddit. The truth is they barley noticed we left and they certainly don’t care, but again morals.
You never know, this thread could make more people think like this and make conscious choices where you can, for yourself so you know you tried to not be a part of the problem.
The masses will still buy this shit
The dark side of the XKCD comic Ten Thousand is that there’s always a new pool of suckers entering the market - people who haven’t gotten burned yet and think they’re getting something real.
I am the kinda guy will will make his own life harder based on morals.
I wouldn’t even call it morals so much at Once Bitten, Twice Shy. There’s a point at which you don’t want to keep doing business with people who make you miserable.
They tried it way before 2020 too, they talked to the agency I worked for at the time. Same result
I remember them putting ads on the billboards in Battlefield 2142 way back when.
I 'member
A little thing called the “Massive Ad client” exists in NFS Carbon, Pro Street, Undercover and even World.
It was used to download ads off the internet and display them in the game’s own billboards.
It was also an entrypoint for a NFS World hack too lol so ripbozo EA
They tried it way before 2020 too, they talked to the agency I worked for at the time. Same result
They tried it before 2020 as well.
They keep trying this every generation, hoping the latest generation will be dumb enough to accept it.
A little thing called the “Massive Ad client” exists in NFS Carbon, Pro Street, Undercover and even World.
It was used to download ads off the internet and display them in the game’s own billboards.
It was also an entrypoint for a NFS World hack too lol so ripbozo EA
EA already did this. Many games had real ads on billboards in the world. Need for speed underground 2 was sponsored by cingular wireless. Your ingame pager was product placement and the company’s logo was on screen whenever you were doing free roam.
This is very EA with historical precident.
Tbh, having advertisment on billboards in a racing game is the less intrusive and immersive way to do in game advertisement.
But then again billboards in real life are an eye sore. /shrug
City of Heroes tried the same basic thing back in the day. They figured it’s an urban environment that has billboards and posters as part of the general clutter, why not get paid to switch out a fake ad for a real ad?
Burnout paradise city. Which also was one of my fav games of all time. No ads would be cool.
And they already do it on mobile. They are just trying to bring ads to the pc and consoles, just like they do on mobile.
If they’d just be smart about it. Make the ads in-game. Like a Nike poster on a wall or a can of Pepsi on a table or something. I wouldn’t have a problem with that. Making them the entire focus - however brief - just makes me hate them immeasurably.
Even then they should still be held to a higher standard.
Especially now in the era of generative AI.
The poster should have a well known character in the world lore holding the Coke, or a location in the map for the car ad, etc.
The ads should feel like they are actually a part of the world, and shouldn’t be put in a game unless this can be accomplished.
In game ads don’t have to suck. But because the power dynamic is such that shit ads can be shoved down players’ throats with the only response being to not buy that publisher’s games, the medium isn’t going to find an acceptable equilibrium.
In game ads in live service games for in game assets may not suck too much though (an inevitable part of the future).
Soon the game world will have speakers with ads, that will not really follow volume settings or distance attenuation.
The tutorial will have you collect “refreshing Pepsi Colas”.
Cinematics will always look to the big billboards.
And the game will have strict anti tampering/mods and will require internet connection to support this adds.
EA doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt anymore
Yeah, I didn’t say I trust them to do it right, just that it could be done tastefully.
I’m pretty sure their goal is to bring ads in the same form as the mobile games, not as part of the in-game world. If they can do it on mobile, why shouldn’t they on pc or consoles?
I think this will be an important thing for gamers to unite against, because if there isn’t enough push back, every big studio will do the same.
Good thing I haven’t bought a game from a big name studio since, uhh, does Elden Ring count?
You can’t really sell ads on a per impression basis with just product placement. They want the ad sales to be recurring revenue.
There are many independent developers who deserve your money more than EA. Vote with your wallet.
Fellow gamers, now is the time to push back on this crap. If you don’t do it now, you’ll live with this forever. They tried doing this in past generations as well, and failed.
Spread the word, tell others. Be vocal! Advocate for this not happening.
And if someone tells you that this isn’t preventable, tell them not to be cynical. Remind them of the other positive changes we were able to have happen recently in gaming, and that in the past when they tried this, the pushback was successful in keeping the gaming companies from doing so.
And remember, some of those you would try to convince are probably astroturfers/bots.
(https://lemmy.world/comment/9975178) (https://lemmy.world/comment/9977246)
EA is on my boycott list since Origin & ME3. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
EA is on my boycott list since Origin & ME3. ¯_ (ツ)_/¯
How many of those have in-game ads though?
There’s a history of pushing back against adding ads into games, that’s different than boycotting the company overall. One can be successful, when another is not.
And having said that, one could even argue that their desperation to make money by putting ads into games (again) is not just about keeping the shareholders happy, but also because of people having boycotted them over the years, depriving them of additional income. You may be making more of a stand than you realize.
I’m saying there’s not really anything more I can do when it comes to EA. The company is already completely down the shitter for me and they’re the ones who would have to gain my trust back. That’s the only possible development. The problem is that many people don’t have a similar spine for actual principles like this, and the majority of people simply don’t even care. That’s why this rotten company is not just still a thing, but continues to do what they’ve done for the last couple decades.
I’m saying there’s not really anything more I can do when it comes to EA.
You are already doing your part. Thank you, citizen.
But, you can also vocalize to others, especially the younger generation, that things like ads in games can be pushed back against successfully, as it has in the past. That they don’t have to put up with crap, or think they can’t push back against the monolithic corporation, because its been done before, successfully.
Hell, EA was one of those companies that tried ads in games before, and had to retreat from the pushback from customers.
The problem is that many people don’t have a similar spine for actual principles like this, and the majority of people simply don’t even care.
I always thought that they cared, especially if they are being taken advantaged of, but that it doesn’t rise to a high enough threshold to actually do something about it (they triage it lower on their problem list), and that they feel that they are alone in doing it, so why bother.
What past events have shown though is that if we all do it together, even in a non-coordinated sort of way (organically), then the burden is not that hard individually, and the effort/pushback works well/enough.
Remeber if they call you naive or quixotic or an idealist that means they can’t win the argument with normal means and rely on name calling. Act with integrity, it’s worth it!
The ones pushing back are either trolls or bootylickers; the recent Helldivers2 shitstorm proved that things can change.
the recent Helldivers2 shitstorm proved that things can change.
And there’s a history of successfully pushing back against this change as well!
why the fuck should I pay for them then?
Once these companies have your money, they don’t care what you want. Don’t give your money to companies that abuse you like this.
Dead Space from 2008 is such a good game. EA has fallen so far. I don’t see myself ever buying another EA game at this point.
they don’t make games. they’re a publisher
*they’re buying studios who make legendary games and kill them.
They are a parasite to the gaming landscape.
That role is more on Embracer now
And Microsoft, as of recently.
That’s all they are now. RIP EA Redwood Shores. 🥲
Good thing seeing that a game is published or developed by EA, or one of its subsidiaries, is 9 times out of 10 enough for me to not bother with the game to begin with. They don’t make a thing that is worth dealing with them to get to play.
That company burned all of its good will and trust with me years ago. So sure go ahead and put as many ads as you want EA. I know for sure I won’t be seeing them.
…82% of the visual field… …before inducing seizures.
