UK Ad Authority Bans Misleading Homescapes and Gardenscapes Ads (bbc.com) 68
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Two misleading ads for mobile games that bear little relation to the actual product have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The ads, for the Homescapes and Gardenscapes games, both come from developer Playrix. They showed a game where users pull pins in a specific order to solve a puzzle -- though the actual games had totally different "core gameplay." The ASA said the ads should not be used again.
Homescapes and Gardenscapes both use the same core gameplay loop: a home or garden needs to be renovated, and players earn the resources they need by playing a "match three" type game -- similar to other popular games such as Bejewelled or Candy Crush. Both Homescapes and Gardenscapes are hugely popular, with more than 100 million app installs each from the Google Play store. But the games have often used ads that show a multiple-choice type puzzle to avert a catastrophe, or, more recently, the pin-pulling puzzle type. Two Facebook ads for Homescapes and Gardenscapes, from March and April this year, were referred to the ASA for being misleading. Despite a brief warning at the bottom of the video that "not all images represent actual gameplay", the ASA sided with the seven people who complained.
Homescapes and Gardenscapes both use the same core gameplay loop: a home or garden needs to be renovated, and players earn the resources they need by playing a "match three" type game -- similar to other popular games such as Bejewelled or Candy Crush. Both Homescapes and Gardenscapes are hugely popular, with more than 100 million app installs each from the Google Play store. But the games have often used ads that show a multiple-choice type puzzle to avert a catastrophe, or, more recently, the pin-pulling puzzle type. Two Facebook ads for Homescapes and Gardenscapes, from March and April this year, were referred to the ASA for being misleading. Despite a brief warning at the bottom of the video that "not all images represent actual gameplay", the ASA sided with the seven people who complained.
This is what apple should be banning not (Score:3, Interesting)
This is what apple should be banning not fighting over free apps with out side by links or Facebook donations (can't say apple takes an 30% cut)
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Because that is the essence of their walled garden argument, which justifies a large share of their revenue stream.
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Because that is the essence of their walled garden argument, which justifies a large share of their revenue stream.
Apple has delivered malware from their blessed App Store in the past, and will do so again. The "Walled Garden" does not do what customers think it does. The essence of their walled garden argument is that they keep you safe, but the fact is that their walled garden is designed first and foremost to keep their revenues safe. False advertising is only interesting if it threatens revenues. But since Apple claims that's someone else's problem because they are providing a marketplace and not providing you with
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Basically expressing my concurrence, both with the analysis in the comment and the positive moderation, but now I feel like I gave up on the FP angle too quickly. My question could be reworded as "Is Apple's handling of apps in the app store misleading, fake, or gaslighting?"
For users who are looking for safe and secure apps, then it would seem Apple qualifies for gaslighting. Apple's REAL response is to a different question: "How can Apple get the most money?" But those users are asking: "How can I know my
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Because that is the essence of their walled garden argument, which justifies a large share of their revenue stream.
Except their walled garden has never blocked stuff that people actively want to download or play. The game doesn't break any rules (only it's adverts do). The walled garden was never curated for quality (Jesus just look at it) it was only ever curated for a strict set of rules that prevent monetisation.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/... [apple.com]
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As much as I like Apple, and generally, I do; I agree wholeheartedly on this point. False advertising is a serious problem. Ads that use the pin-pulling to lure you in. Or games that claim not to be pay-to-play and literally at level 5 of 500 ask you to buy content. It's just a bad user experience.
Is the ad misleading, fake, or gaslighting? (Score:3)
This is what apple should be banning not fighting over free apps with out side by links or Facebook donations (can't say apple takes an 30% cut)
With an apparently unjustified score of -1 Flamebait, it seems the FP should be requoted against censorship, but... The mods it has received are mostly favorable? Oh, wait, apparently the negative Flamebait mods don't appear on the table of mods. Yet another confusing and weird failure of Slashdot's moderation system, so requote it is.
Now having done that, I have to admit the aspect of the topic I was looking for was different. I was looking for connections to First Amendment or Free Speech or censorship. C
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1st Amendment does not apply in the UK. The fact you call advocates of the 1st Amendment "extremists" is a bad reflection on you
And speech is just speech until the interested reader makes something of it
Public masturbation of 1673220 (Score:2)
Z^-1
It's the reddit bot! (Score:1)
you too can pull its finger!
