I'm always intrigued by misaligned marketing / production decisions that are made by people who you'd think would know better. In this instance, its EA Games, the largest game publisher on the planet, who have decided to stick spyware into their new premium release Battlefield 2142. The application monitors users web browsing habits and IP / location details. When the user fires up the game, they get served appropriate advertising "in game".
One of the biggest and most influential PC games magazine in the world has already declared its disappointment, and it will be interesting to see if a patch either removes the application altogether, or at least makes it an optional extra.
It remains to be seen what the consumer response will be (the forums have lit up already), but I wander if EA conducted any user research before they decided to go in this direction?
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