EA has tried this before, with predictable results. In 2020, EA Sports UFC 4 included full-screen ads for the Amazon Prime series The Boys that would appear during ‘Replay’ moments. These were absent from the game when it launched, with EA introducing the ads about a month later, thereby preventing them from being highlighted in reviews. It wasn’t long before the backlash led to EA disabling the ads.
I know that I’ve played EA games before, but I don’t think that I’ve played stuff from them recently, so I don’t have a personal preference on their games.
As long as they also provide some option to pay more and not have ads, I don’t really see an issue. It just becomes another option to buy the game – if you want ad-supported, can do that, and if you want to pay directly, you can do that.
If they don’t have any option to pay for an ad-free experience, then it seems like it could be obnoxious for people depending upon their ad preference.
I think that all the games that I would play – setting aside the issue of EA specifically – I’d rather pay for an ad-free experience, but eh. Games with ads – as well as the option to buy an ad-supported or ad-free version at different prices – are a major thing on, say, mobile, so obviously there are people who would prefer the ad-supported route.
Personally, I don’t really think that I want to have my activity logged and data-mined either way, though. I would pretty much always rather pay more than have my activity recorded. I care more about that than the ads. I’m fine paying more for that, but I want the opt-out. I’d also really prefer that vendors like Steam make it very clear that if a game is being subsidized by extracting data on a user, what data is being extracted. Right now, it’s kind of a free-for-all, and the games aren’t running in a jail, so they can do pretty much whatever.
I was going to read all of this until I got to “provide some option to pay more and not have ads” . Zero chance this would ever end in a consumer friendly way after that first payment.
Counter point, if I paid $60 for a game, i don’t want ads in that game
If I paid >$0 for a game I don’t want ads in that game.
Season passes, in game stores, and every other mtx in a game I paid for is insulting and generally ends up being intrusive and annoying since they tend to shove it in your face.