Electronic Arts Is Toying With The Idea of Ads in Games Again

Electronic Arts’ CEO, Andrew Wilson, recently divulged that the company is looking at the implementation of dynamic advertisements in AAA games. This isn’t anything new for Electronic Arts, with many of the company’s games having featured real-world advertisements over the years – a concept that for EA goes back some two decades.

However, what we’re talking about here is known in the business as ‘DAI’ – Dynamic Ad Insertion. This is a more intelligent way of relaying commercial content to users based on their habits, history, and interests.

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In a recent earnings call, Electronic Arts’ CEO spoke about the topic of injecting dynamic advertising into AAA games (without mentioning what games they’d be). He said:

Advertising has an opportunity to be a meaningful driver of growth for us. We have teams internally in the company right now looking at how we do very thoughtful implementations inside of our game experiences.

For the longest time, the concept of being shown advertisements in games has been a sticking point for the industry. Most recently, players have been taken aback by ‘invasive’ ads on certain platforms, with some deciding that sudden, full-screen commercials are a good idea. Typically, advertisements in games are confined to billboards, posters, and product placement opportunities, such as the Monster Energy beverages that can be guzzled in Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding.

However, paired with the intelligence of DAI, users could very well see targeted ads appearing in their games soon. It’s considered by some as a natural progression of the industry, as ad revenue makes up a staggering income stream for many verticals, and this is just another way that publishers and developers could lean on them to secure more sweet dollars.

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