Gamers are beginning to accept misleading ads | Nexters

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Game development company Nexters released a new report today that suggests gamers are beginning to accept misleading ads for their games. The report also covers how often gamers are likely to encounter such ads in the first place, as well as whether it colors their experience with the game if they eventually play it.

According to the report, out of the U.S.-based players surveyed, 91% report having seen misleading ads. These are ads that portray a game to have graphics or mechanics that it does not have. 35% to 46% of gamers across all four of the regions surveyed (5212 gamers across the U.S., Europe, Brazil and Japan) said they would not make a judgement on a game based on the ad, but rather the game itself.

Note that the report says nothing about whether gamers feel positively about these misleading ads. They say they’re willing to make a judgement based on the game itself, but that doesn’t suggest gamers are happy that they’re being misled in the first place. The report says that 75% of players in the European and U.S. demographics found the ads more interesting than the games themselves. Of course they do — that’s the point of the ad in the first place.

Anton Yakovlev, CMO at Nexters, said in a statement, “Non-Core GamePlay advertising is an evolving term — it previously meant advertising that created false expectations, as there was no such experience in the product. With companies adding mini-games with the mechanics from the ads, such advertising is no longer misleading: users can now find this experience in the product; it’s just not the core one.”

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