If you’ve played some form of mobile game before, you’ve undoubtably experienced mobile game ads. And bad mobile game ads, at that.
You’re not alone in thinking mobile game ads are bad. There are countless mobile game ad memes circling around the internet, joking about this very thing:
All of this does beg the question – why are mobile game ads so bad? Let’s take a look.
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Types of Mobile Game Ads
Before we can look at why mobile game ads are so dreadful the majority of the time, we first need to look at the different types of mobile game ads there are.
Rewarded video ads
The first type of mobile game ad we’ll cover is the rewarded video ad.
What are Rewarded Video Ads?
Rewarded video ads are video adverts that reward the user in their game for watching the ad through to the end. This reward can be in the form of extra lives in the game they’re playing, or things like extra points and/or bonuses.
The best rewarded video ads are ones that allow the user to skip what would be a long wait in their mobile game. In exchange for the user watching the ad through to the end, they get to skip what could have been a 2-3 hour wait and can carry on playing the game straight away.
An example of this can be seen in the game Idle Farming Empire:
Rewarded ads like the above work because it’s a win-win situation – the game developer makes some money from selling the ad space, and then user gets to continue playing their game without having to wait around all day.
It works so well in fact, that according to Fyber Blog, rewarded video ads command an 80% engagement rate!
Offerwall ads
The second type of mobile game ad we’ll cover is the offerwall ad. Offerwall ads have been around for quite a while now, and we’ll give you fair warning – they’re not the most liked ads.
What is an Offerwall?
An offerwall ad offers the user a series of different offers they can choose from to earn a reward. Hence the name offerwall – literally a wall containing a list of offers to choose from.
These offers will typically include things like filling out a survey, downloading a different app and/or mobile game, or even making an in-app purchase on a different mobile game.
Mobile offerwall ads were the first type of rewarded ad to be used in mobile games, but rewarded video ads have since replaced them as the most popular choice of rewarded mobile game ad.
Offerwall ads tend to get a bad rap for a number of reasons, the main one being that they rip the user out of their gaming experience.
Because common offers in a mobile offerwall include downloading a different app or making an in-app purchase in a separate game, the user is forced to stop the game they’re playing, go to the app store and download the other game, do what they need to in that game and then come back to their original game to carry on.
Even just typing that out was a long process, let alone having to do it. It’s no surprise then that many users don’t come back to the original game and carry on playing, as the friction in the offerwall process often is too great.
As well, many ad networks don’t allow or aren’t too comfortable with allowing offerwall ads. For example, Apple bans what they call ‘incentivised installs’, which is one of the main offers on an offerwall ad.
Interstitial ads
Next up on the list we have mobile interstitial ads.
What are Interstitial Ads?
Interstitial ads are those ads that take over the full screen of your game, forcing you to either wait and click the little close icon in the top corner, or click on the ad to take you to a website or app download page.
Some interstitial ad examples can be seen below.
A mobile interstitial ad can be in either image or video format, with both used to various degrees. Examples of both formats can be seen above.
Because interstitial ads for mobile cover up the whole screen for a period of time, they tend to be used within games when there is a pause between levels. This is because at this pause/loading point in the game, the ad won’t be covering anything important in the gameplay – just the loading bar.
Playable ads
Last but not least, we have playable ads. Say hello to the mobile game ad meme from earlier again!
You can see the good place to be in this meme is where playable ads are – you have normal mobile game ads, which are okay, and then you have ads where you play the game (aka playable ads) which are deserving of the suit and bowtie!
What are Playable Ads?
Playable ads, as the name suggests, are ads in which you can play a small sample of a game directly in the mobile ad itself.
You see these playable ads all over the place now, as they are quite good at giving people first-hand experience of a game without having to go through the friction of downloading it.
A playable ad is good for both sides – the user and the advertiser. The user gets to try before they buy, and they’ll know if they like the game or not before they fully download it.
And for the advertiser, playable ads lead to lower uninstall rates, precisely because users know what they’re getting before they download it, so are less likely to be disappointed and then uninstall it.
So, now that we’ve gone through the most popular types of mobile game ad, we can answer the ultimate question…
Why are Mobile Game Ads so Bad?
Mobile Game Ads are Cheap
The main reason mobile game ads are so terrible is because they are cheap. Oftentimes, very, very cheap.
Business of Apps found that the average CPM for all banner ads within mobile advertising environments is just $1. $1! For 1,000 views of the ad!
That works out to a cost of just $0.001 for every view the mobile game ad gets.
Because they’re so cheap, the ad creators can focus on quantity rather than quality. This means finding out what works best, and then scaling the best-performing ads up.
That’s the mobile game advertising strategy in a nutshell. Digital advertising is all about A/B testing, finding out which ads work best, which variations of those ads work best, and running with what works.
And because mobile game ads are so cheap, ad creators can do this on a truly enormous scale. Statista found that in 2020 alone, almost $33 billion was spent on mobile game advertising worldwide.
Most Mobile Game Ads are Designed for Children
Another reason for the curse of poor mobile game ads is a simple one: they’re meant for children!
As bad as it sounds, when a mobile game advert is meant for children, it’s irrelevant what anyone other than a child thinks about the ad.
You may think it’s the worst designed ad in the world, but if that ad persuades its target audience to engage with it, it’s effective.
They’re Misleading
The worst reason on this list is that a lot of the time, mobile game ads are misleading or worse, downright false/fake.
This has become a massive problem, and one that seems to be being handled very slowly.
Examples of misleading mobile game ads are infamous ‘drag-and-drop’ adverts. These are the ads where there’s some location that’s completely worn down and in need of repair, and a giant hand shows someone dragging and dropping a repair into the scene.
From the amount of these types of ads you see, it’s easy to get the idea that every other mobile game is some drag-and-drop repair game. But most of the time, the actual game being advertised is nothing like the advert.
You’ll often find these sorts of ads advertising hyper-casual games, which are small, lightweight games that are designed to be simple, easy to understand, and very addictive to play. We have a whole article about them here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are misleading mobile game ads allowed?
Misleading mobile games are not allowed, however advertising networks seem to be doing very little to enforce their rules.
In fact, back in 2020, the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) in the UK had to step in and ban two mobile game ads by mobile games developer Playrix for being too misleading.
You can also make the argument that ad platforms are turning a blind eye to these ads intentionally, because even if they do technically break the rules, if they’re working then the ad platforms are making money from serving them.
Why do mobile game ads lie?
Mobile game ads will lie in order to make the ad as appealing as possible to users.
If the game is just another version of a match three game (think Candy Crush where you need to match three of the same icons), there’s only so many variations of an ad featuring that game mechanic. Plus, users will likely have seen it before on a slightly different game.
The answer in the eyes of the advertisers then is to ‘stretch’ the truth with their game’s gameplay.
How to block mobile game ads?
There is no guaranteed way to fully block mobile game ads. However, there are a few tricks you can try that may help with the mobile game ads.
The first tip is to simply switch your phone to airplane mode before playing the game. Mobile game ads require an internet connection to load, so disabling your phone’s internet connection will prevent the ads from loading.
You’ll still see the ad slot (the space where the ad would have loaded into), however this will be a grey blank rectangle rather than the annoying mobile game ad.
The other way to do it is to see if the game offers a paid version to remove the ads. Yes, this will cost you, but if it’s a mobile game you play often, it will be worth it!