Gamers rebuke clumsy advertising strategies, even in popular games | Premier League for mobile

Online gaming company Mobile Premier League (MPL) This week, it released a new study revealing a trend in reviews of some of the most popular mobile games: that many players who play these games are dissatisfied with in-game ads. Players can have similar negative reactions to things like updates and technical issues, but the distribution of their positive and negative feelings can reveal different feelings towards different gameplay styles.

For the purposes of its research, MPL selected the top 5 most downloaded games from Google Play as identified by AppRadar’s 2024 report, and then analyzed 75,000 user reviews most relevant to these games. An MPL spokesperson summarized the general trend of these reviews in a statement, “The data reveals that the volume of downloads does not necessarily correlate with player satisfaction. Games with similar market penetration can have very different feelings in players.”

As an example of different player sentiments, the report shows different player reactions to in-game monetization, and Candy Crush Saga shows a significant spike in negative sentiment, with many reviews specifically calling out intrusive ads. While many other games have shown similar dissatisfaction with advertising, the increasing mention of this in that game’s advertising suggests that players are dissatisfied with the specific monetization model.

The report shows that players have similarly strong reactions to other in-game issues, with Talking Tom’s reviews being positive about the gameplay while Ludo King shows a large number of negative mentions. Likewise, Subway Surfers reviews showed a large number of positive reviews mentioning in-game updates, while Free Fire players showed negative sentiment towards them.

It’s worth noting that players who have negative experiences and impressions of the game may be more inclined to leave a review compared to those who have lukewarm or enjoyable but unexceptional experiences. But the MPL report is an interesting glimpse into player satisfaction and engagement that goes beyond download numbers.