Those Misleading Puzzle Ads You See Everywhere Are Now Banned
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Featured Image Credit: Playrix
This goes out to everyone who has ever seen those misleading adverts for mobile games before YouTube videos, on the sides of websites, and basically, anywhere you'll find space to sell games. You know those adverts for titles like GardenScapes that show, for example, a man with water, lava, a shark, and/or gold surrounding him blocked off by moveable pins? Those have finally been banned in the UK.
Reported by Gamasutra, the developer Playrix has been pulled up by the Advertising Standard Authority (or ASA) which has said these are no longer appropriate ads to support its games. GardenScapes and HomeScapes, two very popular mobile games, are match-3 games with themes revolving around you improving a garden or home. These adverts aren't an accurate representation of how these games operate - they present a puzzle to an audience member who knows how to solve it, and then that audience may go on to engage with Playrix's titles, despite these puzzles appearing very infrequently within the real game.
The phrases attached to these adverts where often things like "only 5 percent can solve this" or "think you can do better?" as a call to action for players to go and solve the puzzle themselves.
Although it may be obvious to many that these ads simply do not represent what the games are really like, Playrix would disagree claiming that the themes of the advert to the product are very similar.
"Playrix said that the content seen in the ads was included in their games and that the content represented part of the gameplay itself," the ASA post says. "Playrix believed consumers would take from the ads that the games contained the content seen, as well as similar content involving similar characters. Also that the games would have the same design and mechanics, alongside similar gameplay. They believed that the ad appealed to the logic and problem-solving skills required to win during the games. They also believed consumers may have thought that their games were not straightforward 'match-three' titles, but would include a variety of mechanics."
The ASA then ruled that the adverts breached three of the CAP Code in the form of misleading advertising, qualification, and exaggeration. Since that ruling, these types of adverts can't be made by Playrix again, which comes as a relief to many.
