Call of Duty Ads on Xbox Get Even Mer Annoying This Year With Modern Warfare 4

When a major new first-party title arrives on Xbox, Microsoft is known for deploying large, intrusive takeover ads, and that pattern persists this year with the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. This year, however, things are somewhat different—and more grating.

Players who switched on their Xbox consoles today, the day of MW4’s release, noticed that in addition to a prominent MW4 takeover ad, the even overrides their custom background. Windows Central was the first to report on this.

Fortunately, this can be switched off, as users online quickly figured out. Players can navigate to Settings > General > Personalization > My Background, then uncheck “Show event-themed backgrounds.”

Users were not pleased with this, particularly with how this time’s takeover completely removes any custom background they may have had, forcing them to view a giant for a game they might not even be interested in.

Xbox ads are only going to become more prevalent from here on. Right now, Xbox users can test a free, ad-supported version of Xbox Cloud Gaming, and many people find that highly objectionable.

Xbox’s new chief strategy officer, Matthew Ball, is a strong advocate of packing more ads into gaming to help solve the “two-sided problem” of modern gaming.

Utveckling costs for many games are now “way too high,” and consumers do not want to pay more, Ball said. Something has to give, and one possible solution, in Ball’s view, is through advertising.

Xbox is not alone in wanting to place more ads in front of players while gaming. Electronic Arts has debuted a new platform called EA Advertising, through which the company plans to insert ads “directly into gameplay.”

As for MW4, it is earning solid review scores, currently holding an 84 on GameSpot’s sister site Metacritic. For more, check out GameSpot’s MW4 review above, covering the game’s campaign, DMZ, and flerspelarläge modes. You can also read our written MW4 review.