Almost anyone who has played a mobile game at some point over the past few years will have encountered a playable ad. A snippet from a game that interrupts the game you are playing at the time in an attempt to get players to download it and give it a try. Like a very, very short demo. The task given to players to complete in the ad will be a simple one, and then players will be presented with the option to download the full game once completed.
Aside from the fact that they are annoying, there’s another big problem with playable ads. Some of them feature gameplay that isn’t representative of the full game. Dan Greenberg works for ironSource and has been building playable ads for various companies for the past three years. Greenberg revealed to Gamesindustry.biz that 2019 was a big year for playable ads, and also discussed the deceiving way in which some developers have decided to use them.
Matching Mansion’s Ads Don’t Match Up
Matching Mansion is one example Greenberg gives of its ad misrepresenting what happens in the full game. The playable ad has players putting out fires to save the mansion. However, that scenario never plays out in the game and is just another in a long line of match-three titles. There are a number of ways in which players reacted to being lied to. Some gave the game a one-star review, others continued to play the game hoping to reach the part flaunted in the ad, and a small percentage simply stopped playing and deleted the app.
Bad reviews are no longer the dagger through the heart of mobile games that they used to be, though. Of the people looking for something new to play, a small section of them are heading to reviews for recommendations. Most people follow ads on social media or recommendations from friends, making Matching Mansion’s scathing reviews a minor issue. That doesn’t mean misleading playable ads aren’t leading the games they’re advertising down a bad path, though.
How’s That Short Shelf-Life?
When a playable ad is thrown out into the world, chances are that game will see a surge in downloads. However, once players discover the ad was a lie, the lifetime of that game will be greatly reduced. Put simply, a game that lies about what it is isn’t going to be around years later like Pokémon GO and Fortnite. It also costs a lot of money to create these ads, with Greenberg revealing developers have paid $350 million in the past three years for help creating ads.
On top of that, once a developer shows itself to be the kind of company that is okay with misleading its players, people won’t be returning for a new title. Playable ads are frustrating at the best of times. On the off chance a player is presented with one they enjoy and follow up on with a full download, imagine the anger they will feel when they discover the game they have taken the time to check out isn’t the one they were led to believe it would be.
All of the above adds up to the possibility of playable ads becoming a thing of the past very soon after they have become the in-thing. Greenberg predicts the pendulum swinging back the other way in the coming months. The video above is showcased on a channel trying to out developers for using misleading playable ads, and it has 82,000 subscribers. More and more mobile gamers are getting wind of this tactic, which hopefully means it will quickly become a thing of the past.
Source: Gamesindustry.biz
