In an ideal world, people can sit down on a park bench and enjoy a casual game of Candy Crush, matching together neat little rows of various vibrant candies as they take a break from the rigors of the day's work.
Unfortunately no one told this to the minute-long advertisement that has somehow been sandwiched in between some sweet sweet matching of candies. And this isn’t just Candy Crush; ads have taken over mobile games across the app store, and these advertisements have become a burden.
Candy Crush, Smashy Road, Cookie Clicker, Doodle Jump, Subway Surfers, etc. All these games have a common theme: minute long advertisements usually involve an animated little man or woman trying to escape some trap after playing for a certain time span. Some call it a fun little break from another fun little game. But after playing these free to play games for a while, the advertisement becomes repetitive, boring and a waste of time.
Most people who have played these games have probably experienced these criminally long advertisements at some point. These games specifically play these ads because of their freemium game platform, offering a gaming experience for free with no cost except the inconvenience of advertisement on the app.
This is where things get tricky. After sinking a large portion into starting their free mobile game, developers find themselves lacking a reliable cash flow to keep their game afloat. To solve this problem, developers invite advertisers to their games to help generate revenue. The important part here is developers are not in charge of enforcing or regulating advertisements. Advertisement companies have complete control in how their ads are interacted with and shown on the mobile game.
With this in mind, advertisements are also growing in terms of diversity. Ads can run upwards of a minute and can redirect users away from the game and towards the app store to the ad’s sponsor. Ads can also now be interactive and engage with users, and while it's innovative, it eats into a large portion of time. And that's gaming time. Developers are unable to enforce any regulations on the advertisement companies because, well, money talks.
This can be seen as a minor inconvenience to many, but when gaming for more than an hour, users encounter about 15 minutes of advertisement. Users are looking for nostalgia and fun breaks from day to day life when playing some of the free games on the iPhone, but they do not want to deal with the hassle of lengthy advertisements. A man taking a break from his 9-5 shouldn’t have to experience super long ads just to enjoy smashing animated cars into buildings.
On top of the fact there is only a select brand of games offering ad free experience such as Supercell and Minecraft, it's becoming more difficult to find games to enjoy without the hassle of extensive and lengthy ads.
As fun as the convenient freemium games were, they have been littered with an extensive amount of advertising that makes it hard to play the game. Still, developers need money to keep the app up. The real solution is to pirate as many games as possible on your PC or MacBook and enjoy the mindless fun in a different way.
Drew Haughn is a sophomore studying communications at Ohio University. Please note that the opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of The Post. Want to talk to Drew about his article? Email him at dh061222@ohio.edu or find him on instagram at haughn_drew24.
