20 ms·

I believe it. There are a lot of games that I downloaded from the app store and really liked initially. However, I noticed a pattern. At first, ads seemed to be

by umvi 8y ago

I believe it. There are a lot of games that I downloaded from the app store and really liked initially. However, I noticed a pattern. At first, ads seemed to be optional (i.e double your gems by watching an ad!) However, after about 10 minutes of playing, I'd see an ad. No big deal. But then it got more and more aggressive. Pretty soon there was an ad after every single level, (plus the bonus ad if you want to double gems). It got to the point I was spending about 50% of the time actually playing games, 50% of the time watching ads (the levels could be beaten in 30 seconds or so). At that point I uninstall even though the game is fun. It's not like I can just pay a 1 time fee to get rid of all ads with the type of game I am talking about. I have paid to get rid of ads for a few bucks in the past, but these games will still pester you with in game pop-ups for "diamond memberships" (outrageous recurring subscription fee for nominal and significant bonuses) and "best value" gem packs (also sold at outrageous prices going up to $100 for the biggest pack).

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
nitrogen 8y ago
I've seen a five year old play those games and talk about how much he really needs that $100 gem pack. I wonder if these will have any lasting effect on how kids of today understand value.
- lupire 8y ago
  Parents today have to train kids early. Mine learned by age 3 that any non-animated video content on YouTube was an ad that needed to be skipped. Not perfect, but a great start. Constantly drill into them that these are ads, and ads are bad people trying to trick them, and that ads should be avoided, in apps, websites, billboards, etc. I'm not any advertising, but the only good ad is an ad I asked to see, as when I'm using a web-search-engine for a product.
  - Waterluvian 8y ago
    My toddler learned at about 20 months how to skip YouTube ads. It's unbelievable. I watched him evolve as he would mash the "skip ad in 5..." Countdown to waiting until it was done to skip. He also learned through trial and error not to accidentally tap on the ads.
    - blotter_paper 8y ago
      I certainly don't take the medical establishment as infallible, and I can imagine arguing against these recommendations, but FYI the American Association of Pediatricians recommends against allowing a 20mo the sort of screen time necessary to learn ad-skipping through trial and error[0]: >Among the AAP recommendations: >For children younger than 18 months, avoid use of screen media other than video-chatting. Parents of children 18 to 24 months of age who want to introduce digital media should choose high-quality programming, and watch it with their children to help them understand what they're seeing. >For children ages 2 to 5 years, limit screen use to 1 hour per day of high-quality programs. Parents should co-view media with children to help them understand what they are seeing and apply it to the world around them. [0]: https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages/American-Academy-of-Pediatrics-Announces-New-Recommendations-for-Childrens-Media-Use.aspx https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages...
      - Waterluvian 8y ago
        I appreciate the concern. I'm not going to get into a debate about this, nor do I sense you are trying for one. But my toddler is wildly ahead of his peers in almost every measure (edit: wow this sounds pretentious. Not sure what to say. He spells and assembles words he sees around the house. He just turned 2), so I'll give the facts I observe more weight than the massively simplified single sentence prescription that the U.S. medical system likes to give on things. Heck I bet shipping your child off to daycare every day hinders them more than 90 minutes of tablet time. Particularly in a household of two full time stay at home parents and every conceivable monetary and educational advantage they could want for. But I doubt the AAP goes telling everyone that they're doing it wrong if they pay others to raise their kids each day. Sorry... I'm ranting. I just don't like highly distilled parental advice from organizations. One size fits all culture we have here in the west, I think, is very harmful.
- manfredo 8y ago
  I'd would legitimately be less angry at my kid for pirating games or using cheatEngine than buying those sorts of loot boxes or paid boosters or pestering me aggressively about them. At least kids would pick up on some basic reverse engineering.
HenryBemis 8y ago
This is not ethical.. but here is a work-around. On Android devices, install the (free-and no ads) 'NoRoot Firewall'. Then it takes some minutes to get used to it, but you ONLY 'Allow' connections that the game needs to operate (e.g. everything that goes to port 443 is an indicator, or everything to/from Akamai, AWS, Azure, Cloudfront), and 'Block' everything that goes to port 80 (which usually is AdJust, doubleclick etc.) It takes some trial and error, but eventually (in 1-2 minutes) you will be able to have blocked out all the ads by simply not allowing connection to download the 'ad content'. Yes, the developer made free game and expects to be paid (via ads) No, the developer and his/her/their ad partners don't have the right to violate your privacy when you (or your kid) play a game.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Wouldn't it be simpler, more ethical, and send a stronger message to simply not play the game?
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    Why would this be more ethical? If I own a network connected device, I am perfectly within ethical grounds to case-by-case block any kind of web request it might make. Whatever web requests happen on my device has absolutely no connection to someone who decided of their own accord to make a game or a music channel or whatever freely available to download / stream / etc. They may prefer that those web requests succeed and generate ad revenue, but that’s literally just a mere hope that the user will choose to allow that to happen. Another example could be creating a little robot that floats above my shoulder and uses a computer vision system to place some construction paper in my field of vision dynamically to block the photons of light coming from ad pixels from reaching my eyeball. I’ll just miniaturize that idea and place it into my phone either as a browser/app ad blocking program, or a root level web request blocker, etc.
    - michaelt 8y ago
