Opinion, ethics and the uncomfortable questions about a format built to be enjoyed by people who did not ask for it.
The case against fake gameplay is usually made on behalf of the person who was misled. That argument is true and it has not worked. There is a better one, and it is about what the practice does to every studio that refuses to do it.
10 min readWe make a tool for building playable ads, and we think a significant share of the people considering one should not build it. Here is how to tell whether you are one of them, before you spend the money.
8 min readNearly every playable ad has a pointing hand, and almost nobody will argue for one. That combination is the interesting part — it suggests the hand is not a design decision but a symptom of one made earlier.
8 min readWe make a tool for building playable ads, so we have an obvious interest in the format doing well. That is exactly why this section exists: a company that only publishes the case for its own product is publishing marketing, and everyone can tell.
These pieces take the harder questions seriously. Whether a format engineered to be enjoyable is fair to somebody who did not ask for an ad. Whether 'it converts' settles an ethical question or dodges one. Where persuasion turns into manipulation, and how you would know you had crossed the line.
The distinction most of these arguments turn on:
If an ad stops working once you explain to the viewer how it works, that is not a clever ad. That is a trick, and the difference is worth naming.
