james folta: I wrote for @mcsweeneys.bsky.social about one of my online obsessions: completely deranged ads for phone games

I wrote for @mcsweeneys.bsky.social about one of my online obsessions: completely deranged ads for phone games

Upsetting Social Media Ads for Mobile Gameswww.mcsweeneys.net A cartoon king is dangling over a pit of lava. He says, “If you don’t match the colored shapes, I die!” Time runs out and the screen blurs, so you ...

this is so good

ahh you're too kind!!

i wound up damn near ruining my life with evony, the game with the "don't let this rando fall into the lava" puzzle ads.... turns out the game itself has nothing to do with that

I feel you, I have a really hard time not downloading every game served to me out of curiosity and so many of them are weirdly compelling. Also so poorly made -- the detail about a game making my phone too hot to touch is all too real

The ones that now insist that they actually made the game from the fake ads almost get me.

fwiw there are some pretty decent games riffing on the fake game ads. this is one that's based on the lava/lever puzzles: apps.apple.com/app/id151038...

‎How To Loot: Logic Puzzlesapps.apple.com ‎(⌐⊙_⊙) “How To Loot”: Pull The Pin Puzzle is the most challenging among pull the pin puzzle games for adults made by independent game devs. You always wanted to play pull the pin game from those well...

thats so meta

It is, but it's fun too lol

It should be criminal to advertise games that way. The amount of mobile games with ads that look decent and then you install them and it’s another base building game with none of the features in the ad is absurd.

In a kinder, gentler age, Evony advertised itself with tits (...none of which were actually in the game). That they've gone down this path is a sign of the end times.

God, I hate those ads. I stopped playing an app game when an ad implied it was the dying fantasy of a pregnant woman thrown from a car by her drunk husband. It wasn't fun anymore. Saw an ad last night that suggested stalking real people with air tags to get more points in the game. 😨

Must be related to the game I saw the other day with a poor woman, child, and baby, who has to choose between abandoning the baby at a hospital or keeping it and living in a ramshackle shed

The version I had downloaded of that game was a little fun. But when the fake ads showed up I deleted it completely. It used to have real gameplay. But I guess they didn’t make enough off that. I also won’t download anything that threatens to tell me how dumb I am.

I’m only fairly certain these aren’t real ads 🤔

as someone who only plays mobile backgammon and a fish feeding aquarium game, I can tell you they're fairly close to reality- especially the ones with the king.

I played the king game.

Watching the king take his last breath while not lifting a finger to save him is much more satisfying than playing the actual game.

Based on my being subjected countless times to watching that hapless king get his, I honestly believe a game called Regicide! would clean up.

after watching these ads many times, i've come to the conclusion that the kingdom would probably be in a better place if we weren't always having to save the king from crazy perils

Honestly I'm still just glad the EU cracked down on the incredibly rape-y "rescue the extremely scantily clad woman as she struggles sexily against her chains" genre of ads. I'll happily let my phone melt over seeing another one of those.

I want to meet whoever came up with this marketing strategy one day, and knee them in the gut, repeatedly

Only one important detail left out: the sad, sad self-awareness of each of these game ads advertising the games by bragging, “Best of all, no annoying ads!”

Koans for a Burning World. xD

This is a tour de force and one of the better McSweeney's I've read in a while.

I'm currently transfixed by the ads where they insist that the gameplay is real. Then you go to the app store, check the reviews, and see that it's just a tiny part of a larger game that makes you do tons of other stuff.

"Win at solitaire, or this animal AND it's child will die horribly!" Also the poverty porn of pregnant mothers & their kids freezing to death, "good" women rejected by men for "evil" women, "save the naked woman by untangling he snakes on top of her!"... & none of it is even in the actual game!

These are hilarious and also why I use Apple Arcade. I just want to match the shapes and do the sudoku without completely bonkerballs ads

Sex Dragon Combinations made me cackle so loud i startled my dog

really mad how much I'm feeling this. I hate how I recognize all of these individually.

The ones with a cartoon freezing woman and child, or a woman covered in mud, and the "choices" are to help them or not... what sort of game is that. Also one will stick with me forever for it's sadness; a real dad with his son on his lap YELLING the script an the kid clearly isn't into it.

The "game" is super imposed on the majority of the screen, and at the bottom right is a video of this gamer-dad with his little boy, and he's shout-screaming "OH GEEZ I GOT HIT, OOOOH THERE WE GO I LEVELED UP" and like.... put the child down sir. Youtube is a nightmare sometimes.

I'm just glad Pedro Pascal is ok.

Why did they even make his castle like that? It doesn't make sense.

These are fantastic!

This is really good and I recognize all of them.

The mud woman one really got me. The bizarrely realistic CGI physics of the mud in the commercial for that one just flabbergasts me when I see it. A+.

And people wonder why I use an ad blocker

The king weeps and says, “The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next. Match shapes to accept what may come with serenity.” 😂

So funny and true! And Pedro 😭

I’ve watched the king die so many times.

It's perfect. I'm convinced (lacking the will to actually investigate further) that they make the ads play *incompetently* as some sort of psychological gambit to play upon someone's urge to "do better" than someone else at a task.

I have been playing mobile (android) games the past 6 years, and mud-covered lady still hasn't gotten her life together. Relatable.

Clickbait now, my lord!

Mom is 88 & still only has the older Words With Friends on her phone so yeah I see the king ads every damn day

Really enjoyed this

I hate those ads. The only think I hate more than in-game ads for other games is ones that are 30 seconds long or longer. Making the ad longer won't make me want to try the game, it just annoys me.

📌

What upsets me more than the ads themselves is a recent mild improvement in the production values of the “make real money, we promise” games. They have costumes and sets and lighting now. It’s not right.

Don't forget the one where they pee on zombies, or the societies where success is built upon who has the most legendary heroes.

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