EA Advertising: It’s in the game

EA is giving brands a new cheat code for reaching gamers: putting ads directly inside the game.

Yesterday, the video game giant behind College Football 26, The Sims, Apex Legends, and more officially launched EA Advertising, a new platform that lets brands integrate “directly into gameplay” across the company’s portfolio of titles.

Advertising gets a power-up

EA is sitting on one of the biggest attention machines in entertainment. The company says its games feature a combined 120+ million monthly users, with gamers playing the equivalent of ~700,000 NFL seasons in Madden and 1+ billion matches of EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA) every month. For brands, EA’s titles represent the advertising equivalent of 24/7 digital sports arenas packed with fans.

• EA has framed its latest move as an extension of real-world sports/entertainment advertising, where sponsor logos are already part of the experience.
• The company is betting those same formats can be carried into virtual worlds without feeling overly intrusive.

But that balance could be difficult to strike. Gamers have often pushed back when publishers add new monetization layers, especially when those changes appear inside games they already shelled out $69.99 to play. In 2020, EA ended up removing full-screen ads from UFC 4 after launch when players strongly objected to the move.