I play games. Usually on the elliptical at the gym to make the time go faster. Most of these games have in-app purchases, but a player can sometimes watch an ad instead.
I've noticed something. Nearly every ad features our heroine of the game being cruelly cheated on by her husband/SO/boyfriend. Frequently, she has a child or she's pregnant with the cad's baby, but his new side piece is pregnant too and he's all gooey eyed over her. Our heroine then leaves town and starts a new life wherever the game takes place.
The first couple of times, I figured it was just how the game was set up, but as months went by and ad after ad after ad featured the same setup, it made me go huh?
There's one app--I hesitate to call it a game--where it's like an online coloring book. I have this game and I played it at the start of the pandemic because it was calming. They had an ad where the heroine's SO has his eyes straying to a new woman.
Only I have this game. I still login to it regularly to get the daily bonus. My version of the game still has these two together and there's no sign there's ever been an other woman drama.
Then another game shows our heroine pregnant, she tells the father, and he puts her on a raft and pushes her out to sea. The name of the game? Family Island. That's right, this is a couple with two other children and the previous ads for this game featured the entire family fleeing an exploding volcano, the father doing what he could to protect his wife and children.
This makes me ask what changed the advertising strategy for these games? Did one game have an abandoned woman setup, advertise it, and do really well? Is that why all these other games are following the same ad strategy even though their games do not have an abandoned woman?
I'd love to discover why this is a trend and what other casual game players think of it. I'm invested with my coloring book couple and it pissed me off when the ad broke them up. And Family Island? Isn't the whole point of the game that they're a family?
The strategy makes me wonder what sort of demographics and market research they have. Or if one person posted on a forum somewhere and all these other game companies went, Eureka!
