From Fake Ads to Fake core gameplay - The UA (r)evolution – Matej Lancaric: User Acquisition Expert to Grow Mobile Games Globally

The mobile gaming industry has witnessed a seismic shift in user acquisition strategies, with fake ads and misleading core gameplay taking center stage in the race for profitability. From enticing users with exaggerated promises to generating millions in monthly revenue, these tactics have redefined how games attract and retain players. However, the (r)evolution of User Acquisition (UA) is now challenging the reliance on fake ads, urging developers to adopt alternative methods like influencer marketing and authentic engagement channels. This shift not only impacts monetization strategies but also addresses growing user skepticism and industry-wide ethical concerns. In this article, we dive deep into the transition from fake ads to fake core gameplay, the controversies they spark, and the future of UA strategies in gaming.

The evolution of fake ads into fake core gameplay marks a pivotal shift in user acquisition (UA) strategies for mobile games, blending clever advertising tactics with innovative game design. This approach stems from the challenge of balancing low-cost user acquisition (CPI) with high lifetime value (LTV), driving developers to integrate fake ad concepts directly into gameplay. Games like Hero Wars and Mighty Party exemplify this trend, where fake ad playables are seamlessly embedded into onboarding funnels to create an engaging illusion that mirrors the ads seen in app stores. This technique has evolved further, with games like Kingdom Guard and Top War adopting “fake core gameplay” as part of their early game experience, blending mechanics like merging, tower defense, and 4X strategy into a cohesive progression system. These strategies not only captivate players but also enhance revenue potential, as seen in Mighty Party, which quadrupled downloads and achieved monthly revenues of up to $8 million. By leveraging hyper-casual-inspired UA creatives and continuous iteration, these games ensure sustained engagement while optimizing monetization, setting a new benchmark in mobile gaming.

Why are fake ads used in mobile games for user acquisition?

Fake ads are used in mobile games for user acquisition because they serve as a highly effective, attention-grabbing tool to drive installs.You already know why is it happening. Running and growing a game is not an easy job. The CPI vs LTV equation is really important. And if you are unable to drive the LTV up, then you need to do whatever it takes to lower the CPI down – below your LTV. WHATEVER IT TAKES!

Lately, we have seen many games trying to implement the practices behind fake ads into actual products which is definitely new.

This again evolved itself as it first started as an attempt to prolong the illusion that the game is the same as the fake ads. This was done rather crudely through “duct taping” the fake ads into the onboarding funnel between the levels where fake ads playables were played by the user and then the real core gameplay of the game would be inserted in between.

After a while, the fake ads would disappear and the real game would take over as seen in the example below.

How does Hero Wars use fake ads to attract players?

Hero Wars uses fake ads to attract players by showcasing exaggerated or misleading gameplay elements that don’t actually appear in the game. Hero wars pushes the first playable of a fake ad right from the start of the game, therefore the transition from the store that is full of screenshots of this fake ad seems seamless. User won’t notice any fake advertising immediately.

How do fake ads impact player engagement in mobile games?

Fake ads can significantly impact player engagement in mobile games, often leading to both positive and negative outcomes.

Afterwards, the game takes over and there is one level of gameplay on the sagamap and then another fake ad level is played. It needs to be noted here that the playable works surprisingly well, the user can still fail and if he doesn’t want to bother with it he can skip. The fake level is quite enjoyable actually, as there is the usual trial and error phase, where you want to see what happens and how the lava actually behaves in the physics puzzle.

After level 3 the original game takes over and shows the player the main menu hub.

The illusion is now complete as the player at this phase still expects that the fake ad puzzles will show up somewhere between the levels as they did before (spoiler they won’t :D) so he continues playing. The legend says this player is still waiting for more puzzles in the game ..

Hero Wars guys are Fake ads OGs, thats where the Mighty Party got the inspiration from.

How do fake ads impact mobile game gameplay and player experience?

