Woah! I find this quite interesting. We've seen rockstar ads, but I really think it's quite an achievement to have EA ads here. And that means that they like the site. That means they read the forums. They read this (?). O hai, EA! I might be jumping to the conclusion, but that would mean that they are reading what we say about their games, and maybe the will improve them... Just a thought. What do you think?
It's a conspiracy. TA is full of EA fanboys so they advertised them for free without even asking. I heard they even send money to EA and they ban anyone who says anything bad about them.
I doubt they visit the forums. I think it's far more likely they looked at site figures, went to the top of the list and said "slap some ads on that thing"... and that's as deep as it gets.
Why? http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=94762&postcount=42 Occupation Content & Community Manager, EA Mobile
And, he lasted post/visited when? I get your point that it means EA has invested interest in the forums at some point, so why not now, but I find it unlikely that there is an EA rep lurking the forums. I think that they would let their presence be known.
I think they follow the forums. I remember they left quotes from Big Albie on their app descriptions.
With the exception of Nintendo I'm almost positive that all major game developers browse gaming forums as regular members to get input on their games. I remember Ubi-soft mentioned about this and Bioware did it to make Mass Effect 2 a better experience than the first.
Well EAs short lived project '8lb Gorilla' posted on one of my threads once.. Probably not the same thing though!...