How many reputation blackouts does EA have left, coach?
Okay, so, advertising is part of the sports game experience, and EA Sports UFC 4 already has space for ads on the Octagon (matching how it looks on TV) and in the main menus, but players were recently treated to brief advertising pop-ups during the Replay segments of the gameplay and backlash was swift enough that EA disabled the feature and a spokesperson apologised on Reddit within days.
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.
Someone over at EA obviously got a little excited about promoting season two of The Boys and thought covering up gameplay (even if it was just replays) would be a good idea. It was the sort of splash ad you’d expect when you have the misfortune to be watching regular TV, or in the free-to-play sphere, but not so much when it’s a video game you actually paid (R999) for.
Before everyone jumps on the it’s-EA-what-do-you-expect bandwagon, 2K introduced unskippable ads to NBA 2K20 a few weeks after it was released, too, and that was after fans complained about the ads in NBA 2k19. Although, 2K never said it was sorry about that, so that might be more of a “fool me once” type of situation.
Go, sports!
Via SlashGear.