Fake ads can have a significant impact on both mobile game gameplay and player experience, often creating a disconnect between expectations and reality.Mighty Party is a turn-based strategy RPG that is an excellent example of combining action, strategy, battle rpg and turn-based roleplaying games. We took the best from different genres to create an amazing experience for you in the world of Massively Online Role-Playing Games. The whole history of Mighty Party fake ads is written here, so I won’t bother you too much. Few highlights:

The game starts with a normal gameplay of its turn-based combat.

Then the fake ad playable comes in. This feels much more like a part of the gameplay than the previous game example because the rewards screen is the same as you would get from a normal battle in the game.

What players see in the creatives, they see in the store as well!

Fully Tower fake and the last one looks almost the same as Hero wars. Lets look how the store looks like!

How do fake ads in game tutorials impact player engagement?

Fake ads in game tutorials can have a significant, yet often negative, impact on player engagement. Afterwards the original tutorial of the game kicks in and walks you through the combat and meta game menus.

What was the tutorial evolution? This is the original gameplay with the default tutorial from the days when they didn’t run any fake ads:

Here we have the “fake ad tutorial” iteration:

This is me playing the game now (for research purposes ) Turn your head pls!

https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/RPReplay_Final1663181419.movhttps://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/RPReplay_Final1663181419-2.mov

What strategies helped Mighty Party scale its downloads and revenue?

Mighty Party, a popular mobile strategy game, employed several key strategies that helped it scale its downloads and revenue:

Now comes the really interesting part, Mighty Party was first soft launched on the android store in Jun 21. 2017. It was doing some nice revenue, in first 2 years of around 200-500K $ a month but then suddenly in Oct 2020 it was able to quadruple the downloads to half a million a month and in the end the game continued to scale it until it’s peak in Jul 2021 to 4,5 million downloads a month. Revenue of course swiftly followed at nearly 8 Million $ a month peak. How was it possible that a 4 year old game was able to supercharge it’s revenue without undergoing significant product changes?

What is fake core gameplay in mobile games and how does it impact player engagement?

Fake core gameplay in mobile games refers to the use of misleading or exaggerated gameplay elements that are showcased in marketing materials, such as ads or trailers, but do not accurately represent the actual experience of playing the game.Now we went through some of the iterations that took rather old games and supercharge their onboarding funnels with Fake ads playables that can be inserted into the core gameplay better or worse, being less obvious or more.

But there are games that evolved this trend even further by actually building the “fake core gameplay” into the game and making it significant in the early stages of the game.

This of course requires much more effort than duct taping a fake ad playable into your tutorial and they reap the rewards.

Let’s look at the most recent examples and pioneers in this trend. Do you know which games are we talking about? NO?

Of course, we are talking about those 4x games you thought they were not 4x at all! HAHA! They got you as well. pcheche!

Talking about Top war and Kingdom Guard. Continue reading for more information!

What impact do fake ads have on Kingdom Guard’s user acquisition?

Fake ads have had a notable impact on Kingdom Guard’s user acquisition by driving a large volume of installs, although they come with both positive and negative consequences. Kingdom Guard from Tap4free starts as a very simple merge game that has an auto-battling tower defense on the background.

It’s very easy, actually it uses somehow similar layout design to merge planes.

You merge your towers together to increase their merge level numbers and then place them on the road to beat up enemies that are approaching your egg at the end.

Sound like an interesting tower defense concept? WRONG!!! Let’s see what happen next.

The game later unlocks more slots on the merge board, more tower slots to occupy and eventually ads even an auto merging (later monetized with ads or IAP for the comfort of also placing units on the towers) mechanics.

So playing the games is now reduced to just the spawn button which already spawn a much higher level of towers on the initial spawn. This way the game is played just by clicking the spawn button and the whole gameplay plays itself.

So what would you do for the rest of the game? How about a little 4X?

This is the time when the game introduces the classic 4X march battle map and in the end unmasks it’s true core gameplay which is the classic 4X game of upgrading buildings and battling players on the server map.

You still can’t use all of the features as those are level-locked based on you tower defense level progression, which works nicely as a pacing mechanism for unlocking of the features once you hit the current merge cap on your towers.

