An opinion piece. Posted on lithgowtech.com/blog
The Transcript
Look, I get it. Free games have to make money somehow. Nobody expects developers to pour months of work into a game and then just give it away out of the goodness of their heart. The free-to-play model exists for a reason and in principle, it makes sense.
But some of these games have completely lost the plot when it comes to ads, and I’m done pretending otherwise.
The Game That Broke Me
I was playing a first-person shooter on my phone recently. Two teams, fast-paced arena combat โ think Unreal Tournament vibes, complete with a football mode thrown in. Genuinely fun. The kind of game you’d happily pick up during a lunch break or commute.
Then the ads kicked in.
After every single round โ win or lose โ I’d be sitting through ad after ad. Tap out to another window? Ad. Tap back in? Ad. Ad. Ad. At its worst I was spending ten minutes dealing with ads for every few minutes of actual gameplay. Ten minutes. For a mobile game I was playing to kill time.
I enjoyed the game. I removed it anyway. Life is too short.
The Ad Problem Is Real โ And It’s Getting Worse
Here’s the thing โ this isn’t just one bad game. It’s an industry-wide issue that’s accelerating fast. Mobile games generated an estimated $106.5 billion from ads in 2024 alone. That’s an enormous pile of money, and developers know it. The number of mobile game advertisers surpassed 259,700 in 2024 โ a 60% year-over-year increase. ScreenRantMalavida
When there’s that much money on the table, the temptation to squeeze every last impression out of a player becomes overwhelming. And players are the ones who pay the price.
What We Love About Mobile Gaming (When It’s Done Right)
Mobile gaming at its best is genuinely impressive. As we’ve written about in our ARK: Survival Evolved Mobile review, the phone in your pocket is now carrying the kind of processing power that would have required a full gaming rig not long ago. The hardware is there. The potential is there.
A massive 82% of mobile gamers actually say they prefer free games with ads over paid games without them โ so players aren’t anti-ad in principle. Most of us understand the deal. Watch an ad, play for free. That’s fair. steamcommunity
The problem isn’t ads. The problem is aggression.
What We Hate About It
The volume. An ad after every round is borderline. An ad every time you tap, switch windows, or breathe in the wrong direction is a hostage situation, not a game.
The scams. This one needs to be said loudly. A significant number of ads in mobile games are actively misleading. You’ll see a slick video of what looks like a genuinely interesting game, download it, and find something completely unrelated that has borrowed the footage from elsewhere. Some advertised products trigger every scam alarm going โ the language, the promises, the urgency. It’s predatory, and it gives the entire ad ecosystem a terrible reputation.
The repetition. Seeing the same 30-second unskippable ad fifteen times in a single session is not marketing. It’s torture.
The bait-and-switch “remove ads” purchase. Pay a few dollars to remove ads, only to find the micro-transactions are still plastered everywhere. If someone has paid to remove the monetisation interruptions, honour that. Remove them all.
What’s Challenging About This Whole Thing
The genuinely difficult part is that there’s no easy solution. Developers โ especially small indie studios โ are often dependent on ad revenue to keep the lights on. The free-to-play model democratised gaming in a real way, letting people play titles they couldn’t otherwise afford.
The challenge is finding the line between sustainable monetisation and alienating your entire player base. Some studios get it right. ARK Mobile, which we’ve already reviewed, keeps its micro-transactions minimal and non-intrusive. That’s the standard worth aiming for.
The Lithgeek Rule
For what it’s worth, here’s where I’ve landed personally: if I have to watch an ad more than twice in an hour, the game gets deleted. Full stop. One star review on the way out.
And if a game genuinely earns your time and you’re enjoying it? Buy the full version. Four bucks, twelve bucks, whatever the ask is. Support the developers who made something worth playing โ just make sure buying it actually removes allthe interruptions, not just some of them.
The Bottom Line
The mobile gaming market is enormous and still growing. There are genuinely brilliant games available for free on your phone right now โ we’ve reviewed a few of them right here on the Lithgeek blog. But the ad situation in a growing number of titles is so aggressive it’s actively driving players away from games they’d otherwise enjoy and support.
Do better. Players notice. And they have the delete button.
๐ฎ Want a gaming experience completely free from this nonsense? Read our ARK: Survival Ascended PC review or our Fallout 3 review โ and if you’re ready to game properly, check out our custom gaming PCs or book an appointment with the Lithgeek team.