The Real Reason You May See Ads The Next Time You Play Xbox
That’s why it may very likely have come as an unpleasant surprise to many gamers when, on April 15,Insiderpublished a report claiming that Microsoft is planning to launch a new in-game ad program for its Xbox consoles. This is according to comments made to Insider by two unnamed company spokespeople who are currently part of the alleged talks taking place behind closed doors, but they’re not identified beyond that. For supporting context, in September 2020, EA ended up pulling afull-blown in-game commercialfrom its fighting game “UFC 4,” before taking to Reddit and apologizing to fans for including it at all, which doesn’t bode well for Xbox in-game ads.
How would Xbox in-game ads work?
According to one detail disclosed to Insider, only certain parties will be allowed to advertise in-game via a “private marketplace,” and if the report turns out to be true, Microsoft’s new program will only apply to free-to-play games. Furthermore, one of the sources behind the allegations indicates that Xbox’s new ad program will supposedly put 100% of the proceeds into the participating developer’s pockets. Microsoft has not confirmed these plans directly, but an unnamed spokesperson suggested to Insider that Bing data will not be used, citing concerns over consumer privacy.
In any case, placing full-blown in-game ads for real products into any console game is inarguably a controversial move, considering that console gamers have historically taken issue withpredatory monetization practicesin video games, especially over the last few years. Currently, advertisers have the ability to purchase ads for display on Xbox’s dashboard. If the new ad partnership service goes live, it’s most likely to happen sometime in Q3 2022, according to Insider.
