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In case you may have forgotten, Electronic Arts has and always will be pure evil. Sure, they may want you to think they turned over a new leaf by releasing and taking chances on new franchises like Mirrors Edge and Dead Space. Hell, I was even a huge fan or Army of Two and am greatly anticipating the sequel. While all the buzz was going on with these three new IPs EA launched in 2008 and giving EA props for taking bold new risks, in the background EA failed at one of their other bold risks by trying to make a hostile takeover of Take Two Interactive just a couple of months before their biggest game, GTAIV was set to release and more recently closing down Pandemic Studios only two years after purchasing them with Bioware.
Fast forward to the end of 2009, now EA is the number two third party publisher behind Activision. Now Activision is taking its hard earned criticism lately for over saturating retail stores with an abundance of big box peripheral games, and milking the Guitar Hero license for every penny it is worth. Even with Activision taking all this attention, EA is still going out there and proving why they were the original antagonist of videogame enthusiasts everywhere.
What is EA’s latest dastardly deed? I have a bone to pick with EA’s big cash cow game, Madden NFL 10. Why several months after its release? Blame EA’s advertising department. In game ads, love ‘em or hate ‘em, they are here to stay. Sometimes they add to the authenticity and seem perfectly justified to a game like in most sports games for example, other times the “dynamic advertising” may be forced upon the gamer and wind up intrusive on gameplay, as was the case with patched in ads in Wipeout HD on PS3 earlier this year.
On a recent episode of giantbomb.com’s podcast this year, they made reference to a certain type of online advertising, the self explanatory “Eye Blasters.” Apparently EA Sports saw Eye Blasters as an ad revenue opportunity and was not content with the buckets of money they were raking in already with in-game sponsorships from Snickers, Weather Channel and the countless other advertisers that rear their face on every menu and overlay throughout a game of Madden.
Yesterday I had a friend over for a round of Madden NFL 10, and could not help to notice on the bottom of the ticker as my players lined up into formation, up popped an ad for GoDaddy and a code to use for one of their online hosting plans. I was quite taken aback by this, and due to a change in the speed of the game clock in Madden this year, it caused me to almost get a delay of game after noticing the ad. Furthermore, after hurrying to hike the ball and after the distraction of said ad, I forgot what play I called, and was instantly sacked because I fell for my own damn Play Action Pass!
Keep in mind, these new in-game ads were not in the last game of Madden I played a little over a week ago, but were patched in the same fashion as the aforementioned Wipeout HD ads. Maybe, just maybe I would let EA slide if said GoDaddy ad appeared only a handful of times a game. But to have that one identical ad appear before each and every play in the game (minus Special Teams plays because EA had a little bit of sense that it could take away from lining up Punts and Field Goals) turned my typical enjoyable Madden experience, into a rotten one. Perhaps I should thank Madden for making me realize I possibly have ADD instead. Does the gamer see any benefit from having more of these Eye Blasters incorporated into gameplay, perhaps a price cut on retail copies, or giving us some of the free DLC cheats that were previously free cheat codes in prior Madden games? Nope, EA gets all the profit.
Hey EA, since you are already going this far with “Dynamic Advertising” let me suggest where you go next. When I am watching a NFL telecast, I am conditioned to ad breaks with every change of possession, timeout, etc. Why not implement Dynamic, Streaming, full length ads as one would get on an actual NFL telecast? This would not tarnish the gamer’s experience, as they would instead embrace it for the authenticity it captures from watching a live NFL game. Plus, the longer the ads, the more money for EA Sports! Just one condition, make sure the first full length ad is the Snickers commercial where the end zone painter fucked up the name of the Chiefs, that one never gets old!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3gYApfUsaQ
December 6th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
This is the type of shit that just makes me furious. In-game advertising, even at its most benign, is fucking evil because you know they’re going to take it as far as they can. They’ll start out with ads to make the game “more authentic” and next thing you know you’re getting an Axe Body Spray commercial shoved down your throat. And those pricks can’t tell us they’re not making enough cash on Madden, necessitating this in-game ad bullshit. It’s simply because they know they’re goint to sell a shitload of copies, and most of those copies will go to the types of people who won’t get too fired up about this crap.
December 7th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Curse you in-game advertising! I haven’t been so enraged since I played RLH and crippling Bawls addiction cost me the use of my knees.
…yeah.