      It depends if you think an action that both you and the content producer agree is ethical is relatively more ethical than one that you think is ethical, but the content producer thinks is unethical. If I was doing business with one of my friends, I'd strive to use their services in ways we agreed were fair, not just ways I thought were fair and they disagreed. My friends are reasonable and honest people, so if we disagreed I could be wrong as easily as they could. Of course, the ad industry isn't much of an ethical beacon and an industry isn't capable of being anyone's friend, so I run an ad blocker. But the angle other people are coming from is pretty easy to understand.
leggomylibro 8y ago
One of my favorite mobile games (an old Popcap title) used to have a version which cost ~$10 and was just a no-frills port of the original. No ads, no permissions beyond file storage, no issues working offline. But you can't buy that anymore; now the only option is a 'free' version which has ads that you cannot pay away. Fortunately I can still download the old version from the app store; now it is called 'zzSUNSET <game>' in the list of purchased apps. But I'm amazed at how consumer-hostile game companies have gotten; I guess the ads must pay out the wazoo. It makes me really hesitant to try any new mobile game, especially since I don't really have much time for them these days. I'm not going to spend 30 seconds out of every 1-5 minute diversion watching an ad, that's ridiculous.
- DuskStar 8y ago
  I think it's partly that the kind of person that pays $10 for an app is also the kind of person that advertisers actually want. So even if your average revenue/user for a free app is <$10, revenue/user for people willing to pay $10 for the app might be >$10.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - myhf 8y ago
    The average advertising revenue/user for users who are unwilling to be interrupted by ads is $0.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- 1000units 8y ago
  I think my conscience would be more satisfied working in porn than mobile gaming.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
jay_kyburz 8y ago
A lot of games don't need an internet connection to play, my kids know to turn on airplane mode to disable ads.
braythwayt 8y ago
You are not their target market. Most of these companies make all of their money from "whales," people who play around the clock and spend a significant amount of money per month on in-app purchases and/or subscriptions. They have optimized their experience for finding and landing whales, and at the end of the day, you are probably an irritant to them, walking around complaining about the game while contributing so little to the developer's revenues. This, by the way, is why I don't play very many mobile games.
- XCSme 8y ago
  I think the whales term goes only for spenders, not for dedicated players. There is so much time in a day, that you can not get a lot more from ads from a dedicated player than a regular one, but IAPs are usually infinite.
  - jeffchien 8y ago
    I think you're both correct. I've seen a spectrum of "whales" that include: (1) very "casual" players who don't spend that much time, and just want to roll, or to use money as a substitute for game time; (2) very dedicated players who want to be at the top of some ranking.
- the_gipsy 8y ago
  Whales have nothing to do with ads.
  - novaleaf 8y ago
    kids are ad whales. from my own observations (2 pre-teen kids) they are infinently patient in sitting through ad after in order to keep playing. I used to freely install any highly rated free-to-play educational game. Now I only install paid stuff, as those don't have these pathological ads.
Beldin 8y ago
Did you try gaming with data and wifi turned off? It might help stem the tide of ads...
- rizzin 8y ago
  That doesn't prevent the following scenario: * play the game in an airplane mode * switch to another activity and turn on the internet * game prefetches an ad or even several while in the background So next time you launch the game you'd have to see those cached ads. It's definitely better than having the game fetch and shove them in your face all the time, but still it isn't a complete solution in this case.
roel_v 8y ago
I want to buy these apps. I want to buy them for my children. I spend time every couple of weeks looking for one-time-pay, no ads, no tracking, no 'optional' micropayment ads. I can find them only very rarely (Stardew Valley was released for Android yesterday - $8 purchase, best money you'll ever spend). If there was a well-curated newsletter that had a weekly review of new apps (mostly games, but maybe also other categories), I'd even pay for the newsletter ($10/20 a year?) for giving me a better experience than the Play Store. So if there's anyone out there looking for a side gig idea that doesn't really involve programming, and this sounds like your cup of tea, please let me know.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  > Stardew Valley was released for Android yesterday - $8 purchase, best money you'll ever spend I agree. Stardew Valley is one of the rare modern games that is actually wonderful and a joy in pretty much every respect.
godelski 8y ago
I had something similar happen with a Chinese learning app. First week everything was fine, get an add every 20-30 minutes, no biggie. App was well organized (all info in it is easily available elsewhere), so I was okay with it. Then an update happened and I was getting full screen 10 second ads 2-3 times a minute. They would interrupt games where it was speaking at you (you get docked if you click for a second listen). Clearly this was a bug, so I messaged the developed and they got hostile (nice in the playstore response though) and told me if I didn't like ads I should buy their ad free one ($10 per app (I'd be happy to pay that for all 6, even a little more)). Not one for dark patterns, I'm happy to say don't use the Chinese HSK app by Around Pixels. I just don't get why this behavior is becoming so common. I don't understand why advertisers would support it either. If someone is clicking on your app only because they did it by accident (like this app frequently caused me to do), that's going to make the user also frustrated with your product. Supporting this behavior is actually harmful to your product.
NikkiA 8y ago
At least on iOS, ads that you opt to watch may be unskippable, but ads that the app foists on you should be skippable after 5 seconds with a >> or X button. That said; there are a lot of ads that violate the rules and hide buttons or even crash in such a way as to make closing the app the only option other than installing the advertised game/app.
jrnichols 8y ago
I used to love the game Temple Run on the iPhone. I paid for it. I bought stuff in the game. And then they added advertisements. That was the day that I deleted my favorite iOS game and never looked back. I was very disappointed in what had happened, but I am just that fed up with pervasive full screen advertisements. Seems that other users are as well. A quick web search will show you a lot of altered .apk versions available for download.

