On September 30, 2022, Google enacted its new Developer Program Policy which, among other things, states that developers can no longer shove a full-screen ad in your face at random times during the gaming experience of your favorite apps. Full-screen video “interstitial ads,” as they’re called, are now banned in videos, GIFs, static image formats, and more.
So we can all rejoice that freemium mobile games are becoming more playable and enjoyable, right? Well, not exactly. Coming from someone not so deeply immersed in these types of experiences, I completely disagree with this notion. In fact, I think there are more pressing issues that need to be addressed, and now that I’ve installed a bunch of games for my son on his Pixel phone, I’m appalled at the crap he’s going through to even get one one few moments of a game to play.
Take a popular track called “Tile Hop,” for example. This Guitar Hero-style EDM-style gameplay lets you bounce a ball on tiles (hence the name) to the beat of over 40,000 hits. Even though it’s his new favorite obsession, I quickly realized that something wasn’t right about it.
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Seriously, who authorized this madness?
I’ve played many mobile games in my day, but I’ve never seen or experienced one as egregiously abusive in its practices as Tile Hop. Every time you fall off a tile, you have to sit and watch a non-skippable ad for nearly 30 seconds with no progress bar, timer, or countdown. Then you’re forced to sit through a secondary ad for that offer for 12-15 seconds before finally seeing a splash screen for a tertiary ad that advertises everything you’ve just watched with an “X” popping up so you can close it.
If you think this is the end of the story, then I’m sorry to say that you are as wrong as I am. After the “x” appears for you to tap, this will force you into the Google Play Store listing for that app or game, even if you tapped the x perfectly.
At last you can press the back button to return to the game and finally get rid of the ad infestation until the next time your kid falls off the tile or finishes/starts another game. If you can believe it, I came across several games this week that followed the same unethical practices, so I don’t think for a second it’s an isolated abuse of Google’s advertising tools. I mean if I wanted the damn game I would have tapped into it in the first few seconds. I believe these tools should instead work like a YouTube ad, where you wait 5 seconds and skip the whole thing with a tap.
Offer value, don’t make money by tricking people
Needless to say, I was pretty pissed off by all of this, so let me list the reasons why I think this process for advertising from Google should be overhauled. First and foremost, disrupting user experience at this level is simply criminal. I understand that everyone has to make money, and ads are often tracked, but if the ratio of gameplay to torture when watching ads leans largely toward the latter, that’s an auto uninstall for me.
Second, and probably most importantly, through many deliberate attempts to hit the tiny “x” button at the top of a full-screen game ad, I’m convinced that developers somehow found a way to add invisible link overlays to the UI element, which is supposed to do the opposite.
Instead of closing the game – no matter how careful I am not to type the “x” – I was still taken to the store listing for the app or game, and the shady developers got a chance to collect a paycheck. Finally, let me state the obvious – those “x’s” are too small to start with, and Google should force them to be much larger and easier to type.
Finally, I would like to point out how many of these ads for games do not reflect actual gameplay at all. Take Evony or Gardenscapes for example. The pin-pull game, where lava, water, or gems flow into an area as soon as you swipe out a pin, simply didn’t exist until an indie game developer created it to point out how fake these are ads are.
I believe that the ad must in some way accurately reflect the actual user experience. I’m really tired of having to hide the screen from my son so he doesn’t see a small family catch fire or freeze to death or be crushed by spikes because the sample user pulled the wrong pin in the ad. It’s just stupid, really.
Google’s ad policy and tools need another overhaul
Aside from the tiny on-screen UI elements designed to reject ads that are simply either manipulated or intentionally undersized, I think it’s clear that developers are allowed to screw the crap out of users with three-tier ads spamming, the frequency with which they appear and the obnoxious length they are should be against the rules. Not to mention how confusing it is.
I’d love to see Google revise its developer program policy to better align it with the average user’s experience, but I’d also like to see the company better target those who overwhelm games with more ads than gameplay and off balance. Of course it’s unethical, but as with all things Google, if those in power don’t approve, I’ll feel like I’m living in the Twilight Zone. As a game developer and lifelong game enthusiast, I couldn’t fathom for a moment how I would treat my players this way, even if it meant earning a serious bank. Obviously no one who does this cares about the user experience or even the user in the same way, and Google should go on the offensive to help mobile games suck a little less.
