Picture this: you log back into SimCity BuildIt after months away, ready to tidy up your little city and collect whatever rewards have been piling up. Instead, you’re greeted by an ad telling you to go and vote. That’s exactly what happened to one player, who shared a screenshot of the ad on Reddit. Zoom in on the small print at the bottom, though, and things get a lot more interesting: the ad came from a large MAGA support group.
The player admitted they’d barely touched the game in years, so they had no idea whether this was a regular occurrence. Either way, it didn’t take long for the post to catch fire. With the US midterms just days away, the timing could hardly have been worse for EA. Political ads are hard to escape in the run-up to any election, but a cozy city builder is just about the last place most of us would expect to find one.
EA Says It Was Never Meant to Be There
To EA’s credit, its support team responded fairly quickly once the player reported the ad. According to EA, political ads aren’t allowed in its games, and this one was served...
