The Very Online Show 03: The Mobile Game Trap

THIS ONLINE SHOW IS SO GOOD Y'ALL

vbux

Sud-old-ku

@splodge: DAMMIT. Beat me to it.

I haven't even watched it yet but from the subject and thumbnail alone...

Oh god. I'm also painfully trapped in a couple mobile games because of OCD completionism issues (Hogwarts Mystery and one of those match 3 games I still "hate play"). Man some of those ads to other games I see also make me question how THAT negging tactic of a horrible story premise could actually work.

edit: Yeah, great ep. Thanks Tamoor for the research on this.

My "favorite" ad theme trend I was surprised wasn't mentioned were the "woman has a positive pregnancy test and is subsequently kicked out/left by man and now they gotta fend for themselves by matching three jems" A close second is the "woman comes home and finds homescape guy cheating on her, is subsequently kicked out/left by man and now they gotta fend for themselves by matching three jems"

Very very special editing credits to VoidBurger!

This video brought to you by RAID: SHADOW LEGENDS (Dammit, I just saw they tagged that game in the description. Fuck.

Still watching, but I'm waiting for Lily's Garden to appear.

Great job, Voidburger!

That merge mansion ad is W I L D

what happened to ep2?

Thanks porn.

@janman: I was just coming to commend whoever added the little graphics and info throughout the episode, they made it extra enjoyable!

Haven't watched yet, but this is a topic that absolutely should be discussed.

I constantly see those ads with the person poorly playing some puzzle game about getting treasure or climbing a tower, and apparently, the actual game they're advertising isn't even a puzzle game - it's just a Clash of Clans clone. How is that OK?

I need to know why that one guy's plumbing is so jacked up. Please make me understand.

Edit: Yeah, there's that bald bastard.

I really enjoyed the Raid Shadow Legends joke in the description.

This was pretty fascinating!

Honestly a pretty good PSA. Also the editing was so fun! Thanks VoidBurger!

Can't wait to watch this, it's something I've been curious about for years. The wild west of app store ads is insane and I can't believe it hasn't been shut down by the government. Just blatant false advertising on what the game actually is, ads that claim you will win thousands of dollars a week playing bingo or solitaire, weird "sexy" game advertising in otherwise ostensibly all ages games. So much nonsense.

I love this ep and I love shitty mobile ads.

Any regulation sounds very vague, I wonder if anyone really knows how far they can go before getting pushed back. They mentioned the banned gardenscape ads but even that seems like a uk industry self-regulation thing.

Great episode!

I loved this episode because I get nothing but these ads and they piss me off so much. Those Mafia games are insane looking.

I don't know what the actual game is at all, like whether they follow a narrative or not but I love the ads that I don't know how to describe other than like: "choose your wife: humble/beautiful/chaste vs evil/ugly/manipulative". Great ep.

S Tier content right here, y'all.

Another great episode!

I see Homescape ads constantly and am always upset it's NOT the game they present in the ads, where you have these slide puzzles or whatever to help the butler not freeze to death, and pulling the wrong lever means lava falls on him and stuff.

How come nobody has ever made THAT game?

God, this is so good. I see these ads, and all I want is to talk about them with someone. And this show fills that void ... burger.

My fav are the Evony ads

Thanks, porn.

Going even beyond the bait and switch part, you can see the psychological manipulation in the pull-the-pin style ones because they all show the floating hand messing up the puzzle. So it's like this little poke to your brain saying "I bet I can solve that" bundled with the curiosity to see what happens once you do.

You can see tactic spilling over to other genres of mobile ads as well. Another example is those ads where you pick fights between a path of tiles and add the number of soldiers to your total. When they get to the end of it they don't have enough to win the board.

You really could do a multiple episode series on the lunacy and generally unethical behaviour of the vast majority of the mobile game/browser game space. The very top of the space is actually putting out a halfway decent product because they have multimillion dollar budgets behind them, but everybody else can't compete with that budget so their tactics are shady as hell to deliver a subpar product.

Episode 2?

This show is just the best. Thanks porn.

This was great, but also it's so sad to me that the theme of so many of these is "and regulators don't know anything about the internet and can't keep up"

"How many of these mobile match 3 games are based around horrible infidelity and tragedy?!"

Definitely a question asked in my household.

@jeffgrubb: we’re here for you

Every time is see D:\theculture.url it makes me want to say : Yack! Deculture

Was Brutal Legend one of these games, then?

This show is great.

@garnsr: no way, Brutal Legend was great!

The psychological conditioning that Lucy is referring to at 30:30 is known as a variable ratio shedule of rewards--e.g. a slot machine.

Colour me curious

GREAT SHOW! Needs outro music.

Idk if it's just my end but I hear a bunch of clicks throughout the video. Maybe due to sample rate or smth

This show is great.

Great episode! So glad you did an ep about this. Who knew that little mustache man held such dark secrets? You know what, I'm GLAD the player in those ads always "accidentally" dumps lava on him.

i was excited to see this one.

My question is why don't they make the whole game about pulling the pin and saving the guy?

Really hope the audio versions will continue going forward. I'm more likely to consume stuff from Giant Bomb when I can do so through my ears. ... Which are, I guess, terrifying demon ears capable of eating websites.

@thoracicage: arg, thank you!! That was annoying me so much

Anyone else not seeing episode 2 on the site? Very strange. Seems to be available on YouTube at least. Anyway this is a cool idea for a series.

Its nearly a daily ritual for me to see that ad where the dude or lady has a number and the person playing is supposed to drag them to a lower number to get leveled up.