One of the things where this illusion breaks a little is the overall gold amounts that you have. (this is the geek game design Jakub talking about because I wouldn’t notice shit!)

First, when the game was teaching you the tower defense part, you ran out of gold super fast, as you were not supposed to spam the train button. But later on, you are pretty much-using millions of gold on a daily basis and the button costs 10 gold.

The main focus of the game switches to getting resources from the march battle map and upgrading your base, where the gold amounts are actually relevant. This is the real game that has now taken over. The tower defense part just loses its use and you can just go and get some “merging” dopamine from there.

May the fake money be with you

Different tools, different revenues. Still loooks like an upward trend! Hitting anything between 5 Million and 9 million USD monthly revenue.

What about UA creatives?

I am glad you asked! You are awesome. Kingdom Guard uses a lot of fake ads showing mostly the “core” tower defense. Taking inspiration also from hypercasual genre.

Top war!

Looking at another example of a similar setup we can also see that heavy iteration of the onboarding itself is done similarly as you would need a new creative winner in UA.

Top war also uses a merge gameplay that is the center of the onboarding and later on, it also transitions into a 4X game.

During the initial year, the game just started simple with you merging troops and fighting auto battle on a big one island map.

Later the game would push you toward the march battle map and more base upgrades and research trees. This was the initial setup of the FTUE

What role did the merge + Tetris-like gameplay play in user acquisition in 2021?

The merge + Tetris-like gameplay played a crucial role in user acquisition for mobile games, particularly in the context of casual and puzzle genres In 2021.

In 2021 they completely changed this and the game used a more merge+tetris like gameplay.

Where you would win battles on small blocks floating on water which would absorb and merge enemy units.

This was again consistent with the UA strategy of creatives and screenshots of the store where this block merging tetris like gameplay was featured.

Tutorial

First Screenshot

How do fake ads in mobile games impact user acquisition and retention?

Fake ads in mobile games—ads that misrepresent the actual gameplay by exaggerating or fabricating features—can have significant effects on user acquisition and retention.

Eventually, when you absorb enough block a Helicopter would take you back to the main island. From this point on the onboarding would be the same as the previous version.

Currently in Sep. 2022, there is a third version where you start on the big island again but this time there is a spin. After merging few units and going into auto battle you find a strange device.

The game tasks you to basically play the fake ad creative, where you need to cut the cables on a device that controls weather and prohibits your progress by keeping parts of the island in fog.

This is a great example how a playable creative was smoothly implemented into the onboarding. Afterwards the game goes again into the old island unlocking tutorial.

The carrot on a stick are those weather machine puzzles which you can see in the fog of the island as I expect few more will be introduced on the way of you unlocking the island.

The real 4x gameplay

Read my latest articles!

Top war UA & creative team is mastering the hypercasual visuals and game mechanics integration into their game’s creative. Just look below:

So what about User Acquisition creatives?

There is actually plenty more, but you get it by now. Right? I see you are shaking your head. Here you are another super fake creative example. But that’s it. No more!

Still here? Okay, last one ..

Looking at the charts Top War performs again very well and probably the bigger spikes in downloads could be correlated with the discovery of new winner fake ad creative that was then implemented into the onboarding. We would never know if the game makes 22 or 40 million monthly revenue, right? Anyway, seems like a win!

What to expect?

Have you seen the pattern here? No? Okay, let’s unpack a little bit.

We are mainly talking about RPG or 4x genre, which have primarily super HIGH CPIs. How to tackle this? We discussed the fake ads already, but implementing fake ads into the gameplay seems to be a solution. Creating illusion for players and keeping them engaged in the game a bit longer.

” I’m still interested in doing puzzles that pop up once in a while. However, I’m on the mobile version and the puzzles seem to be gone after Chapter 3.
This website says there are puzzles in Chapters 4-7…but I can’t seem to find them?”

Puzzle excited Hero wars player

X-Hero did it well recently, but Kingdom Guard and Top war seem to be masters of this.

In the upcoming months and next year, we are going to see more genres implementing this strategy to tackle the ever increasing CPIs.