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jp's They Are Coming! (iPd)

[August 30, 2023 05:50:39 PM]

I've been playing a mobile game called Cells, and as part of its monetization you can watch ads to get boosts and so on. For a while I was seeing a LOT of ads for games where you have a character or mob of characters that are all shooting enemies that are chasing you and you have to guide your mob through gates to get more characters added to your mob, of better weapons, etc.

I had heard that many of these games were using deceptive ads where the gameplay in the ads (which looked fun) was different from that in the game.

So, I made a note of a few of the games and decided I'd install and try them out to see what was what. All of this because the gameplay in the ads, like I said, seemed to be fun.

This is one of those games and - the gameplay pretty much IS what was in the ads. The characters are 3D stick figures, you clear levels that increase in difficulty, get coins to spend on upgrading your mob to be larger, more effective, etc.

Soon after I installed the game I noticed there was an option to remove ads for X dollars (a few, but nothing too pricey. So I paid the price expecting ads to be removed.

And the were. Sort of. So, not entirely. There used to be a banner at the bottom of the screen that had an ad and it was gone. BUT, the game has ads in lots of other places. Now, I don't think this is a bad thing per se, but what really annoyed me (and led me to uninstall the game) was that ad viewing is used to gate access to the game's content!

So, I might unlock a new weapon from playing the game. BUT, the weapon is only available to be unlocked after watching an ad. If I don't watch the ad, the weapon does not become available. And this stuff happens elsewhere too. It feels scummy and is a bad gameplay experience for me, and I don't think I've ever seen a game that does it like this.

After playing a while I unlocked a special "base" - I'm not sure how that will develop, since I won't play any more - because I don't want to be forced to watch ads to make progress in the game - especially after paying (some) money to remove ads from the game! I would have been ok with this if the ads stayed as an option - but as a requirement? No thanks.

Oh..another annoying thing - occasionally you get a "pop-up" for something to unlock/get from viewing an ad. And there's no button to "close" or "move on" without clicking on the "watch the ad" button. You have to wait a few seconds for the other button to appear! This one actually feels more like a dark pattern! I might have to re-install the game just to grab some screenshots of this game to use as an example in class...