Misleading game ads?
December 21, 2019 4:46 AM Subscribe
What's the deal with advertising a game that doesn't exist (as far as I can tell) under the name of another game? Who is doing it and why?
I noticed this a month or so ago, I'd seen the ads before, on facebook I think, and hadn't paid much attention to them - they had that tired old line about only people with iq > 140 or whatever can solve this so I kinda blanked them out. Then I got a new phone game and these ads came up often.
They're all more or less the same, they use characters from the game whose name they're using, or who would fit in the setting of the game, if the game doesn't have characters as such. The character is trapped and has to slide sticks out in the right order to get the cash or avoid the lava/drowning/spike trap - which they obviously fail.
After seeing this ad many times, I thought, actually, it does look like it might be fun so I click on it and then see the link goes to a game I already have - Gardenscapes - which is not a puzzle game, its a match-4 game. That's when I start to notice that its a different game being advertised every time but with the same style of puzzle in the ad but a different character in the puzzle.
Then they started showing up on facebook too and other people have commented that this game doesn't exist and they're just as baffled by this marketing strategy. At first I thought it was a mistake but each version of the ad is tailored to the game they're claiming to advertise so its not just a mix up, its deliberate.
What's going on? Why advertise a game as being totally different to how it actually is? Are they getting paid for clicks or downloads? I can't see this being that effective for the games, and maybe even harmful to their brand when people download them and see that they're completely different to the advert. If I download something and its not what it said it was, I uninstall it
I noticed this a month or so ago, I'd seen the ads before, on facebook I think, and hadn't paid much attention to them - they had that tired old line about only people with iq > 140 or whatever can solve this so I kinda blanked them out. Then I got a new phone game and these ads came up often.
They're all more or less the same, they use characters from the game whose name they're using, or who would fit in the setting of the game, if the game doesn't have characters as such. The character is trapped and has to slide sticks out in the right order to get the cash or avoid the lava/drowning/spike trap - which they obviously fail.
After seeing this ad many times, I thought, actually, it does look like it might be fun so I click on it and then see the link goes to a game I already have - Gardenscapes - which is not a puzzle game, its a match-4 game. That's when I start to notice that its a different game being advertised every time but with the same style of puzzle in the ad but a different character in the puzzle.
Then they started showing up on facebook too and other people have commented that this game doesn't exist and they're just as baffled by this marketing strategy. At first I thought it was a mistake but each version of the ad is tailored to the game they're claiming to advertise so its not just a mix up, its deliberate.
What's going on? Why advertise a game as being totally different to how it actually is? Are they getting paid for clicks or downloads? I can't see this being that effective for the games, and maybe even harmful to their brand when people download them and see that they're completely different to the advert. If I download something and its not what it said it was, I uninstall it
Best answer: A slightly different question was recently asked and answered here: Facebook Ads and Games
You can read more there but the gist is that this is all an unregulated bait-and-switch.
posted by El_Marto at 5:45 AM on December 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
You can read more there but the gist is that this is all an unregulated bait-and-switch.
posted by El_Marto at 5:45 AM on December 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Ah, that link was already posted. But in any case, if an ad gets people to click on it, then it's a "successful" ad, and as you say:
it does look like it might be fun so I click on it
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:11 AM on December 21, 2019
it does look like it might be fun so I click on it
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:11 AM on December 21, 2019
Response by poster: El_Marto - that is the exact ad I'm talking about - different game but the exact same ad!
posted by missmagenta at 6:11 AM on December 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by missmagenta at 6:11 AM on December 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
I've noticed that exact same ad but didn't notice the part about it mentioning a different game each time. I've established a new policy for my casual gaming on the ipad: if it shows me a video even once, I delete it. I am willing to pay for games, but I am not willing to watch dumbass videos.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 1:16 PM on December 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 1:16 PM on December 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
I use the video ads as time to grab a drink, nibble on snacks, adjust my seat, and so on. I set the device down and use the 30-ish seconds of free time to do something else.
I have downloaded an app that I saw in ads - but not by clicking on the ad; I remembered the name and looked it up later. (I still see ads for it, which strikes me as a profound waste of someone's money.)
Any app that shows me ads gets a downvote when the ask "How are we doing?!? Rate us!"
Ads on mobile games are going to be pure scam until (sigh) we have government bodies that consider "ordinary people are losing money, time, and quality-of-life on them" as a bug instead of a feature.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:18 PM on December 21, 2019
I have downloaded an app that I saw in ads - but not by clicking on the ad; I remembered the name and looked it up later. (I still see ads for it, which strikes me as a profound waste of someone's money.)
Any app that shows me ads gets a downvote when the ask "How are we doing?!? Rate us!"
Ads on mobile games are going to be pure scam until (sigh) we have government bodies that consider "ordinary people are losing money, time, and quality-of-life on them" as a bug instead of a feature.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:18 PM on December 21, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
Advertising is a process whereby professional liars tell lies to businesses in order to persuade them to pay for having putatively beneficial lies told on their behalf. Sometimes advertisers get a bit swept up in their own sucking moral vacuum, is all.
Are they getting paid for clicks or downloads?
Could be either.
I can't see this being that effective for the games, and maybe even harmful to their brand when people download them and see that they're completely different to the advert.
The advertiser could not care less what you think about the game that some poor sucker has paid them to advertise. All the advertiser cares about is maximizing whatever that sucker has agreed to pay them to generate; plausibly, downloads of their game.
If I download something and its not what it said it was, I uninstall it
Marketing runs a gamut, from complete bottom feeders like straight-up spammers, through irritating bullshit artists like the ones you're asking about, to quite switched-on folks who act as if they have something of ongoing value to offer the businesses they attach their remora suckfaces to. Only the latter are going to give more than three seconds' thought to what you actually think of the brand they're promoting.
No skin off the advertiser's nose if you instantly uninstall something they already got paid for as soon as you downloaded it. Plenty more desperate app creators where that one came from.
All of this stuff becomes really easy to understand once you give up on the erroneous notion that capitalism actually makes some overall kind of sense.
posted by flabdablet at 5:43 AM on December 21, 2019 [7 favorites]