Why are those long in-app game ads always misleading/showing a completely different game than what it actually is. Why would a company choose, marketing-wise, to put money and effort into an add that doesn’t represent its product at all?
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Mobile games today focus on labor, not skill. If a game only requires labor, for example Farmville or Hay Day, literally anybody can play it. It only takes a few minutes for the player to get some rewards, and if they like it they’re off and running.
Games that require skill are harder to develop and make fun. They also require more buy-in with regard to time investment from the player. These can certainly be successful and still make a ton of money. For example, Clash Royale. These games of skill or less common.
The problem for the marketer is that games which only require labor don’t look like they’re fun to play. Many of these bait-and-switch ads lure the player with the mystique of the old 80s arcade game that required skill and many attempts after many failures. Because that gameplay loop looks more fun than a click-wait get-reward-game loop of modern labor-based games.
Personally, I think the FTC should be on these guys about false advertising. They might not think it’s very important because the games themselves are “free”. But it’s pretty clear from the amount of money. These guys are making that it really is an issue. I seem to remember Playrix (they make gardenscapes and other ones in the scapes game series) got in trouble for this. so now these games will show you the pull the stick thing or some other gameplay requiring actual decisions, but it will relegate those bits of gameplay to some backwater part of the game; the real loop is still the labor part.
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