{"id":695193,"date":"2026-07-16T17:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/695193\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T17:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:20:11","slug":"ea-is-salivating-at-the-prospect-of-loading-games-up-with-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/695193\/","title":{"rendered":"EA Is Salivating At The Prospect Of Loading Games Up With Ads"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google runs on ads. Facebook runs on ads. Apple runs on fees collected from its App Store which runs on ads. Why not turn gaming into the next great ad-driven business? That\u2019s the logical conclusion of Electronic Arts\u2019 new video game advertising platform which it announced back in June<\/a>. EA VP of advertising and sponsorships Alexander Dao think it represents a \u201chuge opportunity\u201d for the video game industry.<\/p>\n

Here was his response when The Game Business Show host Chris Dring<\/a> asked if developers should be thinking about ad opportunities early on in production:<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a huge opportunity, not just for EA but broadly, because most of the games that have been around for a while, building the advertising experience is really retrofitting it in,\u201d he explained. \u201cBut as you think about new games that are coming out, as you think about free-to-play experiences that are happening on the console side\u2026 like our Skate game. Those are opportunities where if you actually design them with the right advertising and brand experience in there from the get-go, it just makes it easier. It makes it feel more native and it creates more flexibility in the types of brands that can come in and out. So, I do see a big opportunity there.<\/p>\n

EA Advertising is a platform that\u2019s directly integrated into Frostbite, the engine EA uses to make its biggest games, from Madden to Battlefield. The idea is to streamline what\u2019s required to create custom ads for clients and then track how players \u201cengage\u201d with the ads. \u201cAdvertisers can now collaborate with EA in a privacy-safe way to improve targeting and gain deeper campaign insights,\u201d the company wrote last month. \u201cEA ensures ads are viewable, delivered to real audiences, and measured using industry-accredited standards in partnership with Integral Ad Science.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early experiments included a custom Mountain Dew stadium \u201cplayable experience\u201d in EA Sports College Football 26 and Visa branding in EA Sports FC. \u201cWe did something with Lowe\u2019s where they sponsored the Stadium Pulse and the Stadium Pulse in college football ended up having over a billion impressions,\u201d Dao said. \u201cAs we do these things, it\u2019s ultimately around like, you know, are the players engaging with it? Are they talking about it? Is it ultimately leading to the brand being talked about and engaged in a positive way? And so those are all things we\u2019re measuring and iterating on as we do more and more activations.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen suggestions that ad-supported hardware and games could be used to help keep prices down even as component costs increase and development budgets spiral out of control, just as they have in other industries. Of course, one of the ironies here is that the sports games EA is currently experimenting with shoving ads into are already some of the most lucrative franchises in the business. How does that help the single-player blockbusters that need to sell over 5 million copies to break even? It probably doesn\u2019t. Most people are spending their time in Fortnite, not God of War. And why let all of that captured attention go unmonetized?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when you take a look at what\u2019s happened with advertising over the years, it always follows where the audience is and where the attention is,\u201d Dao told The Game Business Show. \u201cYou saw that happen with social media. You saw that happen with retail media. You see that happening now with connected TV where there\u2019s a lot of time spent and if done properly, just a really big advertising opportunity. Gaming represents that same opportunity. You\u2019ve already seen it on the mobile side, but specifically with console and HD gaming, there\u2019s massive audiences there, a ton of engagement there. It\u2019s just a big opportunity broadly for marketers to start to go in.\u201d<\/p>\n

And we all know how much people love social media<\/a> and Roku<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google runs on ads. Facebook runs on ads. Apple runs on fees collected from its App Store which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[452,992,59,45735,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-695193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ads","tag-ea","tag-gb","tag-skate","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}