Gamers criticize advertising tactics, even for popular games | Mobile Premier League

Online gaming company Mobile Premier League (MPL) this week was released a new study that shows a trend in the reviews of some of the popular mobile games: That is, most of the game developers who play roles are not happy in the game commercials. Gamers can have the same negative feelings about things like changes and technical problems, but dividing their positive and negative feelings can reveal different opinions on different games.

In its research, MPL selected the 5 most downloaded games from Google Play as identified by the AppRadar report of 2024, and reviewed 75,000 reviews of the most relevant games. An MPL spokesperson summed up the sentiment of these comments in the words, “The downloads show that the number of downloads does not correlate with the satisfaction of the players. Games with the same market can have very different profiles of players.”

As an example of player sentiment, the report shows players’ reactions to in-game spending, and Candy Crush Saga shows an increase in negative sentiment, with many comments citing annoying ads. While many other games show similar dissatisfaction with ads, the increasing number of ads in this game shows that players are not happy with the same type of revenue generation.

The report shows players have similar interest in other game challenges, Talking Tom’s reviews are positive for the game while Ludo King shows a lot of negatives. Similarly, Subway Surfers reviews show a high number of positive reviews mentioning the game’s updates, while Free Fire players showed negative opinions towards them.

It’s worth noting that players who have had negative experiences with gaming screens may be more willing to leave a review than those who have had lukewarm or enjoyable but unknown experiences. But the MPL report is an interesting picture of player satisfaction and engagement that goes beyond download numbers.