EA exec explains how they want to pump games full of ads

The company explained how they want to pump games full of ads

Electronic Arts is charting out a bold new frontier in making players’ lives a little bit worse: in-game advertisements. In an interview with The Game Business, VP of advertising and sponsorship Alexander Dao dove into the details of EA's new advertising platform and said that they hope to standardize how in-game ads work across the industry.

Dao said EA will be thinking about in-game ads during the creation process going forward and that while for “most of the games that have been around for a while, building the advertising experience is really retrofitting it in,” when these things are planned from the jump, “it creates more flexibility in the types of brands that can come in and out.”

EA revealed its new advertising platform last month, one that’s currently particularly focused on its sports games. The platform is tied to the company’s Frostbite engine, allowing advertisers to dynamically place ads in locations such as stadium billboards. It also allows marketers to convert existing advertising assets into 3D objects in-game. The company is interested in bringing some of this to non-sports games too, with Dao citing a previous collaboration with the popular accessories brand Coach for The Sims 4.

The scariest implication, though, is that it may not end there. EA has worked with the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Integral Ad Science to begin standardizing how in-game advertising appears and how it’s measured, something that could spur other publishers to adopt this approach.

“We are working with third parties to try to standardize some of this,” Dao explained. “So, when we think about in-game 3D assets, how do we start to standardize what that looks like for a brand? When we think about in-game measurement and viewability standards, how do we make sure that’s consistent so that when other publishers and platforms also do this, and we share back reports to the brand or the marketer, they’re seeing consistency? And they know that it’s showing up the way that it should be showing up, and it’s being measured the way that it should be measured. Some of the things that we’re doing here, I believe, will drive a bit more consistency and standardization [across the industry].”

In-game advertisements have quickly become a buzzy topic. Amid broader concerns about rising hardware and memory prices, Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball recently said that ads in games could “be used to offer more affordable alternatives alongside today’s ad-free experiences, in the hopes more could play as a result. Similar to how Netflix and Disney Plus have ad-tiers with all the same content, but at half the price or so.”

Former BioWare employee Mark Darrah essentially said the same in a recent YouTube video about game monetization. “Product placement is a very small part of video games right now compared to movies and television," he noted. "Maybe it could be a larger part of development.”

This obviously isn’t the first time game industry executives and marketers have envisioned new ways to make money off players: countless free-to-play mobile games use in-game ads, and there are a few unpopular cases of console games like Street Fighter 5 doing the same (before Capcom eventually backed down). However, with game development costs steadily climbing, it wouldn’t be surprising to see publishers finally go for it with gusto.