A good man once said “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” A greater man then followed him with “luckily it’s past 3pm, so to me this is dinner,” right before tucking into his now-complimentary meal. Those of you who play Anarchy Online’s free to play offering, or really anyone who played an EA Games…game several years ago will be aware, if slightly, about the use of in-game advertising. Mostly you might see this in Madden games, street racing titles, and other names. With the way EA was utilizing in-game advertising, one might think it a lucrative business.
Turns out, it isn’t. Electronic Arts Ben Cousins said in an interview to Edge:
“We actually aren’t getting much from ad revenue at all”, the in-game advertising business hasn’t grown as fast as people expected it to.”
Cousins reminded us that the advertising system isn’t completely dead, but does need to go deeper than simple in-game billboards. Cousins suggested soda deals as part of the system.
“We did a deal with Dr Pepper for Battlefield Heroes, where if you buy a bottle and scan in the code you get an exclusive outfit. That kind of deep integration will work, I think, but I’m not convinced that we’ll have billboards in games and things like that. Maybe those days are over.”
So if in-game billboards are dead, does that mean I’ll be able to walk around in Anarchy Online without seeing the latest Lil Wayne CD? Does Lil Wayne still make CDs? Guess there’s only one way to find out.
MMO Fallout 