EA in Retreat After Player Criticism - Advertising Scandal in UFC 4
Electronic Arts decided to turn off the ads in EA Sports UFC 4, which appeared for a few moments at the beginning and end of replays. This is the result of a storm caused by the players on the Internet.
- Recently, in EA Sports UFC 4 ads of The Boys season 2 appeared just before and after the replays.
- This met with quite a violent reaction from the community, as a result of which the developers decided to withdraw from the controversial idea.
EA Sports UFC 4 has been available on the market for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One since mid-August. This title, as is often the case with EA Sports' titles, has raised considerable controversy among players. There was a lot of criticism, for example, that some time after the title's release, an ad for the second season of The Boys, which debuted on Amazon Prime Video on September 4, began appearing just before and after the replays. It was also present the mat and popped up for a few seconds above the fight time counter. You can see it on a clip from Reddit (via Eurogamer).
EA decided to add full-on commercials in the middle of gameplay in a $60 game a month after it's release so it wasn't talked about in reviews from r/assholedesign
That's not all. The Boys ad has also appeared in EA Sports UFC 3, a fact that was also noticed by Reddit users.
Many players note that this type of practice should not be used in games sold at full price, but reserved for free-to-play titles only. These voices of dissatisfaction have reached the ears of EA's executives and forced them to react. This is what we can read in their yesterday's statement:
"Earlier this week, the team turned on ad placements in EA SPORTS UFC 4 that appeared during the “Replay” moments in gameplay. This type of advertising inventory is not new to the UFC franchise, though we have typically reserved displaying ads to specific main menu tiles or Octagon logo placement.
It is abundantly clear from your feedback that integrating ads into the Replay and overlay experience is not welcome. The advertisements have been disabled by the team and we apologize for any disruption to gameplay that players may have experienced.
We realize that this should have been communicated with players ahead of time and that's on us. We want to make sure our players have the best possible experience playing EA SPORTS UFC 4, so ad integration in the Replay and overlay experience will not be reappearing in the future. Thank you for your continued feedback on EA SPORTS UFC 4."
So the players can congratulate themselves on this victory. However, of course it does not mean that the advertisements will disappear completely from EA Sports UFC 4. The marketing ads mentioned by Electronic Arts representatives will remain in place. Moreover, we can expect that there will be further attempts to implement various forms of promotional materials in other places. All because many companies have a lot of pressure to reach younger audiences, not necessarily watching TV (via Wall Street Journal). The question is, will their efforts not have the opposite effect and discourage the products or services of the company? After all, the community of players and Internet users in general is not known for its huge tolerance for advertising. It is therefore very likely that we can expect similar protests in the future.
