10 Most Embarrassing Product Placements In Video Games
3. Battlefield 2142’s Targeted Advertisements
EA didn’t just rent their digital billboards out to politicians, they were open to anyone with a chequebook. It wasn’t unheard of during the 2000s to see their games utilising this tactic.
Battlefield 2142 is a particularly good example because it used spyware to figure out how to advertise to you. At this point, we humans have evolved to be wary of the very word because it just sounds ominous. As such, when gamers received physical copies of the new Battlefield game in 2006 that came with a paper disclaimer in the box they were understandably worried.
It actually turned into a bit of a controversy for EA, who had to release clarifying statements alongside their partner IGA Worldwide who was assisting them on this. In their words, it wasn’t collecting unique data so much as what demographic you were, what part of the world you were in and what time it was to better advertise to you.
That’s all well and good then but considering the game takes place over 100 years into the future, it was more than a little weird to see billboards for current day products like Intel processors or the fact that I Am Legend was coming to Blu-Ray.
Still, most players would take this immersion breaking product placement over games that are basically just microtransaction factories so there is that.