Does anyone understand the point of advertising a game doing something that, after downloading, it does not do?

It seems like if what you’re showing is what you understand they find appealing and fun, then surely that’s what should be in the game. You give them that.

But instead, you give them something else that is unrelated to what they’ve seen on the ad? A gem matching candy crush clone they’ve seen a thousand times?

How is that model working? How is that holding up as a marketing technique???

KingThrillgore,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

This isn’t even the worst offender: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_E9iW_wTk

There’s actually a game made of these games called, hold your breath: “Yeah! You Want “Those Games,” Right? So Here You Go! Now, Let’s See You Clear Them!”

whome,

Okay the real question, is there a good version of this game genre?

Minotaur,

I play D&D with a guy who plays one of these games. It’s so strange. It’s clearly cheap junk, it has absolutely awful reviews everywhere but he just… plays it casually and talks about it like it’s any other major multiplayer game.

It’s weird but I guess he likes it so, who cares? I’m guessing that these studios spend an incredibly low amount of development, a good amount on misleading marketing, and coast by with a moderate playerbase of a maybe a couple thousand people

anarchost,

Probably because there is a nugget of quality and a whole lot of nuggets of attention attraction built into the game. Check out Vampire Survivors sometime, it’s free on Android and it doesn’t have ads (unless you go out of your way to click the button that says “view an ad”). And it was developed by someone who had previously worked at a casino.

It’s the same reason somebody relentlessly checks Twitter, it triggers the same dopamine receptors.

Hello_Kitty_enjoyer,

How is that holding up as a marketing technique

  1. the kindergarteners playing roblox on their mom’s phone don’t care
  2. you already have their malware and that’s all that matters
Daxtron2,

When I was pitching games to publishers, this was how they would test game ideas to see if there was interest. You essentially sent them a few minutes of gameplay or faked gameplay ideas and they would create these ads.

CanadaPlus,

Anti-user features are a major thing. People are dumb enough with technology you can get away with openly screwing over your “customers”. The antifeature in this case is “it’s not actually the advertised game, it’s a cheap pay to win thing”.

Presumably, people download this thinking it’s cool, and then end up playing it anyway and whaling for the “developers”, who may literally be four people, one of which reskins existing games, while everyone else does sales and marketing.

OldWoodFrame,

It’s important to realize that this isn’t a game, it’s 20 seconds of animation that looks like a game. There would be a lot more work designing levels or an algorithm to send enemies etc.

The actual game is designed to be as addictive as possible so you become a whale spending money on it. The advertising is designed to get you to download the game. Two different jobs.

Also, easier A/B testing and targeting if you can just advertise different games to different people but funnel them all to the same end game.

If the math worked out that people who saw the real game downloaded it and ended up paying more money, they would advertise the real game. Guess the math doesn’t work.

frezik,

The ads also have obvious mistakes in the gameplay. That’s to deliberately induce frustration in the viewer, who thinks they would be able to do better.

31415926535,

Can’t cite sources, just want to reaffirm. Kept running into that concept when researching game design, advertising, psychology.

frezik,

Yeah, advertising is one of those things where it superficially looks awful. Then you study the details, and it only gets worse.

interolivary,
@interolivary@beehaw.org avatar

Ah yes, the 'ol fractal of horror

z00s,

Its also an old trick of greengrocers. They put a sign up advertising “tomaetoes” People come in to correct them and end up buying stuff

sanguinepar,
@sanguinepar@lemmy.world avatar

There would be a lot more work designing levels or an algorithm to send enemies etc.

Here’s a video of a guy doing just that: youtu.be/zRDhiN50Vo0?si=mMnc8ieKbCxcLcSY

TLDW: He manages to make a working game, but doesn’t think it’s all that much fun.

dangblingus,

You installed their app on your phone, giving them access to some kind of array of data points on you, up to and including information stored on your device/keylogging you.

BigFatNips,

With the way Android permissions are setup, anything after version 11 shouldn’t really have access to much of your data unless you specifically give it access

philpo,

Which most tech illiterate people will happily do.

BigFatNips,

Ouch, didn’t think of that part. Yeah, that’s worrying

philpo,

I think there is a huge amount of people technologically “disadvantaged” enough to install these apps, give them the rights and then find the App “not worth it” but forget to or simply don’t know how to uninstall them.