Public masturbation of 1673220 (Score:2)
Z^-2
Legal risk (Score:1)
Holy cow! The ASA needs to look at that second link, which misleadingly pretends to be a news site but is clogged with impenetrable click overlays preventing you from getting there!
Please don't sue me, claiming that nowhere does it pretend to be a news site.
This is a whole thing (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's a whole thing specifically involving the pulling pins puzzles. I play games that offer to let me watch ads for a bonus of some sort (usually a multiplier) and sometimes I let these ads play. As a rule I don't actually watch them, unless they seem to be for some game I might like to play. And just in unity ads alone I've seen ads exactly like those (the pin pulling puzzles) used for literally at least a half-dozen games which didn't even include such a mode at all, ever. Not even as a minigame.
There's also another similar ruse where a game appears to offer you choices which you select from in an RPG dialog[ue]-like interface, and then they turn out to be just another idle clicker and that game mechanic does not exist at all.
When I try one of these games and find that they used fraudulent advertising, I immediately rate it one star, explain that I did so because of said advertising, and uninstall it. But those reviews are lost in the avalanche of fakes obviously written for money.
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Are you 12? *checks username* I guess so. Carry on, "drinkypoo".
Are you a sock puppet? *checks UID and post content* I guess so. Carry on, "douchebag".
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Not a sockpuppet. I am a Russian Troll. Carry on, "drinkypoo". Go back to your games and empty life.
Whatever kind of troll you are, it's clear that you are one. The odds that you aren't a sockpuppet are dismally low, though. Either way, yours seems like a much emptier life. I pity your inability to find ways to amuse yourself that don't let people know that you're a toolbag.
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He's clearly a drunken trailer park supervisor. If you google you can find plenty of photos of him in action https://static.independent.co.... [independent.co.uk]
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For those missing the joke, Mr. Lahey from The Trailer Park Boys often talked about having a little "drinkypoo" which lead to him getting 10/10 drunk.
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Same for my dad. My old nickname was drink for silly reasons but I've stuck with it since. But that was taken here so I used this. For some reason I underestimated how many times I would be trolled about drinking poo. I guess I was having a slow day. Hell, I may even have registered drink myself and then forgotten the password and which email account it was attached to.
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Downvoting TPB? I guess someone didn't get the reference to his username?
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I have actually found games I want to play by watching ads, and if I don't want to watch the ads, I pay attention to something else. I immediately shitcan any game which has unskippable ads, even if you can pay to get rid of them, because I hate that such a thing even exists on this planet.
Most advertisements on any platform and for any product are shit. They generally contain mostly lies thinly veiled with truth. That really doesn't differentiate the gaming world from anything else.
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I don't quite follow why Google doesn't ban
Fuck the ads. (Score:2)
I play games that offer to let me watch ads {...}
learn to use an ad-blocker (usually, for Apps, it needs to be done at the dns or hostfile level [adaway.org]). (If you don't want to root your Android device to directly modify those, you can also use a blocker that shows up as a pseudo-VPN that filters your traffic. e.g. [blokada.org]).
{...} for a bonus of some sort (usually a multiplier) and sometimes I let these ads play.
learn to use gdb :-D
Usually, you can directly patch some value in-memory.
For single-player stats it's usually straigh forward.
( ^--: just like hacking save game on good old computer games, or mem-hack old console games).
For multi-player, usually go fo
WTF, Yak (Score:2)
> learn to use an ad-blocker (usually, for Apps, it needs to be done at the dns or hostfile level
Why the heck would you utter those words? You know which evil spirit you've summoned, don't you? Are you new here?
He's dead, jim. (Score:2)
or hostfile level
Why the heck would you utter those words? You know which evil spirit you've summoned, don't you?
It's an open secret here on /. that APK has actually been dead for a long time (a decade decade, maybe at least?), it's not him answering to the "Hostfile" call.
All that's left is a giant network of bots, all trying to impersonate him and parodying his "hostfile"-based solution (in all its, bold, ALL-CAPS and => arrow glory) and constantly accusing each other of not being the real slim shady.
Also the "Android Hostfile" keyword isn't the correct one.
