When it comes to video games, there’s been a slow trend for developers and publishers to rake in more money. Before it would be just the base game and marketing would be used to promote the title and get it in front of as many potential players as possible This is still something done heavily today obviously with studios banking on the marketing cost to be overshadowed by the number of profits earned through game purchases.
Those are pretty standard means to get money through a video game title, but it since transitioned to DLC which again offered players even more content for video game titles whether it’s cosmetic or a new expansion. But the DLC continued to thrive with more content being produced that allows a game to live on longer while the studio can reap more profits long after the game has been released into the market. Still, that didn’t stop new means to turn a profit as we eventually got to the point where we were dealing with loot boxes.
These in-game purchases are often seen as gambling since you don’t know just what is inside a loot box. It’s usually randomly generated gear or content where players are hoping that the content inside would turn out to a rare piece of equipment that’s highly sought after. Usually, free-to-play games are the most prominent in featuring DLC and loot boxes which is to be expected. In order to keep the game supported, developers rely on players purchasing goods for their accounts.
However, one area that fans are not taking up with is in-game advertisements. EA for instance has put in-game ads in various titles before. We would assume that an amount of money is given to EA in order to run an ad within the game. This was something that got picked up in with UFC 4 and fans were quick to express their lack of interest and empathy for EA to include ads in a full-price premium video game title. It wasn’t long after that EA decided to remove the ads, but a new patent shows that perhaps EA is looking to get back into in-game advertisements in a bigger way.
The patent essentially allows games to be included during idle sections of a title. We would imagine it’s through different loading screens, but with the next-generation titles boasting about the incredibly fast loading times for video game titles, we’re not sure just how useful companies would find an ad roll to be for these platforms unless the game is potentially refrained from loading completely to allow the ad to continue playing. That’s of course just speculation, but this patent does appear that EA has some interest in more advertisement scenes within upcoming video games. Still, being a patent, it’s possible that EA will not pursue this idea.
