Battleangel

IGA or in-game advertising is on the rise and Electronic Arts has just launched what seems to be its first title with built-in, remotely fetched ads for in-game billboards. It’s perhaps more surreal than spyware per se.

Electronic Arts launched Battlefield 2142 yesterday and not too many people were happy to find spyware incorporated into the game. EA is confused why players have an issue with the sheet describing advertising spyware in their copy of Battlefield 2142 … afterall, it’s not like they didn’t announce they were doing this months ago.

Joystiq asked EA to clarify this technology as there still seems to be some confusion (announcement be damned). An EA spokesperson stated, “It does not capture personal data such as cookies, account login detail, or surfing history.”

So, they’re telling us that there is no need to panic. But one still has to wonder about the more technical details of the deal, like distraction, bandwidth usage and if ads are loaded before or during gameplay. In short what sort of impact it has on game performance. And what the end user gets out of it? A lower shelf price? Doesn’t look like it. And the online play was free to begin with — unless they were planning to charge for that as well somehow. So, this is not so much a question of invasion of privacy as it is a question of what we actually get out of the deal. Clearly not a better game as I have myself attested.