by umvi 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

nitrogen 8y ago

I've seen a five year old play those games and talk about how much he really needs that $100 gem pack. I wonder if these will have any lasting effect on how kids of today understand value.

lupire 8y ago
Parents today have to train kids early. Mine learned by age 3 that any non-animated video content on YouTube was an ad that needed to be skipped. Not perfect, but a great start. Constantly drill into them that these are ads, and ads are bad people trying to trick them, and that ads should be avoided, in apps, websites, billboards, etc. I'm not any advertising, but the only good ad is an ad I asked to see, as when I'm using a web-search-engine for a product.
- Waterluvian 8y ago
  My toddler learned at about 20 months how to skip YouTube ads. It's unbelievable. I watched him evolve as he would mash the "skip ad in 5..." Countdown to waiting until it was done to skip. He also learned through trial and error not to accidentally tap on the ads.
  - blotter_paper 8y ago
    I certainly don't take the medical establishment as infallible, and I can imagine arguing against these recommendations, but FYI the American Association of Pediatricians recommends against allowing a 20mo the sort of screen time necessary to learn ad-skipping through trial and error[0]: >Among the AAP recommendations: >For children younger than 18 months, avoid use of screen media other than video-chatting. Parents of children 18 to 24 months of age who want to introduce digital media should choose high-quality programming, and watch it with their children to help them understand what they're seeing. >For children ages 2 to 5 years, limit screen use to 1 hour per day of high-quality programs. Parents should co-view media with children to help them understand what they are seeing and apply it to the world around them. [0]: https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages/American-Academy-of-Pediatrics-Announces-New-Recommendations-for-Childrens-Media-Use.aspx https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages...
    - Waterluvian 8y ago
      I appreciate the concern. I'm not going to get into a debate about this, nor do I sense you are trying for one. But my toddler is wildly ahead of his peers in almost every measure (edit: wow this sounds pretentious. Not sure what to say. He spells and assembles words he sees around the house. He just turned 2), so I'll give the facts I observe more weight than the massively simplified single sentence prescription that the U.S. medical system likes to give on things. Heck I bet shipping your child off to daycare every day hinders them more than 90 minutes of tablet time. Particularly in a household of two full time stay at home parents and every conceivable monetary and educational advantage they could want for. But I doubt the AAP goes telling everyone that they're doing it wrong if they pay others to raise their kids each day. Sorry... I'm ranting. I just don't like highly distilled parental advice from organizations. One size fits all culture we have here in the west, I think, is very harmful.
manfredo 8y ago
I'd would legitimately be less angry at my kid for pirating games or using cheatEngine than buying those sorts of loot boxes or paid boosters or pestering me aggressively about them. At least kids would pick up on some basic reverse engineering.

