Mobile Game Ads are Stupid

 

 

 

If you’re addicted to social media like I am, you’ll notice a lot of ads for mobile games popping up periodically. I’ve got to say, I am getting sick of these ridiculous ads. 

One thing I have noticed is that for one, most of these game ads have crazy plots that don’t have anything to do with how the actual game is played. They somehow are blatantly able to get away with outright lying to you about what kind of game you’re signing up for. A good example is a game called Empire of the Ants, which I played for a short time. It’s basically just a building game with some strategy involved, but the ads would have you thinking you’re waging war against giant insects and fighting crazy battles. It’s literally just a building game, and it’s dumb. Seriously, these ads would not work in any other medium. Imagine seeing an ad on TV for a utility knife that boasts it can help you kill a bear and then prepare its corpse into bear steaks, and then when you actually order it, it’s a plastic spork. 

Another thing I’ve noticed, is the games almost always involve a woman (usually pregnant), and sometimes a child getting kicked out of their house by an abusive man, and made to live on an island or in a jankity ass house with no heating or plumbing. What is the deal with that? Is there an appeal behind using puzzles to rescue a wayward woman and her kids from certain doom? I saw one the other day of a woman getting KICKED OUT OF AN AIRPLANE by her boyfriend and landing on a deserted island where, big surprise!- she must clear bushes and build a farm to survive. Is there something fun about seeing people in despair and using matching games and farming as a way to save them?

The fashion based games are just as bad. Usually, the plot involves an extremely disheveled woman with wild hair, covered in garbage, her face a mess of pimples and boils. She's typically trying to impress some rich pretentious asshole who will only be nice to her if she looks good. The goal is to dress her up pretty to make him love her. Somehow, the person playing the game in the ad fails and the woman ends up crying on the street corner or even worse, IN PRISON! Oh yeah, she's usually pregnant too.

 

What is it with mobile games and violence towards women and kids? And am I overthinking it?

Less frequently, I see ads for games about animals that usually involve the animals being injured or abused in some way. Somebody shoots a dragon full of arrows, and you save it by matching eggs together or something. I don’t know. Almost all of these games are the same. They are matching, building, or puzzles. It’s all the same crap. I fail to see how any of these games profit off of using violence and abuse as a selling point when the game itself is pretty benign. 

Sometimes they go the other direction though. Sometimes they use romance as a way to lure in gamers. It still usually starts with some kind of horrible event happening to a woman, but lo and behold, there is a really nice man with a pie or something who will save her and help her open her own shop. A lot of times the romance games delve into supernatural stuff and even straight up bestiality. I'm afraid to even try these games, so I can't even tell you how accurate they are.

Last thing. Why do these games insist on showing us the worst possible way to play them? They’ll show a disembodied hand doing the match part of the game and doing it badly. Usually somebody dies or starves to death as a result of these poor choices. I’m guessing this is a way to get people to play them so they can show that they can do it better. It’s still really annoying and I do not understand where these advertisers get their ideas.

 

 Do any of these games actually appeal to people? Can we just be honest and say it’s a puzzle game and leave it at that?

These tactics must work or else I wouldn’t be seeing ads like this all the time. I’d like to know if they are actually tricking people, or if people are just bored and clicking on them for the sake of it.  

What’s your favorite bad gaming ad?

Stay weird folks.