Business of Esports TV: No EA Ads

(Livestream 139)

In this segment, we discuss EA claiming to have no intention of using in-game ads.

The Business Of Esports brings you news, debates, and all the information you need to know about the gaming sector, the world’s fastest-growing market. With Paul “The Profit” Dawalibi leading the charge, and a variety of special guests, BoE TV is the only place to find insider information on the esports industry!

Check out the full livestream here:

Paul Dawalibi 1:07:22
Oh, let’s talk about EA. EA testing the waters I let me call this. The headline here is EA says it’s not planning in game video ads. Which is an interesting headline. It’s unusual, I think for a company to announce things they’re not doing.

Jimmy Mondal 1:08:21
As you thought, Okay, come on, guys.

Paul Dawalibi 1:08:28
The sub headline here, he says it has no intention of putting TV ads. In console games, falling news reports about a deal with an ad tech company. So all of this came about when EA struck a deal with a company called player one like one like winter loss. And and they have a technology to bring video ad tech to console and PC games. And so EA had to come out and make a statement basically saying we’re not going to introduce TV style commercials into our games. And, you know, we’re not we haven’t signed any agreements to implement these kinds of things. Who here Can I like? I like this kind of as our tin foil segment. I may even I may even put the put the banner up here. Who here thinks EA did this on purpose? To test the reaction of players to potentially doing this at some point down the road? Like will will, will will will leak this deal? Right? See how people react if no one makes a fuss we’ll do in game ads.

Jimmy Mondal 1:09:41
I think the key is video style ads. What if they do pop up ads? What if they do all their forms of ads? You know, they just got there like yeah, it won’t be like a YouTube video. worried. Just forget about fine. You know, like that’s what concerns me.

Paul Dawalibi 1:09:59
It’s true. left it open to a lot of other forms of advertising.

William Collis 1:10:02
Very good point, Jimmy. They’re like,

Paul Dawalibi 1:10:06
no, no one. No one thinks this was test the test. No way.

William Collis 1:10:10
No way. I think it’s more likely what Jimmy said in that they are planning some types of ads. And people flipped out and thought it was ultra invasive video ads and nurture is a no no, no video. But I think it’s most likely that if you want a tinfoil hat, it’s more likely to be that than something else.

Paul Dawalibi 1:10:30
Jimmy, what were you gonna say?

Jimmy Baratta 1:10:32
Yeah, why? Why would you leak it for to get an opinion? You already know. Right? This is a toxic vocal community. We went through this also with the Facebook, Oculus kind of ad thing as well. So there’s other case studies that are comparable. It’s if you want to do it, you do it, I think and yeah. William and Jimmy kind of hit it on the head. That’s actually that’s really true, too. I

William Collis 1:10:52
just imagine the executives being like, we don’t know if they’ll like it until we tell them we like doing it.

Paul Dawalibi 1:10:59
It’s just but then why even let this story come out? Why even sign this deal? Like they’re doing something with this company?

Jeff Cohen 1:11:08
Right. This story, it seems like a story came out and they’re refuting the story. Right, is that?

Paul Dawalibi 1:11:14
Well, what they’re saying is that they said, following incorrect reports suggesting that we are looking to introduce TV style commercials into our games. We wanted to clarify that in game advertising for console games is not something we’re currently looking at, or have signed any agreements to implement. That doesn’t refute the fact that they struck some deal with this company for something.

Jeff Cohen 1:11:42
Yeah, I mean, it could have been, it could be mobile, they have a massive mobile business, right? It could be true, you know, for like, free to play mobile ads. It could be actually I’m sure that’s what it is. Because all of these companies, all these mobile companies are buying ad networks right now, right? That’s the biggest thing, skills, bought an ad network. Zynga bought an ad network app, topia is an ad network. So every mobile company is buying ad networks, because of the idea of a deprecation. They’re all basically creating these walled content fortresses, where you, you basically you move players between your games rather than advertising externally. So I’m sure, especially with EA is renewed sort of focus on mobile. That’s probably what this is. And then someone saw that someone saw the announcement probably wrote an article about, Hey, he is going to put ads in their games, without us that they felt the need to refute it. It’s very defensive sort of thing to put out, but I’m sure that’s what it was.

Paul Dawalibi 1:12:41
Me. So maybe it’s the opposite of my tinfoil hat theory. Maybe they know how finicky the audience, the gaming audience is, and they have to come out and refute every single sort of potential story like this. Camp says EA constantly pushes the boundaries of what they can get away with boo.

Jeff Cohen 1:13:01
There you go.

Paul Dawalibi 1:13:02
I mean, that’d be right there. But this is why I think this is what they were doing here. Right? Like, they always I feel, try and see how much they can get away with, which is weird, because they never seem to get away with anything. But yet they keep trying to get away with it.

Jimmy Mondal 1:13:18
They just keep surprising the community with how, like the choices they make, you know what I mean? It’s just like, wow, not including TV style ads in my games, but writing even know that was possible. Thank you for letting me that. You’re not going to do that. But I am very concerned. Now.

Jeff Cohen 1:13:34
They did the same thing when that member would fall in order, like a big part of the marketing campaign was like, no loot boxes, like no microtransactions is very, I mean, it works. It’s sold a lot of us but that was like a core tenant of the game. It was like it’s a Star Wars game. And most importantly, there will be no loot boxes.

Paul Dawalibi 1:13:51
But then isn’t this kind of genius marketing, you lead people to believe you’re gonna have in game video ads, right? And then when the game launches, one of its features is no in game video ads. It’s a feature you can put on the box.

Jimmy Mondal 1:14:08
You’re telling me they were thinking 20 years ahead. They’re really right, we’re gonna shoot ourselves in the foot with our public reputation. But then, and other great developers, I mean, hey, maybe maybe they’ve got the vision, maybe

Paul Dawalibi 1:14:23
tinfoil hat theories.