EA Signs In-Game Advertisement Deal
By Stephany on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 7:02 AM PST In Electronic Arts, Game Companies, Game Consoles, Game Platforms, Gamer Life, Games, Games Industry, Portable
Electronic Arts and Massive Inc. announced this morning that they have signed a deal to extended in-game advertising within Xbox 360 titles and a “majority of EA’s premium PC products” during the next two years. Titles that will see dynamic ads included in-game will be Madden NFL, NBA Live, NASCAR, and the NHL which if you watch any of these on television you are used to them being heavily laden with ads anyway, so it should not make much of a difference to you when playing the game. Massive Inc. will also continue to supply the ads you see in Burnout Paradise and Need for Speed.
Kathy Vrabeck, President of the Causal Entertainment Label at EA had this to say about the agreement:
“EA strongly believes that dynamic in-game advertising is an important growth area for our business, and is one of many opportunities we are pursuing in growing the advertising market. We selected Massive because they are the industry leader in this space with a global sales footprint, solid brand recognition and in-depth experience in video game advertising.”
Developers and publishers see in-game advertising as a way to help with the cost of creation, production and marketing, and if it works, be prepared to see this occurring in more and more games in the future.
Via: GamesIndustry.biz
Lower the price a little, you little profit-minded craps, or I won’t buy your products with ads.
“if you watch any of these on television you are used to them being heavily laden with ads anyway, so it should not make much of a difference to you when playing the game.”
The big difference between television ads and these ads in video games that you are overlooking is that players don’t just watch the video game ads, the ads also watch them back.
Consumers don’t have to be a Nielsen family to watch television, so they sure as hell shouldn’t have to be the equivalent to play a video game. These advertisements and tracking in video games should be optional especially when the consumer already have to pay for the game. Consumers have the right to opt-out of other types of targetted marketing, so why the hell shouldn’t they get the same protection from video game ads and tracking?