HenryBemis 8y ago

This is not ethical.. but here is a work-around. On Android devices, install the (free-and no ads) 'NoRoot Firewall'. Then it takes some minutes to get used to it, but you ONLY 'Allow' connections that the game needs to operate (e.g. everything that goes to port 443 is an indicator, or everything to/from Akamai, AWS, Azure, Cloudfront), and 'Block' everything that goes to port 80 (which usually is AdJust, doubleclick etc.) It takes some trial and error, but eventually (in 1-2 minutes) you will be able to have blocked out all the ads by simply not allowing connection to download the 'ad content'. Yes, the developer made free game and expects to be paid (via ads) No, the developer and his/her/their ad partners don't have the right to violate your privacy when you (or your kid) play a game.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Wouldn't it be simpler, more ethical, and send a stronger message to simply not play the game?
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  Why would this be more ethical? If I own a network connected device, I am perfectly within ethical grounds to case-by-case block any kind of web request it might make. Whatever web requests happen on my device has absolutely no connection to someone who decided of their own accord to make a game or a music channel or whatever freely available to download / stream / etc. They may prefer that those web requests succeed and generate ad revenue, but that’s literally just a mere hope that the user will choose to allow that to happen. Another example could be creating a little robot that floats above my shoulder and uses a computer vision system to place some construction paper in my field of vision dynamically to block the photons of light coming from ad pixels from reaching my eyeball. I’ll just miniaturize that idea and place it into my phone either as a browser/app ad blocking program, or a root level web request blocker, etc.
  - michaelt 8y ago
    It depends if you think an action that both you and the content producer agree is ethical is relatively more ethical than one that you think is ethical, but the content producer thinks is unethical. If I was doing business with one of my friends, I'd strive to use their services in ways we agreed were fair, not just ways I thought were fair and they disagreed. My friends are reasonable and honest people, so if we disagreed I could be wrong as easily as they could. Of course, the ad industry isn't much of an ethical beacon and an industry isn't capable of being anyone's friend, so I run an ad blocker. But the angle other people are coming from is pretty easy to understand.

leggomylibro 8y ago

One of my favorite mobile games (an old Popcap title) used to have a version which cost ~$10 and was just a no-frills port of the original. No ads, no permissions beyond file storage, no issues working offline. But you can't buy that anymore; now the only option is a 'free' version which has ads that you cannot pay away. Fortunately I can still download the old version from the app store; now it is called 'zzSUNSET <game>' in the list of purchased apps. But I'm amazed at how consumer-hostile game companies have gotten; I guess the ads must pay out the wazoo. It makes me really hesitant to try any new mobile game, especially since I don't really have much time for them these days. I'm not going to spend 30 seconds out of every 1-5 minute diversion watching an ad, that's ridiculous.

