Other games may not give players a choice, which may be considered the real “cost” behind downloading a free mobile casual game. Some games offer a paid purchase to turn off all ads. The ban also seems to be only in the UK for now. Now developers are inserting other characters from puzzle games into the same ads to get around the ban. While these misleading ads for Gardenscapes and Homescapes have been banned, it’s not the end. They showed a game where users pull pins in a specific order to solve a puzzle - though the actual games had. If Playrix wants to advertise either game, they must properly show that the game primarily has match-3 puzzle gameplay. The ads, for the Homescapes and Gardenscapes games, both come from developer Playrix. The final judgment is that the ads must not appear again in a misleading manner. The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules – 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.9 (Qualification), and 3.11 (Exaggeration). The company believed the ads “appealed to the logic and problem-solving skills required to win during the games.” The ads also contained some small disclaimer text that the ads did not present all of the games’ gameplay.ĪSA ultimately concluded that the ads were misleading: Playrix believed that the ads represented the game’s story, along with the game’s important characters. In total, seven complainants believed that the ads did not represent Gardenscapes and Homescapes and claimed it was a misleading advertisement. None of these situations occur in the real versions of the game.ĪSA ruling on two ads for two apps that presented gameplay which wasn't representative of the games being advertised ĪSA investigated the ads and posted the results on its official website. Players had to watch or interact with the ad to save Austin from falling down a well, surviving in cold weather, or getting eaten by a shark. Instead, they showed Austin in various dangerous situations. Playrix’s ads did not show examples of the match-3 gameplay. There is no other gameplay, but that’s where Playrix’s ads were found to be misleading. If a player wants to complete even one room of Austin’s mansion, they may have to complete 50-100 puzzle levels. Players unlock the repairs and other home improvements by earning stars through playing puzzle games. In each game, players help a man named Austin make various home repairs. The developer created the popular match-3 puzzle games Gardenscapes and Homescapes. One set of ads from the developer Playrix was recently banned in the UK. Some puzzle games may give a player extra moves if they watch an ad, or others may play an ad before and after every level. The publisher follows this strategy with other hyper-casual games: Gardenscapes, Township, and even the new one Wildscapes.Īnd not only Playrix releases such creatives for match-3 games.Free-to-play mobile games may seem easily accessible, but they’re often plagued with in-game ads. The same situation with a huge and successful publisher Playrix - the ad makes the game look like it's house-repairing game while in fact it's a match-3 game. It consistently enters the Top 10 role-playing games and gains more than a million dollars in revenue every month, according to Apptica Store Intelligence. The popular pay-to-win mobile game Mafia City is known for cartoon video ads that have nothing to do with the real gameplay.Īnother pay-to-win game Hero Wars - Men’s Choice Epic Fantasy RPG pretend to be a brain-twisting puzzle game while having completely different gameplay.ĭespite hundreds of angry user reviews, the game is very successful. Some large publishers allow themselves to make fake advertisements, and Apptiсa has collected several examples of such ad creatives. However, this strategy can only work if the game is good enough to attract and retain traffic. That will give the application a rather small DAU increase, despite the obvious day-1 retention decline. Well, perhaps the developers expect that some part of the acquired traffic, who doesn’t feel deceived too much, will stay. Why cheat users if they delete the game anyway when realize it doesn't fit their expectations. This called a misleading ad or fake ad - the way some publishers advertise to attract more users. Some of us hate it, the others accept it as a necessary evil but what if you're actually interested in playing the game from the ad because it looks like the next Call of Duty? You click the ad, download the game and then realize that the gameplay has nothing to do with the ad and the game is nothing you believed it would be. If you were playing free mobile games at least once you've probably seen the mobile ad of other games popping up occasionally on your screen. Misleading ad in mobile games: Playrix, Matchington Mansion, Mafia City
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