I’ve been seeing a bunch of video ads on Facebook of games that are similar to Tetris. I find them mesmerizing and oddly satisfying to watch. But when I tried downloading a few of these games, they are nothing like what was shown in the ad.
I just don’t get why game developers do this. You went to the trouble of making a program to do a certain thing so you could create an ad to trick people into downloading a completely different program. Why not just create the game you figure people want to play? If you’re able to create the program to show in the ad, why not make that the game?
It’s because the game that gets a lot of installs for cheap (simple, hyper-casual) is not the game that makes a lot of money (deep power based meta progression, complex).
In other words: It is more profitable to cheat and get a few paying customers than to try and be honest in marketing.
Everyone is trying to buy users for less money (cost per install) than they bring in (average lifetime value) which is insanely difficult. The market is very competitive and just few top games / companies get a lions share of the money.
Source: I work in the mobile game industry
The game I’m talking about was a free download
They’re talking about cost to the developer, not cost to the user. Creating, marketing, and distributing a game all cost money.