Misleading Game ua creatives and Why They Work

Misleading ads in mobile gaming are the most advanced content recommendation system in entertainment today.

That’s a big claim. Let me back it up.

For the past 6-8 years, misleading ads have baffled the industry. I remember some of the first instances with the famous pull the pin 11ads that popped up for match-3 games. It seemed like madness to market a game by showcasing gameplay that doesn’t exist in the game.

But the trend didn’t die. It accelerated. And that tells you everything you need to know. If misleading ads didn’t work, they’d be gone by now.

I wrote about this back in 2019 (that article is unfortunately in the dust bin of the internet). Back then I had two hypotheses:

👉 Misleading ads steer ad network algorithms to show ads to broader audiences that might also like your game, audiences the algorithm would never find using vanilla gameplay ads.

👉 They create a brand multiplier. “I keep seeing these ads” improves the probability that a potential player will install, and dramatically increases game visibility in the stores from the sheer volume of broader advertising.

These days the picture is clearer. We can think about the actual mechanisms at play.

The Mechanism: Aesthetics Drive Everything

In the black box of ad network ML algorithms, there are still some things we know. Two major things drive ad network algorithm decisions. First, estimating each user’s probability to interact with an ad. Second, the probable LTV for a user given a potential game.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Borrowing from a well-known framework for game design and research, MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics), the way players perceive games and make up their minds about them, not by thinking about mechanics or dynamics. It’s by looking at aesthetics, which convey to them what kind of fun they might discover in this game.

And aesthetics in MDA is bigger than art style or graphics. It’s the entire emotional experience a game projects. The type of fun it promises. The feeling you get thinking about playing it. Sensation, fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression, submission. All of these are aesthetics. When a player sees a game ad, they’re reading all of these signals at once, forming an instant impression of what playing this game would feel like.

That impression is the first and most powerful filter. Players see your ad and within seconds form an idea of what kind of fun you’re offering. That idea determines whether they engage. And that engagement signal is what the ad network’s algorithm uses to decide who else to show it to.

This is the core insight. Misleading ads work because they change the aesthetic signal, which changes the audience the algorithm targets, which unlocks entirely new player pools that would never see your game otherwise.

The Kingshot Walkthrough

Let’s make this concrete. Kingshot’s famous winning concept. You’ve probably played it.

👁️ The player sees the ad. The aesthetics scream idle arcade. Laid back. Casual. Relaxing. The player forms an idea: this is going to be a chill but exciting flow-state experience.

🎮 The player starts playing the playable. But instead of optimization and automation, they discover a 4x loop. Enemies are coming in, you need to build a base, explore the space, expand, collect resources. A different kind of fun than what they expected, but fun nonetheless.

📲 The player installs. After playing for minutes in this case (not seconds, minutes), they think “oh, I actually like this” and hit install.

After installing, they discover a full-blown 4X strategy game. They also discover that even though they don’t usually play this type of game, it’s actually fun for them too.

In other words: “you might also like this.”

That’s the real framing. Misleading ads are saying to potential players: if this is the type of fun you’re looking for, we can show you that this game also delivers it. A bait and switch of sorts that players actually appreciate (at least a big portion of them, because if that weren't true, these ads wouldn’t drive ROAS and wouldn’t scale).

The Ad Network Flywheel

Here’s how the flywheel spins once you have a misleading creative that resonates.

The different aesthetics in your ad communicate to players something different about your game. That changes who is likely to interact with your ad. Suddenly, the probability of engagement spikes for a different audience than your core.

That spike in engagement steers the ad networks to bid on impressions for that different audience. They start finding these users in very different games than where they’d normally find your core audience (which is usually your direct genre competitors).

Because there’s a genuine “match” between this new audience and your game, they become high LTV players. The ad network picks up on that fast and starts predicting high LTV for this entire audience segment.

And BAM! A new hero creative is born. High probability to interact + large audience + high predicted LTV. The ad network will exploit this audience and scale as hard as it can.

If you study where Kingshot ads actually get shown, they’re mostly running in very casual puzzle games, idle games, sort games, side by side with roguelike RPGs, turn-based strategy, and hero/gacha collection games.

