It's no secret that microtransactions make a lot of money in video games. Activision Blizzard made around $1.2 billion in three months from microtransactions alone, over half its revenue for that time.
However, microtransactions are a piece of the gaming pie that many people are sick of, and not just players. Governments around the world have begun investigating microtransactions, especially loot boxes and related mechanics, to see if they need to be brought under heavier regulation. This has led EA, which leans heavily into loot boxes, to look for other sources of in-game revenue. A recent patent suggests that the company has settled on in-game advertisements.
The patent is for a system through which EA could effectively show advertisements to players during downtime in a game. These ads, presented in the patent as "offers" and "auxiliary content," would appear during a time when players could not take any action. Presumably, these ads would be paid for by the company advertised, providing EA an alternate method of getting money to the loot boxes that have gotten it huge fines.
At first, it seems the ads would exclusively appear during load times, or perhaps certain cutscenes, but the patent goes into greater detail on actions that could lead to downtime. Based on the criteria listed, it seems that the patent is primarily for putting ads in mobile games like EA's The Simpsons: Tapped Out or Clash of Clans.
The patent discusses common action types that can lead to downtime when the player cannot take action. These action types include troop maneuvers, simulated research, unit or building construction, and resource prospecting. All of these are actions that usually take a long time to complete in mobile games, creating many windows for ads. EA previously removed and apologized for ads in UFC 4, but this patent indicates that it is still moving forward with ads in games, just taking a different approach.
Of course, this is not to say that ads won't begin appearing in EA's mainstream titles again. Once players become used to it in mobile games, there's a good chance EA will try to expand it into other games again, probably starting with the sports genre. EA previously said it "Got it Wrong" with the infamous Star Wars Battlefront 2, but perhaps "got it wrong" simply means "tried to monetize things the wrong way."
Players were outraged at the ads in UFC 4, and odds are those feelings won't change for new ads in games. Hopefully, EA's struggle with its loot box fines will discourage further gross monetization, but with a patent already filed, that seems unlikely.
Source: US Patent Office Filing