Saw it with relatives who had hundreds of unused Apps on their phone (aka managed to fill an Galaxy to the brim with these Apps) and a company I once worked with by accident once pushed an App version of their (legitimate) App that required literally all rights Android could request - more than 40% of all users did give them these rights within a day. (Normally the app didn’t require any rights at all).

thisisnotgoingwell, (edited )

One of the more interesting things about how these games are advertised (I don’t play mobile games but I suspect a lot of people that do are kids) are that it always shows someone playing the game poorly. It’s supposed to make you go “huh. Well that looks easy. Wait wth is he doing? No! He could have gotten the powerup. Oh! Looks like he might get this one! What?! How do you mess that up?! I bet I could do that.”

One thing that I’ve realized about this generation of kids and people who didn’t grow up on tech but were forcibly introduced to it(millennials, gen x, boomers) is that they don’t want the game to be challenging or to reward skill. They just need the game to be flashy and to pass the time. That’s why these games are always made to look so easy and like the guy playing is a moron. A lot of people are attracted to games in a different way than “gamers” … They are not attracted to the challenge or the mastery, they’ve attracted to the visuals and lack of difficulty.

I believe these types of games are akin to gambling. The last time I went to Dave and Busters, you wouldnt believe the amount of adults i saw playing games of chance (not skill) for tickets. Exactly like a casino.

31415926535,

Additional facet: when I was younger, only super nerdy, tech people into coding and stuff played video games. Now tho, way more people playng phone games, video games. So games popping up to cater to people who aren’t super nerdy or into tech.

GreyEyedGhost,

One thing that I’ve realized about this generation of kids and people who didn’t grow up on tech but were forcibly introduced to it(millennials, gen x, boomers) is that they don’t want the game to be challenging or to reward skill.

As a gen X who has been gaming for all my living memory, electronic gaming since I was 5, and gaming on computers since i was 10, I don’t think you have any clear idea what those generations are like. Certainly, there are groups that vastly prefer games of chance to games of skill, whether they be electronic or not, but I’ve seen those in every generation, just like I’ve seen the opposite.

davepleasebehave,

see also the find the lady game played in tourist traps around the world.

Ottomateeverything,

There’s a psychological phenomenon around this but I forget the name for it. But yes, there’s evidence that seeing someone play poorly, and thinking “oh that’s easy I could do that” actually does motivate you to want to do it. Like a weird “prove I’m better” self ego stroke sort of thing. And these ads very much are intentionally playing into that.

thisisnotgoingwell,

True, I’ve seen ads that are like “if you can make it to level 5 you’re a certified genius” or something like that. It’s really sad.

SpaceCowboy,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

Yeah it’s kind of an OCD kind of think where it’s frustrating to watch someone doing something wrong. Then you really just want to jump in and show how it’s supposed to be done.

iegod,

Pretty much going right for the dopamine hit; gotta keep em hooked.

NutWrench,
@NutWrench@lemmy.ml avatar

Does anyone understand the point of advertising a game doing something that, after downloading, it does not do?

They’re called “lies.”

ComradeChairmanKGB,
@ComradeChairmanKGB@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Todd Howard has entered the chat.

sukhmel,

Don’t know if the others are correct about the reasons, but here’s what I felt to be a reason when I once installed such a scam. They do whatever they can to make you run the game and then try to hook you up by using every trick possible to increase engagement. Then they sell you worthless in-game resources for real money. The game I played didn’t even have ads aside from ads of purchasing in-game stuff everywhere

Ottomateeverything,

While all these “tricks” and “engagement” chasing things are true, that’s just mobile gaming in general these days. It has nothing to do with whether they ran “fake ads” or not. Most successful mobile games are stuffed full of loss aversion, fomo, “time saving”, and “fake sale” monetization.

They’re not making fake ads to get you into those systems. The games just do that and the ad you clicked was trying to see if you were interested in the game in the ad. Even if the game you were linked to doesn’t match.

sukhmel,

Well, that’s crappy wrapping for crappy content then, unfortunately

Thanks for your thorough explanations here

beebarfbadger,

Yeah, once you’ve given the app permission to snoop out all your data, they have what they came for and don’t need you to keep it any longer.

vox,
@vox@sopuli.xyz avatar

iirc they actually started adding these as mini games after getting sued for false advertising

Potatos_are_not_friends,

My wife got caught in a mobile ad game. After a thousand of them she finally said, “I’m bored why not” and got addicted for a few weeks.

When I saw the ad of the game she was playing, I was mocking her like, “Oh is that in the game?” And she showed me. Yeah, it totally is. Usually as a special event, or some “mini game” inside the game.

Well damn guess I was wrong.

Ottomateeverything,

I don’t remember having seen any actually successful lawsuits about this. There have been a few about the fake sale price thing etc, but I haven’t seen anything about these ads for games that don’t exist. Happy to admit I’m wrong if anyone has any proof, but as far as I’m aware, that’s never happened.

