EA Considering In-Game Advertising, But Will Take “Thoughtful” Approach
EA CEO Andrew Wilson has said in-game advertising could become a “meaningful driver of growth” for the company’s bottom line. Speaking during the company’s latest earnings briefing, Wilson said “it’s still early on that front,” and if this is something EA does decide to push further into, the company will be “thoughtful” about it.
In 2008, Barack Obama’s campaign paid EA to put political ads in Burnout Paradise to try to get people to vote for him. Prior to that, 2006’s Battlefield 2142 and Need for Speed Carbon featured in-game ads. In 2007, EA signed a deal with an ad company to bring in-game ads to Madden, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, NHL, and NASCAR games, as well as Skate.
Wilson said during the earnings call that, for any future in-game ad campaigns, EA would try to be “very thoughtful” about how they might be implemented.
“As we think about the many, many billions of hours spent, both playing, creating, watching and connecting and where much of that engagement happens to be on the bounds of a traditional game experience, our expectation is that advertising has an opportunity to be a meaningful driver of growth for us,” he said. “We’ll be very thoughtful as we move into that, but we have teams internally in the company right now looking at how do we do very thoughtful implementations inside of our game experiences.”
Wilson was specifically discussing in-game ads in the context of “more traditional AAA games” and not necessarily mobile, where ads of all types are more commonplace.
EA’s business is already booming, as the company just reported a full-year profit of $1.273 billion on $7.5 billion in revenue. EA laid off more than 600 people and canceled games earlier this year, including a Star Wars FPS.
It’s not just EA looking into in-game ads. In 2023, SCS Software announced that it sold ad space inside American Truck Simulator to the trucking company Schneider National. In 2012, Square Enix launched a browser-based gaming service that allowed users to play games for free with ad breaks.
Elephant Mario Plush Is Back In Stock At Amazon
Clocking in at 10.2in tall (26cm) tall and made with polyester, the plush is surprisingly large for its $25 price tag. It’s designed to look just like Elephant Mario in the game, featuring the gigantic trunk and ears of an elephant yet sporting Mario’s iconic mustache, overalls, and hat.
Ryan Murphy’s Grotesquerie Adds Taylor Swift’s Boyfriend Travis Kelce To Cast
Travis Kelce is using the NFL offseason to appear on the small screen in the upcoming FX series Grotesquerie from Ryan Murphy. It will be the first major role for the Kansas City Chiefs tight end and boyfriend to pop sensation Taylor Swift.
Deadline reports Kelce will star alongside Niecy Nash-Betts, Courtney B. Vance, and Lesley Manville for the drama. There aren’t many details about the drama, though it’s expected to premiere this fall alongside the start of the NFL season.
Kelce confirmed his casting for Grotesquerie on Instagram in a reel posted by his co-star Nash-Betts. In the video, the football player appears and announces he’s “jumping into new territory with Niecy.”
A little over a year ago, Kelce hosted Saturday Night Live after winning his second Super Bowl with the Chiefs. He also co-hosts a popular podcast with his brother and just-retired NFL offensive lineman Jason Kelce. In fact, the two of them discussed reviving the Backyard Football video game series earlier this year.
Ryan Murphy Productions unveiled Grotesquerie in February on the company’s Instagram page. One of Murphy’s more recent projects was American Horror Story: Delicate, which starred Kim Kardashian, Emma Roberts, and Cara Delevingne, among others. The producer is also known for American Crime Story, 9-1-1, and Glee.
Summer Game Event Schedule: Nintendo Direct, Xbox, And All The Streams In June
The spirit of E3 lives on in June as publishers, game studios, and several other initiatives come together to host various livestreams. Only a few more weeks remain until there’s an influx of broadcasts held online, and if you’re looking to organize your schedule, we’ve rounded up a full list of everything announced so far.
Like previous years, one of the big events will be Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest on June 7. An annual event, this showcase is hosted in front of a live audience and is streamed across the globe. Microsoft is hosting its event on June 9, and while games for it haven’t been confirmed yet, there’s a good chance that Avowed, Indiana Jones, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will make appearances. The next entry in the Call of Duty franchise is also rumored to be the focus of a deep dive special immediately after the Xbox event.
