Warpath has taken scam YouTube ads for crappy mobile games to the next level. In some ways, it’s impressive. They have obviously invested time and money to create something memorable. On the other hand, this is classic bait and switch marketing. You see no gameplay footage and are led to believe you are about to download some epic, Call of Duty-type game.
In reality, you are getting a poor man’s version of Advanced Wars for Game Boy Advance. The key difference being that Advanced Wars was actually fun and wasn’t constantly begging you for money. Like all freemium games, Warpath is nothing but a boring grind where you only win by spending money.
But that’s not the point. Anyone with anything resembling a modicum of common sense already knows freemium games are dumb. The issue is that Warpath is selling this game with the mother of all scam YouTube ads.
More Crap Games: Who is downloading Mafia City, Homescapes and these other shitty games with YouTube ads?
Warpath unleashes the mother of all scam YouTube ads
Several times in the past week this ad has played before a YouTube video I wanted to watch. It’s five-minutes long but features zero minutes of gameplay. The cost to produce this thing has to be in the tens of thousands of dollars.
The takeaway here is that Warpath is some incredible, mission-based game that takes place during World War II. In reality, nothing in this video remotely reflects the actual in-game experience.
Warpath is Farmville, dawg. Yeah, it’s been re-skinned and you can shoot stuff, But it’s fucking Farmville nonetheless. Just look at these gameplay screenshots.
You have buildings and bases instead of fields and military units replace crops. However, the core functions and how the game’s developer make money are the same. Which brings us back to the five-minute mini-movie Warpath is using to get people to download this nonsense.
Here is what concerns me the most about the video. Now that Warpath has taken scam YouTube ads to the next level, what’s next? Mobile game advertisements continue to sink lower and lower. The bait and switch marketing used here is bad, but it will get worse.
The real problem here isn’t necessarily the game developer. I mean they should be ashamed for making such a shitty game, but scammers gonna scam. However, some of the people giving Warpath a platform to promote this should be embarrassed. IGN taking cash from Warpath to post their ad video is a joke. Even Nintendo Power made the developer of Superman 64 post photos of their shitty game in this advertorial.