The Kingshot concept aesthetics are communicating to these players: “give it a shot, we know you’re looking to relax and get to a flow state, but let’s show you how to get the same fun from this new type of game.”

You might also like this.

From Theory to Practice: It Starts with Game DNA

Understanding ad networks as recommendation engines at humanity’s scale is great. But it begs the question: what the fcking fcks do I do with it? I have a job to do, you f*cking game philosophers.

I hear you friend. This is not theory for the sake of theory. Here’s a framework you can use to think about new playable concepts to expand your game’s audiences and find massive UA scale.

It all starts with your game’s DNA. While many have tried to define what games are and what they’re made of, there’s no widely accepted framework. It’s super fragmented. Let’s make our own.

Think about your mobile game across six axes:

🔄 Core loop - What the player does repeatedly. The fundamental action cycle.

📈 Meta loops - The systems that keep players coming back. Progression, collection, social, narrative.

⚙️ Mechanics - The specific rules, systems, and dynamics. How things actually work.

🏰 Theme & Setting - Where the game lives. The world, the story, the vibe.

🎨 Art style - How it looks and feels. 2D cartoon, realistic 3D, stylized, pixel art.

🏷️ Genre & sub-genre - How the market actually classifies it. Go granular.

Here’s Kingshot’s DNA as an example:

🔄 Core loop: Build base, deploy defenses, fight waves, expand territory. City builder meets tower defense meets 4X.

📈 Meta loops: Hero collection and upgrade, alliance wars, tech trees, resource management, kingdom progression. 10+ interlocking systems.

⚙️ Mechanics: Real-time combat, base building, resource gathering, PvP raids, guild mechanics, event tournaments.

🏰 Theme & Setting: Medieval fantasy kingdom. Knights, castles, monsters.

🎨 Art style: Stylized 3D. Colorful, semi-cartoonish, accessible.

🏷️ Genre: Midcore 4X strategy / tower defense hybrid.

Now you can see your game as a point in a multi-dimensional space. And you can start thinking about moving along these axes to reach different audiences.

The Creative Space: Finding Adjacent Audiences

People don’t care about core loops, meta loops, or mechanics. Not really. People are looking for fun. And each audience has its own idea of what fun means.

Think about it like movies. Jordan Peele’s “Nope” is a slow-burning sci-fi horror thriller about UFOs. I’m a UFO documentary guy. I’ve hated horror films since I was a kid. But I watched Nope because of the UFO angle, and discovered I actually enjoyed the horror component too. The film attracted me through one type of fun and introduced me to another.

The same happens with games. Players move around the entertainment space throughout their lives. Nobody likes just one genre forever. People are always open to finding new games, even different ones, if the play experience delivers fun for them.

We can think about the creative space as all the potential ways to market your game, mapped in a space where similar things are closer together.

Your core loop is close to other core loops that the same audiences enjoy. Same for meta loops, themes, art styles, genres, and mechanics. 1v1 PvP is closer to Battle Royale than it is to sort puzzles.

For Kingshot, the creative space might look something like this:

The idle arcade 4x loop concept (their winning ad) isn’t that far from their actual game in this space. But it expands the reachable audience from pure 4X strategy players to a massive casual and idle audience that would never search for a strategy game on their own.

Fun Types: The Bridge Between Games and Audiences

Before you start exploring the creative space around your game, you need to understand what type of fun your game delivers. There’s a ton of academic literature on this. None of it is perfectly practical for what we need. Let’s keep it simple.

Every game delivers some combination of these fun types:

😌 Relaxation / Flow - Zoning out. Repetitive, satisfying actions. The “one more level” pull. Think idle games, merge games, sort puzzles.

⚔️ Mastery / Challenge - Getting better. Beating hard things. The satisfaction of skill progression. Think competitive shooters, precision platformers, hard puzzle games.

📦 Collection / Progression - Gathering. Upgrading. Watching numbers go up. The dopamine of unlocking the next thing. Think RPGs, gacha, base builders.

🏆 Competition / Dominance - Beating other people. Ranking up. Proving you’re better. Think PvP, leaderboards, esports.

🔍 Discovery / Exploration - Finding new things. Uncovering secrets. The thrill of the unknown. Think open world, narrative games, roguelikes.

