EA is Looking Into In-Game Ads to Boost Revenues and Reach New Audiences

During their latest earnings call, Electronic Arts revealed plans to significantly expand the use of in-game advertising across its wide library of AAA games. It’s part of its attempt to diversify its revenue streams beyond traditional game sales and microtransactions.

Here’s what EA’s CEO, Andrew Wilson, had to say about the potential of integrating ads in AAA games:

Our go-forward strategy is anchored in building a platform that enables us to deepen our connection with players, lead the future of immersion by bringing the real world of sport and our experiences closer together and expanding the tools, modalities and partnerships to drive enhanced socialization, self-expression and creation for sports fans. We’ve engaged with partners like Nike, Pepsi, Uber Eats and Beats over the last year and will continue to do so, integrating them into match day experiences and providing them with a platform to deeply connect with our global audience. We are also building to unlock new multifaceted sponsorship and advertising opportunities.

Integrating ads in video games isn’t new. But, it’s a risky move to do it in the AAA video game space. Today’s titles are already selling for $70. If implemented, this decision would be met with controversy, especially coming from EA.

However, if successful, EA stands to profit with its potential in-game advertising revenue exploding exponentially.

EA Sports FC, the successor to the FIFA franchise, and Madden NFL, have a monopoly on the soccer sim and football sim genres, respectively. Players will deal with ads if EA implements it. The only question now is, when?

Today’s players have already become accustomed to seeing both relevant and irrelevant advertisements within their favorite video game experiences. It was only a matter of time before a company took a big leap.

When Are We Going to See Ads in AAA Games?

EA is one of the earliest proponents of the microtransaction-filled live-service genre. But, newer titles are scaling back on what the public may see as predatory microtransaction strategies. If implemented properly, a pivot towards non-intrusive ads could help create a common ground between video game developers, publishers, and the actual audiences themselves.

Of course, we’ll have to wait and see if EA and other companies try bother trying to find the right balance between revenue and player experience first.

Epic Games is arguably already a step ahead in exploring a potentially permanent video overlay feature for Fortnite.