Wow, this is awful. Some people reported that these ads are also very petty and not necessarily related to the game, like apparently Elden Ring shows an ad for a licensed mousepad when you hover over the game now…
Edit: Playstation Product Manager says this is actually a new bug. I really doubt it but they do seem to be “fixing it”.
Ban advertising.
Honestly. Start from a hard demand to destroy this infesting industry. Make them justify bribing middlemen to throw propaganda in your face. Allowing it wherever and whenever, as a business model, is incompatible with every random widget having a screen and an internet connection. You’re gonna take a shit at a sports bar and stare at a life-size animated has-been, shilling some quasi-medical subscription drug. Or unlock your phone and see every dot is a different logo. Or turn your television off and notice the LCD still reflects a forty-inch-tall brand name.
No more “by existing you agree to–” either. Fuck that noise, even if wormtongue sleazeballs claw back their right to shit in your brain. Laws mean nothing if the corporations they bind can just write ‘nuh-uh.’ When, not if, we beat back this miserable cult of tricking people into buying things, it will not be permitted to commit these abuses, just because they said they could.