✨ Expression / Creativity - Building. Decorating. Making something yours. Think sandbox, decoration, customization-heavy games.

🤝 Social / Connection - Playing with others. Guilds. Shared experiences. Think co-op, clan wars, social casino.

Your game probably delivers 2-3 of these in different intensities. Kingshot is heavy on Collection/Progression and Competition/Dominance, with a secondary layer of Mastery/Challenge.

But the winning misleading ad concept? It communicates Relaxation/Flow and Collection/Progression. It found an entirely different audience by leading with a fun type the actual game delivers as a secondary experience, but packaging it as the primary pitch.

That’s the creative unlock.

The Framework: How to Explore Your Creative Space

Here’s the exercise. Do this for your game and you’ll generate more concept ideas and you’ll start thinking more broadly about creative concepts.

Step 1: Map your core loop.

Write down exactly what the player does on repeat. If there’s a secondary loop that’s prominent, map that too. Coin Master has the slots loop AND the attack/steal/defend loop. Royal Match has the match-3 puzzle loop AND the king’s renovation/decoration loop. Most successful games have at least two loops worth exploring.

Which other core loops deliver a similar type of fun? If your core loop delivers relaxation, what other relaxation-forward loops exist? Idle mechanics, merge mechanics, sorting mechanics, farming loops. Each one is a potential creative concept.

Step 2: Map your meta loops.

The systems that create long-term retention. Village building in Coin Master. Renovation and decoration in Gardenscapes. Hero collection in RPGs. Base progression in strategy games.

Which meta loops from other genres could communicate a similar sense of progression to different audiences? A base-building meta can be reframed as a decoration/renovation meta in a creative to attract casual players.

Step 3: Map your mechanics.

All the rules, systems, and dynamics. Discrete level progressions, pre-level powerups, guilds, event tournaments, turn-based combat, real-time battles, resource collection, tech trees.

Which mechanics from your game overlap with mechanics in completely different genres? A merge mechanic, a match mechanic, a sort mechanic, an idle tap mechanic. Any of these can become the basis of a playable ad concept that leads players into your actual game.

Step 4: Map your theme and setting.

Medieval fantasy. Sci-fi. Modern city. Post-apocalyptic. Underwater. Each theme attracts different audiences with different expectations. What happens if you take your game’s core fun and wrap it in a completely different theme? Kingshot is medieval fantasy, but a sci-fi skin on the same idle loop concept would reach yet another audience.

Step 5: Map your art style.

2D bright cartoons, realistic 3D, stylized low-poly, pixel art, anime. Art style is one of the strongest aesthetic signals in an ad. Changing the art style in a creative concept changes who stops scrolling. A realistic 3D rendering of your game’s concept targets a completely different psychographic than a bright 2D cartoon version.

Step 6: Map your perceived genre.

Go granular. Not just “puzzle game” but “merge-2 narrative-rich casual puzzle.” Not just “strategy” but “midcore 4X tower defense hybrid.” The more precisely you define your genre, the more clearly you can see which adjacent genres have overlapping audiences

Now the fun part (no pun intended). Start combining. Take a core loop from column A, a theme from column B, an art style from column C, and a fun type from column D. Each combination is a potential creative concept aimed at a different audience.

For Kingshot, we can easily think about a valid hypothesis and experiment concept that targets the RPG audience by focusing on upgrading the king, leveling him up to fight endless hordes and boss battles on a platformer aesthetic. Think We Are Warriors meets Kingshot. Same game. Different creative entry point. Different audience.

Wrap Up

Misleading ads work. But copying what’s already out there without understanding why it works is a losing strategy. The teams getting results aren’t randomly testing weird concepts. They understand that ad networks are recommendation engines and that aesthetics are the primary signal that determines which audience sees your game.

The framework is straightforward. Define your game’s DNA. Understand the fun types it delivers. Map the creative space around it. Then systematically explore adjacent audiences by shifting along the six axes until you find concepts that unlock new player pools at scale.

The business of games will always be part art, part science. But the science part has a structure you can actually use. And the teams that learn to navigate the creative space intelligently will find audiences nobody else can reach.

Cheers.