DuskStar 8y ago
I think it's partly that the kind of person that pays $10 for an app is also the kind of person that advertisers actually want. So even if your average revenue/user for a free app is <$10, revenue/user for people willing to pay $10 for the app might be >$10.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- myhf 8y ago
  The average advertising revenue/user for users who are unwilling to be interrupted by ads is $0.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
1000units 8y ago
I think my conscience would be more satisfied working in porn than mobile gaming.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago

jay_kyburz 8y ago

A lot of games don't need an internet connection to play, my kids know to turn on airplane mode to disable ads.

braythwayt 8y ago

You are not their target market. Most of these companies make all of their money from "whales," people who play around the clock and spend a significant amount of money per month on in-app purchases and/or subscriptions. They have optimized their experience for finding and landing whales, and at the end of the day, you are probably an irritant to them, walking around complaining about the game while contributing so little to the developer's revenues. This, by the way, is why I don't play very many mobile games.

XCSme 8y ago
I think the whales term goes only for spenders, not for dedicated players. There is so much time in a day, that you can not get a lot more from ads from a dedicated player than a regular one, but IAPs are usually infinite.
- jeffchien 8y ago
  I think you're both correct. I've seen a spectrum of "whales" that include: (1) very "casual" players who don't spend that much time, and just want to roll, or to use money as a substitute for game time; (2) very dedicated players who want to be at the top of some ranking.
the_gipsy 8y ago
Whales have nothing to do with ads.
- novaleaf 8y ago
  kids are ad whales. from my own observations (2 pre-teen kids) they are infinently patient in sitting through ad after in order to keep playing. I used to freely install any highly rated free-to-play educational game. Now I only install paid stuff, as those don't have these pathological ads.

Beldin 8y ago

Did you try gaming with data and wifi turned off? It might help stem the tide of ads...

rizzin 8y ago
That doesn't prevent the following scenario: * play the game in an airplane mode * switch to another activity and turn on the internet * game prefetches an ad or even several while in the background So next time you launch the game you'd have to see those cached ads. It's definitely better than having the game fetch and shove them in your face all the time, but still it isn't a complete solution in this case.

roel_v 8y ago

I want to buy these apps. I want to buy them for my children. I spend time every couple of weeks looking for one-time-pay, no ads, no tracking, no 'optional' micropayment ads. I can find them only very rarely (Stardew Valley was released for Android yesterday - $8 purchase, best money you'll ever spend). If there was a well-curated newsletter that had a weekly review of new apps (mostly games, but maybe also other categories), I'd even pay for the newsletter ($10/20 a year?) for giving me a better experience than the Play Store. So if there's anyone out there looking for a side gig idea that doesn't really involve programming, and this sounds like your cup of tea, please let me know.

JohnFen 8y ago
> Stardew Valley was released for Android yesterday - $8 purchase, best money you'll ever spend I agree. Stardew Valley is one of the rare modern games that is actually wonderful and a joy in pretty much every respect.

godelski 8y ago

I had something similar happen with a Chinese learning app. First week everything was fine, get an add every 20-30 minutes, no biggie. App was well organized (all info in it is easily available elsewhere), so I was okay with it. Then an update happened and I was getting full screen 10 second ads 2-3 times a minute. They would interrupt games where it was speaking at you (you get docked if you click for a second listen). Clearly this was a bug, so I messaged the developed and they got hostile (nice in the playstore response though) and told me if I didn't like ads I should buy their ad free one ($10 per app (I'd be happy to pay that for all 6, even a little more)). Not one for dark patterns, I'm happy to say don't use the Chinese HSK app by Around Pixels. I just don't get why this behavior is becoming so common. I don't understand why advertisers would support it either. If someone is clicking on your app only because they did it by accident (like this app frequently caused me to do), that's going to make the user also frustrated with your product. Supporting this behavior is actually harmful to your product.

NikkiA 8y ago

At least on iOS, ads that you opt to watch may be unskippable, but ads that the app foists on you should be skippable after 5 seconds with a >> or X button. That said; there are a lot of ads that violate the rules and hide buttons or even crash in such a way as to make closing the app the only option other than installing the advertised game/app.

jrnichols 8y ago

I used to love the game Temple Run on the iPhone. I paid for it. I bought stuff in the game. And then they added advertisements. That was the day that I deleted my favorite iOS game and never looked back. I was very disappointed in what had happened, but I am just that fed up with pervasive full screen advertisements. Seems that other users are as well. A quick web search will show you a lot of altered .apk versions available for download.