You need to say "Windows Hostfile" three time, while loo
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It's been all over the ads on my phone and I've even seen it here on Slashdot with those pin puzzles, claiming that your IQ is 170 something and making a mistake lowers it somehow.
Just seeing those ads and how they are designed make me want to be contrarian and never ever touch those products.
Cost (Score:1)
Oh no, how much money have people been scammed out of!
Oh, Gardenscapes and Homescapes is free to play... So... what has been lost? You downloaded a game and found it disappointing, so you delete it.
Re:Cost (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh no, how much money have people been scammed out of!
Irrelevant. Just because you don't personally hand over cash doesn't mean people should be allowed to pass off one thing as another thing.
It's called bait and switch. It's a thing that is covered by real laws which don't actually take into consideration how much money changed hands.
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Irrelevant. Just because you don't personally hand over cash doesn't mean people should be allowed to pass off one thing as another thing.
Except they weren't passing off one thing as another. The ad said that the game-play is not representative. I've seen the ads and have seen the disclaimer. This happens with games *all* of the time. The only difference here, perhaps, is that you get to play a few seconds of the stripped-down HTML5 demo of the game in the ad.
Heck, it happens with movies as well. Scenes in the trailer get cut out of the movie for one reason or another.
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The ad said that the game-play is not representative.
"not representative" can mean a very wide range of things. It's fine when it's used to say that the ad is not accurate and the final product might be different in the details (e.g. missing a scene in a trailer, or the presentation of the food shown on packaging). It's not OK when it's an excuse for deceptive advertisement, where the ad differs significantly from the final product (pull-pin puzzle not a core, not even a common, gameplay mechanic)
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The ads I have seen do NOT have any disclaimers. I like that the UK has this sort of agency to block misleading ads, whereas in the US the state sponsored religion of worshipping corporations forbids any hindrance on advertising, so much so that any truthful advertisement causes consumers to suspect that they must be hiding some dark secret.
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Except they weren't passing off one thing as another. The ad said that the game-play is not representative.
Except if you look at the advert and then look at the actual gameplay you'd realise how dumb your comment just was. You like Apples? You want an Apple? Here's a banana just like you wanted!
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Except they weren't passing off one thing as another. The ad said that the game-play is not representative.
Except if you look at the advert and then look at the actual gameplay you'd realise how dumb your comment just was. You like Apples*? You want an Apple*? Here's a banana just like you wanted!
* Apple may differ in appearance from the fruit of Malus domestica. Apple may contain traces, or be entirely comprised of: uranium, plutonium, feces, dirt, air, bananas, used condoms, unused condoms, and spam.
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Irrelevant. Just because you don't personally hand over cash doesn't mean people should be allowed to pass off one thing as another thing.
Except they weren't passing off one thing as another. The ad said that the game-play is not representative. I've seen the ads and have seen the disclaimer. This happens with games *all* of the time. The only difference here, perhaps, is that you get to play a few seconds of the stripped-down HTML5 demo of the game in the ad.
Heck, it happens with movies as well. Scenes in the trailer get cut out of the movie for one reason or another.
It doesn't really matter if you get to play "a few seconds of the stripped-down HTML5 demo of the game in the ad" if the game in the ad isn't the actual game advertised.
Scenes from a trailer getting cut out of the released movie is totally different as well. I have yet to go to any movie where the trailer was a totally different genre of movie from what the released movie was (it is possible that something like that is out there but I have never seen it happen). Cutting a scene between trailer and release w
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It doesn't really matter if you get to play "a few seconds of the stripped-down HTML5 demo of the game in the ad" if the game in the ad isn't the actual game advertised.
The game is free. What have you lost by trying it out? How is it any different than downloading a game that looks good in the ad but is boring to play?
Scenes from a trailer getting cut out of the released movie is totally different as well. I have yet to go to any movie where the trailer was a totally different genre of movie from what the released movie was (it is possible that something like that is out there but I have never seen it happen).
It happens often. Remember the trailers for Drive? Made it look like the Fast and the Furious. There were, maybe, three car chases that were a minute or two long in the entire movie. Still a great movie, but people were upset at the trailer. It goes back all the way to Gremlins. The trailers made it look like a movie for kids, then parents took their young ki
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The Drive trailer looked like an action movie. The actual movie was an action movie. Just because it wasn't a Fast and Furious analogous movie doesn't change the fact that the genre of the movie didn't change. If Drive had actually turned out to be a RomCom then the trailer would be analogous to the way these apps misrepresent their content.
