Advertising invests in one of our last refuges: PC and console video games

A company has developed a platform that makes it easy to integrate ads into console and PC video games. Electronic Arts has already signed.

In the future, will advertisements be shown during our video games on PC and console? Brands dream of it of course. But the pill seems difficult to swallow for players who have already paid 70 euros to buy a title. This prospect seems, alas, to materialize.

According to information from Axios published on June 29, the company Simulmedia, which specializes in the distribution of advertisements on television, has developed a platform that makes it possible to easily integrate promotional tools into console and PC video games. The technology has been tested for a year now and, among the first customers, we find Electronic Arts and Hi-Rez Studios (publisher of the free game Smite). By the end of the year, a dozen titles should integrate advertisements of this type.

FIFA 20

Source: EA Sports

Unavoidable advertisements in certain video games?

Said platform would leave the choice to players, who could then agree to watch a 15 or 30 second advertisement in exchange for rewards (examples: outfits for their characters, virtual money to spend in the game). “Via its server, Simulmedia can see if an ad has been read in full. A notification can then be sent to reward players,” says Axios. Research by the company suggests that gamers would be willing to watch up to ten ads per day to unlock rewards.

With these ads, brands could reach young people between the ages of 18 and 34 at a lower cost. For video game publishers, this would therefore be an additional means of making development profitable. Dave Madden, vice president of Simulmedia, commented: "The growth of free-to-play games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone and Roblox means that viewership and game time have exploded, while the majority of players, over 90%, spend nothing. “Ads allow users to “pay” in a way, without making them spend money.

For such changes to be acceptable to players, however, it seems crucial to us that they are only considered in certain very specific cases:

Electronic Arts had thus created a lively controversy last year, after having tried to put advertising in a paid game (UFC 4). Players were quick to voice their understandable displeasure, forcing EA to back down.