On mobile game ads

 It's a story all too common these days: you're using an app on your phone, like TikTok for example, and suddenly you come across an ad for a mobile game. The game looks kind of good, you admit to yourself, if a little too easy. Let's say it's a puzzle game, and the ad shows a ridiculously easy puzzle, like matching shapes to their shadows. THEN the person playing the game in the ad keeps making mistake after mistake, like trying to match the X shape with the circular shadow. Why is this? Why not show off GOOD gameplay instead?

It has to do with the way our brains work, both intellectually and emotionally. Most people enjoy doing puzzles; that's why the Puzzle genre of gaming is so popular, especially among the Casual crowd. Puzzles stimulate the brain, you see, and solving puzzles gives a feeling of accomplishment. 

Puzzle game advertisements are short enough to give the viewer a sense of what the puzzles in the game tend to be like. However, when it comes to the gameplay, there's one simple problem: how much can you show off without giving away the solutions to the puzzles? Therein might be the reason for why puzzle game advertisements tend to show off such shoddy gameplay: they're showing off the gameplay, but by making all the worst possible decisions in game, the solution to the puzzle isn't given away. Except this isn't the reason.

I mentioned that emotions play a role in these advertisements as well; likewise I mentioned that puzzle game advertisements often show off some of the game's puzzles. These advertisements last long enough that the viewer might be able to figure out the puzzle's solution by themselves, only to feel frustration at how the advertisement's player is supposedly doing. This leads the viewer into the advertisement's intended train of thought: "I can do better than this!" Which is, of course, followed by a download link to the game.

And THAT is the reason for why puzzle game ads feature such shoddy gameplay: it's a way to tick the viewer off enough so that they download the game and play the puzzles themselves! It's rather insidious, ESPECIALLY for games whose gameplay does not at all match the ones in the advertisement!

One of the most extreme examples I can think of is the game Homescape, a reskinned Candy Crush with a storyline about a butler. Unfortunately, most ads for the game don't reflect this, instead showing off a flash puzzle game where you pick which tools to use to fix certain problems in the advertisement's house. For all intents and purposes, this was false advertising, which is illegal.

And therein lays THE major problem for mobile puzzle game ads: most of them would fall under false advertising. I can't go a single day without running into an ad, clicking the comments, and seeing "I played the game, and it's NOTHING like this!" or some variation thereof. It's why I don't bother EVER downloading ANY games I see from advertisements.

Don't let yourself be fooled by ads! If you see a game that interests you, look it up BEFORE downloading!