EA has tried this before, with predictable results. In 2020, EA Sports UFC 4 included full-screen ads for the Amazon Prime series The Boys that would appear during ‘Replay’ moments. These were absent from the game when it launched, with EA introducing the ads about a month later, thereby preventing them from being highlighted in reviews. It wasn’t long before the backlash led to EA disabling the ads.
Pretty sure the Hell Divers 2 backlash was the only time I’ve ever seen gamers win over a corporation. Blizzard fans have made me absolutely cynical about gamer boycotts.
There’s been others, over the decades. This isn’t the first time they tried putting ads into games. All the other times were pushed back successfully.
True-ish, but people really did step up more in more recent days, and voted with their wallets. The pop dropped was bad enough and for long enough that the company got sold off to Microsoft to recover, and Bobby is gone.
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Was it or was it just poorly implemented and the metrics were looking good for the companies buying the ads? Not sure Microsoft firing Bobby because he was a bad leader or just cause it’s an easy way to trim fat and make the purchase look better for their investors.
Yes, and consider what insane amount of pressure was necessary to achive this. Over 200.000 negative reviews for HD2. That makes it very unlikely to happen again. It shows how little gamers can achieve and how little their concerns are heard if they are not accumulating to a critical mass.