One of the strangest trends that I have noticed in my time writing about mobile games is that so many of them have the absolute worst and most cringy advertisements. They all seem to like to copy off of each other as well, as evidenced by how many mobile game ads feature pregnant women whose husbands dumped them and left them in a dilapidated mansion in the snow.
Where did this start, you might ask? It’s hard to say, but from what I have personally witnessed, this seems to have begun in earnest when Project Makeover first came out. This game was the genesis of absolutely terrible, cringe mobile game ads, featuring the infamous “mud girl”. Mud girl has since become a stock character in these types of ads, and typically, she wants to get a full makeover to stick it to her cheatingex, or to get back with her cheating ex, depending on the level of cringe.
Some ads contain a variant of this, such as the pregnant woman or the young mom whose husband left her in a dilapidated mansion in the middle of the Arctic tundra. Other games, such as interactive story games, often contain animations depicting girl-on-girl flirting and romance, but often in a way that makes you wonder if the writers are aliens trying to figure out how to pretend convincingly to be human.
Another cringe genre of mobile game advertisement, Which is often seen in advertisements for mid-core strategy or RPG games (Plarium is a big offender), Is when the ad tries to sell the game using sex. Either it’s an anime with features that are completely unrealistic and ridiculous (anti-gravity floating boobs, anyone?), or it’s a CG advertisement featuring a scantly dressed female character that walks as if she has hip dysplasia.
Why do so many of these advertisements contain the same themes? Does anybody download games based on these terrible stories and advertisements? And really, who is the person that is creating this animation? Do these writers and animators ever look back at their lives, think about what they wanted to be when they were children, And then say to themselves “Yep, I’m satisfied with this”?
These ads are not only ruining mobile game advertising in general, but they’re ruining ads in other categories as well. Instead of stretching the truth, advertisers just flat-out lie at this point. How many times have you seen an ad that reports being for one car, but includes a picture of some weird AI-generated supercar or electric pod?
Sure, this can’t all be blamed on mobile games. Cringe advertisers such as Taboola and Outbrain and their various clones have also had a hand in this. But mobile gain ads are one of the chief culprits and they’re greatly contributing to the feeling of fakeness and stupidity that is becoming more and more pervasive across the Internet and social media.
Of course, these ads can also be a great source of entertainment. What are your favorite or least favorite cringe mobile game ads? Leave an answer in the comments!