They were quite literally, "Electronic Artists", indeed.

This makes me angry.

People like me, and others in this thread, won't put up with it and will vote with their wallets. But that's unlikely to change anything. It's part of the new culture. We aren't even the demographic they're aiming for. They know that kid's don't care about this stuff, and that's the target audience. And so the gaming 'industry' goes to sh*t.

The same thing happened to the music 'industry'. They realised that appealing to 12yo girls was more lucrative than other demographics, and so we have the boy bands etc.

Idiocracy was prophetic. Orwell's 1984 was prophetic. Black Mirror too. This is our dystopian future, open for everyone to see, and there's little that we can do to change it. Because the people that want to change it can't and the pople that can, don't want to.

yes , i bet they will
this is what happened to mobile games , I wondered why they haven't implemented it to consoles yet
looks like time has come

I can see them only doing it with free-to-play games with microtransactions, so when the inevitable outcry comes, "Hey it's a free game" will be the defense.

At least they were a "label" for "Electronic Artists" like Origin, Bullfrog and others.

Luckily nowadays we have a huge and vibrant indie scene, from tiny one-man projects to AA dimensions and budgets. There will always be games (and good games, even with tons shovelware) without bullshit like integrated ads, lootboxes and other garbage. The AAA companies can go fork themselves, I don't need them.

first yes , but imho they will put it everywhere
just one step a time , maybe they will start with lmbtq or similar ads , and media is instantly on their side

That's the obvious long-term issue - needing an online server = just another form of "Totally Not DRM (tm)" Soft-DRM equivalent that has exactly the same long-term effect of breaking games when the servers go offline.

I would love to believe that. Problem is lootboxes, pay2win, etc, all started out as "But it's JUST mobile. I'm SURE they won't come to PC" and then "OK it's now on PC, but it's JUST cosmetics. I'm SURE they won't put this in paid games / game changing mechanics". And they did. Before we knew it the ability to purchase Bejeweled for $5 for netbooks was replaced with "renting coins" to unlock fake timers in Candy Crush Saga for tablets...

Game publishers literally have psychology experts on their team on "how to screw gamers over", even ones specialising at generating an addiction vs very young via gambling / "surprise" mechanics. They know full well going from 0% to 100% in one go will create backlash, and instead have become very adept at "pushing the boundaries" in gradual increments usually with "but it's only x..." that inevitably gets extended elsewhere via gradual "feature creep" over time. This is why always-online / 4x layers of DRM is accepted today but would have sunk like a stone if it were pushed back in 2004 as the immediate next step from discs.

He means they have already put adverts into $60 NBA 2K21. Which itself is a repeat of 2K20. What people claim "they wouldn't dare do", 2K have already attempted twice. It was "walked back" this time, but just as with micro-transactions, it's simply a case of waiting until the media fuss dies down then repeating it in future games more gradually until it becomes normalized amongst "casual gamers".

Why hate EA? They just make products people buy, if nobody would buy em they wouldn't do these.
Fe Madden games are basically the same each year, yet people buy them every year.
Why should EA improve it when it is clear they still sell, just increase the number by one.

So if you want to be mad at someone, be mad on those you buy these featured games.

Yep, nailed it. GOG have tried doing full on moves to galaxy in the past and we’re met with some backlash. Hence why there are still offline installlers (even if galaxified and containing galaxy files).
The industry in general has learnt to tip toe forward, pushing small changes to an inevitable goal and relying on fan bases to douse any possible objection with the usual, “it’s only xyz”, “it will never come to xyz, stop fear mongering”, and those types of arguments. Several years down the line when those things actually are in full swing it’s too late and has become normalised. Steam workshop is one example, lots of mods have either vanished through fear of being ripped off and sold there, or simple are only available there. Gambling, loot boxes, microtransactions all of these types of things are so old now and embedded that governments are actually looking at them and we know how long a turnaround that takes!
I wouldn’t be suprised if behind the scenes there was all kinds of data profiling, linking with social media, etc. Going on, and the pat this also will trickle in, just remembering the oculus rift topic on here over the last few weeks…

Yeah Steam Workshop is a good example of how unbelievably naive some people are. As for individual profiling of gamers, you should read some of the cr*p they've already patented for future games:-

https://www.techpowerup.com/240655/leaked-ai-powered-game-revenue-model-paper-foretells-a-dystopian-nightmare
https://www.pcgamesn.com/ea-matchmaking-microtransactions-eomm-engagement-patent
https://www.pcgamesn.com/activision-microtransaction-matchmaking-patent

Personally I'm glad I'm done with online multi-player and have a large enough collection + backlog to switch off completely to the new entertainment malware formerly known as "evolved" AAA video games.

People buy Madden because there is no competition for EA in this department.
Just as people will buy 2K, because EA cannot put up a half-decent basketball game.
I understand in a way their desire to play a proper game (whether American football, basketball, hockey, you name it). But at the same time I feel part of the guilt for the current situation lies with the customers, because they encourage such anti-consumer practices.
Still, both EA and 2K deserve all the criticism they receive, especially as of late.

Because they work very hard to earn that reputation?...

That's a very over-simplistic view of the world as gamers obviously aren't one single group of people, and you can hardly blame the many gamers who don't buy them yet still have to put up with EA's crap / the overall AAA publisher trend towards mediocrity anyway due to "The Casual Audience" zombies screwing everything up for everyone.

15 to 30 second adds for a reward. I remember playing an online game that did that. From my own personal experience those were as addicting as loot boxes are designed to be. I wouldn't actually watch the ad but I need to be sitting there to click the necessary prompts to get the reward and start up the next video, so I ended up absorbing them through general osmosis. I still remember an ad for witches of waverly place.