Gamers' worst nightmares come true! Xbox is adding ads to free-to-play games
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Key notes
- If you are a fan of free-to-play games on Xbox you will definitely want to hear what the company is up to, as it will impact you directly.
- Microsoft is soon going to introduce in-game ads for the above-mentioned title category, so don't be surprised when you start seeing them.
- We don't know for sure when this feature will be active but Microsoft also has to think about how this will impact customer privacy.
It’s safe to say that every self-respecting gamer has learned the lesson about paid games, free games, and microtransactions, making the area less tabu in these last few years.
In fact, there are free-to-play games that generated a lot more revenue from microtransactions than many expensive triple-A titles put together.
Thus, making a free game doesn’t mean you aren’t going to make any money from it, it just means that you are making it through other means.
Microsoft also plans to profit from people that are willing to play and pay for these free games, which is why ads are soon coming to them.
Free-to-play games will soon display ads on Xbox
It should come as no surprise that the Redmond tech giant already has already created an ad system for the Xbox dashboard, via Yahoo and Anzu.
Work on this new idea started in 2018-2019, and will allegedly create more opportunities and also attract a lot more advertisers.
As presented by Business Insider, the new system could go live by the 3rd quarter of this year, and the Redmond tech giant will not take a cut from the ad income.
According to the quoted sources, the ads could appear as digitally rendered billboards in a racing game or open-world adventure.
For the time being, it’s currently unknown what other forms these free-to-play ads could manifest as, or if they will include videos or audio.Â
We don’t know yet if Microsoft and Xbox have started pitching advertisers and brands on the new ad system.
We’re pretty sure that many will be concerned for their privacy, with this new ad idea. Microsoft collects a lot of data with telemetry, but it doesn’t want advertisers to do the same.
The main goal here would be to provide a system that prevents targeted ads by protecting user data.
It’s plain to see why Microsoft didn’t try this on PCs and decided to deploy it on Xbox consoles. Users can easily bypass it by editing the host file or by using a system-wide ad-blocking program like AdGuard for Windows.
Even though the ads will only be apparently introduced for free-to-play games, many are now concerned that they will soon start to see ads everywhere.
And since we’re talking about Xbox, learn what to do when Xbox Game Pass quests aren’t showing up, or how to fix Xbox Game Pass quests not working at all.
Hopefully, that won’t be the case and the situation will be closely monitored and contained by Microsoft. What is your opinion on this whole ad situation? Let us know in the comments section below.