More events will probably be announced in time as well, and we wouldn’t be surprised if a new Devolver Direct or Mix|Guerrilla Collective livestream gets added to the schedule. You can check back here for updates to the list as soon as they’re confirmed.
- Summer Game Fest — June 7
- Day of the Devs — June 7
- Access-Ability Showcase — June 7
- Wholesome Direct — June 8
- Future Games Showcase — June 8
- Xbox Games Showcase — June 9
- Xbox mystery showcase — June 9
- Ubisoft Forward — June 10
- Nintendo June Direct — June TBA
- PC Gaming Show — June TBA
June 7
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Summer Game Fest
Hosted by Geoff Keighley, Summer Game Fest has been home to some of the biggest reveals of the summer gaming season. Last year saw Mortal Kombat 1, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, and Alan Wake 2 headline Summer Game Fest, and a “full lineup of participants and activities” will kick off after the main show concludes. Now in its fifth year, this year’s show is promising “new video game announcements, first-looks, and trailers.”
- 2 PM PT
- 5 PM ET
- 10 PM BST
- 6 AM JST (June 8)
- 7 AM AEST (June 8)
Day of the Devs
Kicking off directly after Summer Game Fest, Day of the Devs from Double Fine and iam8bit is focused on indie games and the people who make them.
Access-Ability Showcase
Following last year’s inaugural livestream, the Access-Ability Showcase is back again to show off more games made by disabled developers and the accessibility options available in each one. The showcase will focus on new games and the ways that accessibility for disabled players can be improved.
- 8 AM PT
- 11 AM ET
- 4 PM BST
- 12 AM JST (June 8)
- 1 AM AEST (June 8)
June 8
Wholesome Direct
As its name implies, the Wholesome Direct is all about good vibes, cozy games, and uplifting debuts. For anyone looking for charming games to add to their wishlist, Wholesome Direct is one livestream to watch out for.
- 9 AM PT
- 12 PM ET
- 5 PM BST
- 1 AM JST (June 9)
- 2 AM AEST (June 9)
Future Games Show: Summer Showcase
Presented by GamesRadar, this year’s show will feature “exciting updates on blockbuster games and deeper dives into anticipated indies” according to its organizers.
June 9
Xbox Games Showcase
While Xbox hasn’t revealed which games will be present at its event, we’ll likely see more of its upcoming releases currently scheduled for this year. Avowed, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 are all penciled in for a 2024 launch. There will be a deep-dive special immediately after the main showcase, which is reportedly focused on Call of Duty.
- 10 AM PT
- 1 PM ET
- 6 PM BST
- 2 AM JST (June 10)
- 3 AM AEST (June 10)
June 10
Ubisoft Forward
Ubisoft is staying tight-lipped as to what players can expect when it broadcasts live from LA this year, but some of its potential titles could be Star Wars Outlaws, the Splinter Cell remake, and Assassin’s Creed Codename Red, amongst others. In February, Ubisoft said that it planned to reveal the “extent” of its lineup this month for the 2024-25 fiscal year, which could lead nicely to its June event.
June – TBA
Nintendo June Direct
Nintendo plays its cards close to its chest, and for this year’s June Nintendo Direct, the company has revealed very little. What it has confirmed is that you might want to temper your expectations, as it plans to focus on games arriving for the Switch in the latter half of 2024 and it won’t be discussing the Switch 2 console in this livestream.
PC Gaming Show
Hosted by PC Gamer, the PC Gaming Show has been held annually since 2015. Originally launched as a response to how underrepresented PC gaming was at E3 (how the times have changed!) fans can expect new game debuts and trailers during the June showcase.
Nintendo World Championships NES Edition Confirmed After ESRB Rating Leak
After an ESRB rating for the game appeared out of thin air last week, Nintendo has officially revealed Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, a compilation of NES-themed minigames focused on speed. The company has also confirmed a July 18 release date.
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition will feature over 150 minigames spanning 13 different NES titles. The trailer revealing the game shows off a few of the many challenges, which include collecting the first mushroom in Super Mario Bros., defeating Octoroks in The Legend Of Zelda, and more.