I guess if the goal of the app producer is just to accumulate download counts then there isn't too much of a problem with their deceptive ads. Why not take it to the ext
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Faith in your product (Score:2)
We have 100 million downloads of this app. People must love it. So we'll advertise a completely different app. ... WTF?
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100 million downloads is one thing. Active users? That's a different story.
I also wonder when they say 100 million downloads, are those 100 unique ID's that have downloaded the game? Or does that existing installs downloading the update?
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The stats do not count, and have no way of knowing at the moment, how many have been uninstalled within the first 15 minutes. However, for these two particular games they do seem to be popular, and for that style of game they appear to be well done. But these two games are just the tip of the iceberg, it seems like this particular ad maker is being used by many games as they're ubiquitous.
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The part I don't get is that they know that people want to play pulling pin puzzles, and they've obviously created enough assets to implement one, and then... they don't make the game people want to play.
I might even have played through the parts of the game I found boring in order to get to the pin puzzles. That's something that many of us spent hours doing back in the early console days. Only, those parts don't exist.
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I fell for this too. The pin puzzles looked intriguing, so I followed one of the ads and started playing Hero Wars. This actually has them as minigames (2 per level). I got to level 3 before the game became unplayable in free mode (need paid upgrades to win battles). The game gets boring quickly: hardly any gameplay mechanics.
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I found a couple of actual pin pull games. I played them a bit, but dumped it quickly because every pin pull was a quick 30 second game, followed by a 30 second ad.
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I agree, it is bizarre. And despite the popularity of these two games, I have never seen any advertisement that clearly shows the typical gameplay. Maybe because there are just so many connect-three style of games out there that they feel they need to distinguish themselves. However they are distinguishing themselves by showing stuff that doesn't exist in the games. I remember they used to show the ads about choosing which tool to use to fix the leaky faucet or oven fire, which is not typical game play
Only another 99,999 scam games to go (Score:2)
Game of Thrones is the same (Score:3)
I tried the game because I was a fan of the series and I like 4C games.
The game bears absolutely no similarity to the adverts little in the way of 4C, it is not really a game but a skinned version of a reels style one-arm bandit.
I'm disappointed (Score:3)
I assumed the game with the pins, pile of treasure, and lava was a real game. Some of them looked like they had no solution. Pity, it might have made a pretty fun little game. But if you're a mobile game company churning out crap, a game that requires careful level design is not going to be practical to produce.
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Some of them looked like they had no solution.
What are you talking about, all of them have a solution. The one you're thinking of just happens to be buying the lava proof boots for $0.99 so you can progress to the next level.
Thanks to whoever goes to the trouble (Score:2)
It takes some time to file a complaint, not to mention that you have to expose yourself to a likely crappy product in the first place. Thanks for the work.
Why is this a thing? (Score:2)
I don't get it, I have seen dozens of games advertised with these pull pin puzzles that bear no relevance to the actual game. Apart from misleading advertising, why is this a thing in the first place? Are these ads so popular? If yes, why isn't there an industry producing such puzzle games, instead of just advertising random games as such?
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I suspect that the game makers just want the downloads. They don't make the ads themselves, but tell some third party to make ads for them. Just like sleazy websites that don't curate their own ads. So they say "I'll pay $Y for each view of the game's download page", and the advertiser then has free rein to do anything at all, and they think "I'll just reuse my lame pins-puzzle ad but reskin it with characters from this new game!" The whole point is that the advertiser wants you to click on the ad, they
I can hardly wait to make some misleading ads (Score:1)
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Oh dear god please let the EU follow suit (Score:2)
Movie trailer (Score:2)
Isn't this the same as advertising a movie trailer with removed scenes? Or do people get in trouble for that in the UK as well?
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Isn't this the same as advertising a movie trailer with removed scenes? Or do people get in trouble for that in the UK as well?
No. This is like a movie trailer that consists entirely of scenes that aren't in any move at all and are from a totally different genre than the advertised movie. I don't understand why this obvious fraud was allowed to last for years. Cut scenes in trailers isn't always malicious. Trailers are finalized before the movie is finalized.
Good riddence (Score:1)