Author: Seb Joseph

Electronic Arts (EA) has spent years telling us it’s in the game. Now it wants brands in there too.

The games developer has built its own ad server into its Frostbite engine and is now staffing up the commercial layer to sell it. Job postings across its careers site show it is hiring for at least six roles spanning ad tech engineering data analytics, ad operations and product marketing. 

The moves are part of a wider launch of EA Advertising — Electronic Arts’ most serious attempt yet to turn its games into a scalable media business. Indeed, it has tried this before. A 2006 deal that put dynamic ads into Need For Speed and Battlefield fizzled out. Billboard ads in UFC 4 in 2020 triggered a player backlash. The model that survived those missteps was simpler: a brand pays upfront, a logo gets coded into the game before it ships and the deal is done. It was lucrative enough as a business but it had a ceiling. What EA is launching now is built on a proprietary ad server and SDK designed for its Frostbite engine.

Continue reading this article on digiday.com. Sign up for Digiday newsletters to get the latest on media, marketing and the future of TV.

,Read More

Afternoons at Cannes tend toward a particular kind of frenzy. The rosé is flowing, the diary is full and somewhere on the Croisette a panel is running 15 minutes over. Kelly Taylor has other plans. On at least one afternoon she intends to disappear — onto her balcony, alone, with a glass of wine and a fresh baguette. 

“Stepping away from the chaos gives you time to recharge,” said the global growth director at Jellyfish. “And to appreciate that, despite the madness, there are far worse places to spend a week at work.”

She is not, it turns out, alone in this. The Croisette has an introvert class — and it is larger than the industry likes to admit. 

Continue reading this article on digiday.com. Sign up for Digiday newsletters to get the latest on media, marketing and the future of TV.

,Read More