The weird sexually-themed ad campaign for a Candy Crush style game

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/19/the-weird-sexually-themed-ad-c.html

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I mean, Angry Birds was practically Shakespearean prior to screenwriting when you compare it with, say Battleship, and they still sunk (!) a couple hundred million into the latter. Why they haven’t made a GTA movie yet, I have no idea.

Oh wait. They did!

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I have noticed a trend of mobile game ads that show what looks like gameplay that actually is not contained within the game. I’m finding it super weird. But I guess this is the product of the idea that we want to maximize downloads or view or whatever.

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When I wanna waste time, I just go for a motorcycle ride.

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That’s one messed-up ad.

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Is this really any different than crap like Evony? The ads are full of barely dressed women with blatantly sexual taglines but AFAIK the game is a P2W base builder that has absolutely none of that. Apparently those ad campaigns were successful because they ran for a absurdly long time.

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Atari boxes say get on my level

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https://www.gameskinny.com/8d0pi/if-you-can-believe-it-evony-is-back-this-time-on-mobile

has a rundown of evony’s sexist ad campaign.

Thanks for the post idea!

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There’s a beautiful coffee table book that documents this exact phenomenon: Art of Atari.

The author Tim Lapetino interviewed the original artists to find out how they created the art. It’s wonderful!

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Dishonest trailers certainly aren’t unique to mobile games, both PCs and consoles have had some pretty epic cases; but I imagine that the combination of having limited material to work with(mobile games tend to have comparatively limited, often tepid, art assets designed to work on a small screen, not a recipe for a compelling trailer); and with the fact that the market is so heavily skewed toward fairly modest products with heavy emphasis on addiction mechanics and very, very, low friction on entry.

If you are selling something that takes multiple years to develop, so has at least some months for a hype cycle; and can only be purchased for 30-$60, potentially by going to an actual store or enduring a 10GB download, your environment is different than if you are pitching to customers who can be in their phone’s app store within 30 seconds of tapping the incongruously busty elf or whatever; and thar impulse is more or less your only shot at getting them to venture into the Skinner box and see if they stay.

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Play now, my Lord!

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Meh, the dick size ad has good comedic timing. Surely much more entertaining than the game.

I’m definitely not playing this puzzle game unless there are some dick related quests/plotlines.

I mean that’s the only reason why I like wasting time on Disney emoji blast (which is strangely addictive).

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With a name like Lily’s Garden I’d have thought they were appealing to yuri fandom.

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I thought it would be related to the surreal visual novels Lily’s Day Off/Lily’s Night Off

I was literally just talking about this with the other Lady Mutants about a week ago. That ad plays on certain games that I infrequently play while riding bart.

O_o

To make matters worse, originally, the ad didn’t have the last part where “Lily” finds out she’s not preggers.

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Not as messed up as the one where she returns daily to swipe, to prevent the doppelganger being made of the placenta of the pregnancy (she swiped away) by the bubble witch’s magic. Then she swipes to move the cutouts on outfits from women’s tops to men’s lowers.

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Actually, the ads are very funny. Now I wish it was a Liesure Suit Lary reboot in the guise of a 40 something house wife. With gameplay of the old days of kings quest on my apple iigs.

<meta property="article:published_time" content="2017-06-06T15:47:40-04:00" />

Evony was back in 2017 at least… that’s… surprising.

I HIGHLY recommend this book. HIGHLY.

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