Players berate clumsy advertising strategies, even in popular games | Mobile Premier League

Online gaming company Mobile Premier League (MPL) released a new study this week revealing a trend in reviews of some of the most popular mobile games: namely, that many of the players who play these titles are not happy with the game. advertising. Players may have similar negative reactions to things like updates and technical issues, but the distribution of their positive and negative feelings may reveal different feelings toward different approaches to gameplay.

For its research, MPL selected the top 5 most downloaded games on Google Play as identified by AppRadar’s 2024 report, and then analyzed the 75,000 most relevant user reviews of those games. An MPL spokesperson summed up the general sentiment of these reviews in a statement: “The data reveals that download volume does not necessarily correlate with player satisfaction. “Games with similar market penetration can have drastically different player sentiment profiles.”

As an example of varying player sentiment, the report shows various player reactions to in-game monetization, with Candy Crush Saga showing a large increase in negative sentiment, with many reviews specifically pointing out intrusive ads. While many of the other games showed similar dissatisfaction with the ads, the increased mention of ads in that game’s ads suggests that players are dissatisfied with that particular monetization model.

The report shows that players have equally strong reactions to other issues in the game, with Talking Tom reviewing the game positively, while Ludo King showing a high number of negative mentions. Similarly, Subway Surfers reviews showed a large number of positive reviews mentioning in-game updates, while Free Fire players showed negative feelings towards them.

It’s worth keeping in mind that players who have negative experiences and impressions with a game may be more likely to leave a review than those who have more lukewarm or pleasant but unexceptional experiences. But the MPL report is an interesting snapshot of player satisfaction and engagement that goes beyond download numbers.