It seems like if what you’re showing is what you understand they find appealing and fun, then surely that’s what should be in the game. You give them that.
But instead, you give them something else that is unrelated to what they’ve seen on the ad? A gem matching candy crush clone they’ve seen a thousand times?
How is that model working? How is that holding up as a marketing technique???
Yeah, I don’t feel foolish at all. I’ve explained this in other comments.
In summary:
I’m not claiming literally every instance is exactly what I’m describing, but it is a very common pattern.
Many of these ads are slight variations to test which performs better.
Many of the “which performs better” are run against long standing ads they’ve had to learn about how to advertise. They may never intend to release the games being advertised. They may know the ad does well, but they built a prototype game and it didn’t monetize, so they’ll never finish it or already killed it. But that doesn’t stop them from running the same ad but with a different visual theme to see which visual theme is more popular right now.
Some of these ads are not run by dev studios but by advertisers or publishers.
Markets are not static - interest in themes, visual styles, and game genres are all extremely “seasonal” and keep changing. They do not “know their market extremely well” because interest keeps shifting. Companies will constantly run ads just to gauge what genres they should be thinking about and to track trends over time. IE, they may run the same exact strategy game ad for many years straight to determine the long term stability of strategy games. Without caring about the specific game idea in the ad itself.
I don’t feel foolish, nor do I think it’s “clever”. I just know from first hand experience that this is how the market works.
Now who’s dancing around the point? The same half dozen vertical slices or renders have existed for years so why have exactly 0 been realised as games?
Because they aren’t games they are bait and switch adverts. There’s no market research campaigns and you’ve provided no fucking evidence for your claims at all. Your thesis is bunk and I think so are your claims to be a dev too.
Already covered above. They likely prototyped it and it didn’t monetize well or something so they axed it.
Or they’re neither, and they’re just trying to gauge the market. But sure, you can believe whatever you want.
You haven’t either. You’re just assuming a) the worst and b) something that makes objectively less sense - if your whole premise is they’re advertising something fake, how would this even work as bait and switch if people see that’s not what the ad links to?
And your thesis is “I feel like it’s bait and switch, so it is” and you have no claims of credibility. Nothing I say will prove to you that I’ve worked for some of the largest corporations in the US, so I can’t change your mind.
The ad is for a single player mobile game - it has not been realised and in no way would there be ongoing costs that require it to be axed should a It sell poorly.
Honestly, you’re full of shit and should stop this bs about working in the industry. Here’s what a real mobile advertising company has to say on the matter - note that none of your bullshit is referenced at all.
Can’t find the other comment you made about this anymore, but this is an advertising company that’s helping devs advertise their games, so yeah, it’s not going to talk about advertising non existent apps for market analysis. Instead it talks about twisting games to advertise them with exaggeration and weird hooks to try to convince people to download them… Which is another shitty advertising practice in mobile gaming (yeah, there are a lot of them, shocker) and not really pertinent to the topic/OP.
I also find it funny you left the highlight showing you probably searched exactly for something that proved your point, but it’s listed “exaggeration” in the heading which is entirely different.
The title of the article is literally: “Fake Mobile Game Ads: Why Do Advertisers Use Them?”
It covers many of the methods fake games are used as bait and switch marketing including hyperbole. You would know this if you actually read the article instead you searched for something in it to try and dissuade from the point of the article. If you’re a developer of any experience I’m a billionaire. Keep lying liar.