Now Playing: Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition — Announcement Trailer
The trailer also highlighted many of the competitors from Nintendo World Championships live events from the past. Some of the featured contestants include two world champions in Thomas G., who claimed victory in the 2017 competition, and Jeff Hansen, who was the first-ever Nintendo World Champion after winning the 1990 event.
The 13 games included in Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition are as follows:
- Balloon Fight
- Donkey Kong
- Excitebike
- Ice Climber
- Kid Icarus
- Kirby’s Adventure
- Metroid
- Super Mario Bros.
- Super Mario Bros. 2
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels
- The Legend of Zelda
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
The announcement comes after Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa posted on Nintendo’s social media accounts that the Nintendo Switch’s successor will be revealed within the next fiscal year–which means we will see the latest Nintendo console by April 2025. When asked later about the upcoming console, Furukawa said “Switch next model is the appropriate way to describe it.”
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition launches on July 18 exclusively for Nintendo Switch, and it can be purchased digitally for $30, or in a special physical Deluxe Edition–which includes stickers, art, and a replica of the golden 1990 Nintendo World Championships cartridge–for $60. An authentic version of the golden cartridge is one of the rarest Nintendo games in the world, as it fetched $84,000 in a recent Heritage Auctions sale.
EA Says AI Will Help Its Teams Get To “Holy Grail” Of Game Development
Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson is very optimistic that generative artificial intelligence could help the company reach the “holy grail” of game development. Speaking during the company’s latest earnings briefing, Wilson said EA’s 40-year history will be an accelerant for the company’s plans for generative AI, because it can bake those learnings into a model to help make games faster and make them more innovative and fun. Or at least that’s what the executive hopes. Wilson is making these comments not long after laying off more than 600 people and cancelling games.
Wilson said EA’s developers are asking for advances to AI to help them with their daily processes, though he did not share any specific people or teams within EA that are actively hyped about generative AI. “I would tell you, there was a real hunger amongst our developers to get to this as quickly as possible because, again, the holy grail for us is to build bigger, more innovative, more creative, more fun games more quickly so that we can entertain more people around the world on a global basis at a faster rate,” Wilson said.
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Wilson went on to say that the “AI evolution” is still in the “very early” stages, but generative AI tools are already helping EA’s teams to speed up progress. He cited an example of how the developers of EA’s soccer series can now create stadiums in six weeks rather than six months, and he believes this timeline could accelerate further still. For FC 24, Wilson said the game features more than 1,200 running animations for its virtual athletes, which compares to 36 in the game’s immediate predecessor, FIFA 23.
“So again, starting to add to the individuality and uniqueness of each player and delivering our players more immersion in the game, a more engaging experience that is more true to what they watch on television on a Sunday afternoon,” Wilson said. “And so as we think about the first pillar of generative AI for us, we’re really looking at how can it make us more efficient, how can it give our developers more power, how can it give them back more time and allow them to get to the fun more quickly.”
Overall, Wilson said generative AI could be a “meaningful opportunity” for the company in the future. He also reiterated that EA conducted a review and found that more than 50% of its game development processes could be positively impacted by generative AI.
The executive went on to say generative AI could not only help EA make games faster, but make them bigger. “How do we build bigger worlds with more characters and more interesting story lines? And if efficiency starts to really take place over the next 1-3 years, our expectation is that, over a 3-to-5-year time horizon, we will be able to, as part of our massive online communities and blockbuster storytelling, build bigger, more immersive worlds that engage more players uniquely around the world,” he said.
Looking further out, potentially in the next five-plus years, Wilson said EA might look to hand over its generative AI tools, or a version of them, to players so they can leverage them to create their own content. “Not to replace what we do but to augment, enhance, extend, expand the nature of what interactive entertainment can be in much the way YouTube did for traditional film and television,” he said.
Prior to this, Wilson warned that advances to AI would lead to job losses. Wilson said the “fear of displacement of the workforce” is a legitimate issue as it pertains to AI. The executive said history has shown that major revolutions like the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution led to “displacement” in the workforce in the near term and then “meaningful increases” in job opportunities down the road. AI could follow a similar trajectory, Wilson said.
EA is not alone in its admiration for AI. Microsoft is heavily invested in AI and has said AI will be baked into every product it makes going forward, including Xbox. Microsoft also implemented mass layoffs around the same time of pushing further into AI.
