Some of the responses here dance around the truth, but none of them hit the nail on the head. This is a bit of an artifact of how the mobile industry works and the success rate vs profitability vs the way ads work on mobile.

Yes, hands down, this is not an effective advertising strategy. Many of these game companies are very successful so it's not because they're stupid. It's because these ads aren't advertising campaigns.

These ads are market research. The point isn't to get you to download their game. At all. The point is to figure out what people will engage with.

These ads are all game ideas. Mobile game ideas are a dime a dozen million. They're easy to come up with, cost a lot to build, and many don't monetize well and therefore aren't profitable. Because of that, it's very expensive and unsustainable to build games and test them and see what succeeds.

Instead, companies come up with ideas, build a simple video demonstrating the idea, and put up ads with those videos. They then see how many people engage with the ads to determine how many people would even visit the download page for that game. Building a quick video is much much much cheaper than building a game. This is the first step in fast failing their ideas and weeding out bad ones.

Essentially the companies have lots of ideas, build lots of simple videos, advertise them all, and see which ones get enough engagement to be worth pursuing further, while the rest get dropped entirely.

But those ads need to link somewhere. So they link to the companies existing games. Because they're already paying for it. So why not.

But building a whole new game is also expensive. Dynamics in mobile gaming are very odd because of the way "the algorithm" works. It is actually extremely expensive to get advertising in front of enough people that enough download it that you have any meaningfully large player base to analyze at all.

So the next trick is these companies will take the successful videos, build "mini games" of those ads as a prototype, and then put that in their existing game. This means they can leverage their existing user base to test how much people will engage with the game, and more importantly, eventually test how well it monetizes. Their existing users have already accepted permissions, likely already get push notifications, and often already have their payment info linked to the app. It also means they don't have to pay for and build up a new store presence to get eyeballs on it. Many of the hurdles of the mobile space have already been crossed by their existing players, and the new ones who clicked the ads have demonstrated interest in the test subject. This is why many of the ads link to seemingly different games that have a small snippet of what you actually clicked on.

If these mini games then become successful enough, they will be made into their own standalone game. But this is extremely rare in mobile. The way the store algorithms and ads work make it pretty fucking expensive to get new games moving, so they really have to prove it to be worthwhile in the long run.

So yeah, most people look at this the wrong way - it does actually go against common sense advertising, but that's because it's not actually advertising. It's essentially the cheapest way for companies to get feedback from people that actually play mobile games about what kinds of games they would play.

It's not advertising. It's market analysis.

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.

This doesn't answer the question but it's amusing.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2348100/YEAH_YOU_WANT_THOSE_GAMES_RIGHT_SO_HERE_YOU_GO_NOW_LETS_SEE_YOU_CLEAR_THEM/

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.

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

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.

Industry of LIES - Mobile Game False Advertising

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.

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

They're called "lies."

The ads are for testing game concepts, if an ad have enough engagement the game is made.

Plant malware?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Baiting you into paying for in app purchases.

It’s basically elaborate clickbait, but for apps. In the field of user experience design, it’s referred to as a “dark pattern.”