Chances are you have fallen victim to false mobile game advertising while innocently browsing through your Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok or even playing a mobile game. The game ads appear without warning and the stories do a good job of captivating you with tales of war, crime and even romance. The plots are good that, even before you notice, you have watched a 2-minute ad about gardening or becoming a level 100 crime boss.

What’s the issue you ask? Well, these ads, however interesting they may seem, barely have anything to do with the actual gameplay itself. Take Evony for example, the ad displays a riveting puzzle game where the player is supposed to get to capture gold while trying to avoid getting caught by a beast. However, when you download the game, it is far from what is expected. The game is a PvP game with occasional puzzles like in the ad. It is set in medieval times, during which you can build your kingdom from the ground up.

I fell victim to the mesmerizing ad and downloaded it to take a look at it. The disappointment hit me after seeing there’s no resemblance between the ad and the game, so I immediately uninstalled it.

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Why Mobile Games Have Fake Ads

The mobile gaming industry is saturated with thousands of mobile games. Hundreds of games are launched every other day on both Android and iOS. This makes it difficult for the game to stand out. So game developers and publishers have turned to using advertisements in order to gather users after the game’s release. This is why you see multiple ads for mobile games.

However, the reason mobile games are using advertisements to reach more users and bring them into the game comes down to CPI.

What Is CPI?

CPI stands for Cost Per Install. This is how much it costs to acquire a user in your game. Simply, if you see an ad for a mobile game, click it and download the game, the CPI is how much the game developer paid the advertising website for you. The main strategy of the game developers is to optimize the CPI where they want to lower it as much as possible so that they don’t have to pay much per user.

Games that appeal to a wider audience tend to have a lower CPI. If a lot of people like the ad and click on it, the CPI lowers. Normally, if the CPI increases, the harder it is to get people to want to click on the advertisement. This is why some of the developers turn to shady advertising methods. They do this in order to try and attract enough of an audience to make their investment back.

What We Really Think Of The Fake Game Ads

There has been an out roar of these fake game ads online. Many people have tried exposing companies that do this but problem is, the companies are barely stopped. The best way to avoid falling trap into these situations is to simply avoid downloading the apps. Most if not all are scams.