Games Industry.biz brought together a group of gaming analysts to give their informed opinions on big trends you should expect to see in 2025. Of course, many talked about the giant impact the Nintendo Switch 2 and Grand Theft Auto VI (if it isn’t delayed) will have on the market, but one particular prediction stood out to us for being something we could see a lot of gamers object to. Rhys Elliott, games analyst for Midia Research, thinks that advertisements in games might take off, particularly on PlayStation and Xbox.
How games could implement more advertisements
The way Elliott explains his reasoning seems to imply that the home page for your console will become more flooded with advertisements from other companies, but we could speculate to see a world where they go beyond that. Think about every time you open up the PS5 or Xbox dashboard when you are in a game. That’s plenty of real estate that could go to ads. Party chat, store pages, or even settings menus could be impacted with ads.
Elliott also predicts the games themselves being injected with more ads going forward. He mentions these instances being “immersive, interstitial, and rewarded,” which implies things to be more built into the game world. Think of things like Monster Energy in Death Stranding or the restaurants in Crazy Taxi. You can also expect to see more crossovers like Squid Games in Call of Duty. We’ve seen a lot of mobile developers start making their jump into PC and console markets in recent years, so there is a chance the mobile way of monetization may try to further strengthen its grip in those areas.
Will games have more advertisements in them this year?
It’s important to remember that Rhys Elliott is just giving a prediction for how he could see gaming companies act this year. It’s by no means a guarantee that your PS5 and Xbox Series X will be bombarded with ads, but don’t rule out the possibility. We’ve already seen these companies lay off tens of thousands of employees just last year, and we know they are always chasing revenue growth, no matter what. At the end of the day, it might not happen, but there is a world where you see tons of advertisements every time you boot up Grand Theft Auto VI after it releases.
