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This mobile game ad I just got is one of the more absurd videos I've seen in a while.

Kalmakov

user requested ban
Banned
Sep 10, 2019
1,300
I wish I had the original video but unfortunately I can't find it and it's not on the game's official YouTube channel. I don't know if it's just cause I'm up late and groggy but seeing this legit made me do a double take.



If you're able to catch the first few seconds of this ad it immediately starts with this voice over guy flirting with that plastic doll of a shopkeep, then her bizarre text-to-speech voice, the fact that it clearly doesn't show any actual game footage, the absolute information overload from the random UI...I sat through a 50 sec ad and I have zero clue what this game is or what it's trying to sell me on.
 
OP
OP

Kalmakov

user requested ban
Banned
Sep 10, 2019
1,300
I wanna know why these kind of ads get made...like how are they actually effective?
 
Lant_War

Lant_War

Classic Anus Game
The Fallen
Jul 14, 2018
23,543
The conclusion that I came up with is that mobile ads are aimed at very young children that like people acting dumb.
 
MidweekCoyote

MidweekCoyote

Member
Mar 23, 2018
860
Ads of 3d animation masquerading as real gameplay or game footage has been a thing for years and I still don't know how it isn't sanctionable.
 

Executive Taxi

Member
Nov 3, 2017
1,641
Omg this used to be a really popular f2p MMO some years ago on PC. This ad is a mess. I would've thought their parent company should be able to afford something better
 
Nome

Nome

Designer / Self-requested ban
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,312
NYC
Kalmakov said:
I wanna know why these kind of ads get made...like how are they actually effective?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes! They're very effective.

To be successful, mobile games (and games in general) have to fulfill the "profitability equation" -- LTV (lifetime value, the expected total spend of an average customer) > CPI (cost per install; the amount you're spending on advertising to acquire a single user).

The LTV part is relatively figured out; the CPI part is where games go to die. Clickbait works really well here, because the biggest barrier to overcome is to get players to install. Even if the game is absolutely nothing like the ad, some portion of players will stay because they enjoy the app. While it's deceptive, it's extremely necessary to be competitive. A good creative's CPI can be 5-10% that of a poor creative--roughly speaking, a good CPI for your average mobile game is between $1-5, so as long as you're making more than that on average per player, you can scale your product and actually make money. On the other hand, if your CPI is $20, you're probably dead in the water. Because user acquisition is the single biggest operating expense for mobile games (including paying your staff), anything you can do to lower that cost is great.
 
Nome

Nome

Designer / Self-requested ban
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,312
NYC
On another note, this is why Nintendo's mobile games always have fantastic launch months and then taper off into nothing.
They get app store featuring and tons of organic (non-paid) user acquisition, so their CPI's are extremely low at launch. Of course, once the hype dies out, they lose that organic acquisition and suddenly their CPIs shoot far past their LTVs (Nintendo's non-gacha games have awful monetization design) and they can no longer afford to advertise.
 
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