Before Microsoft started buying up studios, keeping the franchises, and then firing everybody involved, EA was the video game industry’s nemesis. Not to be outdone, it seems, the slumbering terror has returned with one of its more harebrained schemes to date – putting adverts in full-price titles.
In-game Adverts
We live in an age of always-on marketing. Yet, as products, video games have never been an advertising vehicle, except for nods towards microtransactions and DLC. The idea of games as a commercial tool, rather than an escape, seems bizarre.
However, it shouldn’t. Nearly twenty years ago, Take-Two Interactive agreed to a deal with gaming ad company Double Fusion to insert marketing materials into the former’s products, especially 2K Sports. This included NBA 2K (basketball) and Top Spin (tennis) at the time.
Two years later, in 2008, CEO Strauss Zelnick criticized in-game adverts as taking away from the overall experience.
Games serve to distract, and simple, brief experiences can fit into anybody’s world. This concept has a precedent in the industry, too. Slot machines have grown in number to the thousands online, as an equally fertile market competes for players. The titles in the Paddy Power online slot games catalog include Pine of Plinko 2, based on the segment from Wheel of Fortune, Jack Hammer 3: Diamond Affair, and the licensed title The Goonies Megaways. These all require little commitment from the user.
Source: Pexels
Remember Wordle? Its role in the daily commute kept people engaged with a larger product, namely, The New York Times. Similarly, people bored on YouTube can try the company’s Playables. It’s all about keeping customer attention.
The next ship on this peculiar horizon is a little more abstract – LinkedIn.
A Palette Cleanser
Yes, LinkedIn has added games to its website to keep people browsing longer, bringing us back to the idea of games as a distraction or even a palate cleanser. The business-orientated network now has titles called Pinpoint, Queens, and Crossclimb.
Like Playables, these aren’t going to give Microsoft nightmares but represent the shift towards games as a marketing tool mentioned earlier. LinkedIn has been circling the drain for some time now, following a slump in ad revenue, resulting in the loss of around 1,200 jobs in 2023.
Games won’t fix this, but the trio of once-a-day titles echo the format of Wordle. If LinkedIn can get people talking anywhere near the volume The New York Times’ brain-teaser did, it might arrest some of its recent decline. All the games need an account to play.
It’s an unlikely outcome but creating an ongoing relationship with users is still valuable for LinkedIn. Whether it dilutes the value of gaming, as EA’s adverts might, is a question best left up to the industry’s most fervent fans.
Overall, games continue to evolve despite having a simple premise that began with two bats and a ball in 1972. Expect strong resistance to EA’s plans in the future, even as other developers embrace gaming as a way into consumer hearts.
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