Advertising overload

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Advertising overload is the practice of not only integrating advertising as a source of revenue in software and websites, but to also increase the population of ads within platforms that consumers end up using.

Applications in industries

Mobile gaming

A feature often associated with mobile games in the modern day are ads. Unfortunately, publishers such as Puzzle1Studio, Metacore Games, and Rovio have a history of publishing titles that corner the consumer into frequently watching ads in the middle of their games. This practice additionally leeches into Microtransactions, wherein these app developers will intentionally try to coax users into watching ads, such as for increased rewards, or to reduce cooldown times.

Major software distribution platforms such as the Google Play store or the iOS App Store will often allow this behavior to persist from app developers, even featuring these as overloaded games.

Operating systems

Operating systems have been experiencing this decline into advertising, mostly from the large market lead Windows. King's Candy Crush frequently comes pre-installed on windows 10 operating systems, users who purchased Windows 1X Home licenses have reported a progressively increasing number of ads within the software, windows 10 pop-ups frequently terrorize legacy users into purchasing Windows 11-supported hardware, and Microsoft Solitaire Collection, a mainstay title for Windows devices, has had unnecessary ads inserted into the software.

Smart televisions also have been seeing a increasing rise in advertisements within the operating system as well, such as Roku, Amazon fire TV, and Chromecast. [Insert home screen screenshot for a fire TV, and also a screenshot of the current idle screen for a Roku smart TV!]

Users who owned consoles for Xbox One/Series, and Playstation 4/5, have been receiving ads on the home screens of their systems for over a decade at this point. [Insert Xbox Dashboard and PS4/5 dashboard displaying ads] This practice has similarly been done on the Xbox 360, albeit to a more limited extent.

Streaming services

In the late 2010s, there was a polarizing shift within the streaming service industry, wherein new free streaming services such as IMDB TV and Roku Television would be offered, with the caveat of ads. This had then inspired corporations who operated premium streaming services. In the early 2020s, paying users would then be forced to watch ads. Since then, users have only been reporting an increase in the amounts of ads that they watch on their services. Some premium providers, such as Netflix, do offer a higher tier, which consumers have been decrying as extortion. Others, such as [insert company here, I think it is Max but I'd rather play it safe], will merely only offer their platform as a service you pay for and additionally receive ads for.

[Insert section dedicated specifically towards YouTube's increasing usage of ads here!]

Traditional Gaming

While not on par as to its Mobile gaming cousin, traditional video games have also been experiencing this heavy increase in advertising, albeit, mostly towards encouraging consumers to purchase products from the game's storefront. This has especially been seen and documented from titles such as Call of Duty and Fortnite. The home screen and launch screen experience for these games often try to market the player towards looking at the storefront to purchase whatever cheap microtransaction is for sale on that day. Often, these microtransactions are also part of some sort of advertising deal for another product, such as a new film or video game.

[Insert screenshots from Call of Duty and Fortnite]

Additionally, some platforms have gone so far as to leave notifications for users explicitly for these new products to purchase from this game. Most have kept these notifications in-game, but some have been reported to leave notification pop-ups in Windows. It is entirely plausible that these marketplace advertisements will increase in popularity from publishers as time goes on.

Social Media

Stub section, necessarily important but just not enough research done yet to write.

Notable Examples

This section is a stub, please add to it!