These games do end up adding mini games of the advertised game, but that’s not because they’re trying to cover their ass. It’s because the ads are for games they’re considering making, and if the ads do well, they know people will click to the store page. The next step is to build it as a mini game inside another game to get more data on engagement with the actual gameplay mechanics to see if people would actually play and keep playing the game. It’s much cheaper and more efficient to do that as a smaller part inside an existing game instead of building a whole new stand alone game. If they mini game does well, they may move it standalone, but if not, it may just stay as a part of the larger one depending on how much it costs to maintain there.

JeeBaiChow,

Plant malware?

peter,
@peter@feddit.uk avatar

Generally they’re not malware

DrMango,

Not malware, just ad revenue generators. Although I guess this depends on how widely you define “malware” since many of them are probably scraping, at a minimum, usage statistics while you play and possibly also device data and who knows what else.

You get 1-2 minutes of gameplay in between each ad and all of the “levels” are probably generated once by a program (rather than a human actually designing the level layout/challenges) to minimize startup costs. I’d be willing to bet that if you traced the ownership structures for the types of games the OP is talking about you’d find a handful of megacorps owning hundreds of them and just reusing assets and programming as well.

Then of course there’s the sinister preying on your psychology in subtle ways to keep you invested just enough to sit through the ad the play the next level.

HawlSera,

Just fucking get “Yeah You Want Those Games” on Steam.

Btw, I love the ones where they actively acknowledge that many of the ads are fake “Why does everyone say this game is fake? I’m playing it right now.” or “See, we’re going to walk through the game in order to prove it’s real…” proceeds to make overly generic commentary that proves nothing

And I find it amusing this game Envoy: The King’s Return has been a puzzle game and an RTS, and it seems the voice over keeps getting confused… because after the generic voice over for Envoy sometimes says “Let the battle begin!”, after showing it as a puzzle game.

lemann,

Wishlisted, this looks like it’ll be some cheap fun for my deck. Thanks for sharing 😁

xmunk,

I forget the game but there was one ad that specifically said, “Don’t you hate those fake ads? Well we’ll show you what our game is really like!” I was so amazed that I downloaded the game even though it didn’t appeal to me… their ad was also fake.

I get that Google Play is “whatever goes” but it’s fucking embarrassing that Apple doesn’t police their store - they’re certainly being paid more than enough money to do it.

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

embarrassing that Apple doesn’t police their store -

Isn’t it the ads that you want to be policed? Or are the screenshots in the Play Store and App Store also misleading?

xmunk,

It’s the app. If they’re deceiving customers then Apple should remove their app.

wahming,

How is apple supposed to keep track of ads displayed within other apps and platforms, though?

Silentiea,

I mean, if nothing else, user reports and reviews, followed by a trivially short investigation?

Ottomateeverything,

Firstly, this is easier said than done.

User reports are a dangerous step to take, because once they prove they do it, any company can just review bot their competition claiming it’s fake.

They could technically police their own ad networks, but most of these networks are not Apple’s so they can’t. They’d have to just hire people to go play games to get ads to click on to then take down games.

And then what’s the point? Apple is just money chasing like every other company, and most of the huge game companies do this. They’d be shooting themselves in the foot and hurting their own revenue. As much as they like to tout that they protect users, that’s something they like to say because it serves them. At the end of the day, their own best interests are far more important to them.

HawlSera, (edited )

The most devious format is when they show a “clip” from a “totally real youtuber’s very real games people say are fake, but aren’t” series

Protip: The harder someone tries to convince you something isn’t the case, the more likely that it is. Lemme put it like this. Would you trust a restaurant that felt the need to put up a sign saying “We do NOT jack off into the clam chowder!”, no?

Psythik,

deleted_by_author

    •
    calcopiritus,

    Because you can’t play steam games on the phone. Pretty easy to understand.

    Psythik,

    This is why we have computers.

    calcopiritus,

    Even for someone that doesn’t leave their basement, can’t use the computer in bed.

    MufinMcFlufin,

    Because my phone is a lot easier to carry in my pocket while I’m out doing errands than my gaming desktop. Or a steam deck.

    loutr,
    @loutr@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Same reason people who already have a desktop computer also use smartphones.

    HawlSera,

    I don’t have my fucking Doom Eternal or even my Lego Batman off of my Steam Account when I’m at work pretending to have diarrhea to get a minute to myself.

    LoamImprovement,

    I love that somebody actually went and fucking made them.

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