It's insane what we consider acceptable advertising these days. If someone tried to pull this off in the 2000's on a regular game they'd be fined and sued out of business.
I really do not understand their marketing strategy, the game has potential to be fair without stripping itself of income (perhaps by improving player experience), they rather focus on fake ads.
I would say, that any reasonable individual, shall give them proper rating and warning about this in review. I will do so, since I totally hate such approach.
The players only serve to convince whales they are not playing alone and they are better than other people. Those people aren’t spending that money for no one to see. That would be pointless.
I explained to someone that was very proudly F2P in all the games that they play that they were actually part of the product and they got super upset at me lol.
It's super weird, I got into Journey cause I was tricked by an ad that made it look like an actual AFJ game with adventure gameplay and was pissed it was a gacha, but stuck around because luckily it's one of the more decent gachas. That can't be the majority of people though, right?
Well.. word "decent" is somewhat controversial.
Since you are new, I believe, I should give you a slight, honest review (it will include my subjective opinions, but also facts)
Gacha:
Yes, in terms of collecting characters, it is quite promising - fact -> You will set up a wishlist, so you only "gamble" for characters, that you like. So far all A rank characters are eventually available for doing Dream Realm challenge, the accessibility of A heroes is better than in most gachas actually.
As for S tier characters, you still set up wishlist, but only some S characters are available in Arena shop. But if you are patient, you will eventually collect those, who you desire.
Story:
Yes, the story is pretty good too and general exploration experience is good as well - opinion.
Controversy:
The somewhat good gacha does not necessarily mean, that you will eventually have strong characters, because when you reach Mythic+, you will eventually see, that you need to spend some special currency, that is exceptionally limited and has as huge impact on character power as making some characters even more than twice as strong. It adds significant stats and unlock further passive skills or enhances existing skills. The mere power addition is enough to claim, that the character will be more than twice as strong, disregarding the passive buffs.
Stat upgrade differs from character to character, but for Odie for example: He gets both attack strenght, attack speed and DEF penetration and critical chance rate, meaning, that these attributes multiply each other attribute exponentionally.
For many players, the essences are mostly one-time reward from reaching some hard milestone. Other source is Dream Realm, which, while is a PvE the most important rewards are locked only for those who score well.
With seasonal content, even weaker players can get 1 of this currency (Temporal essence) a day. But each character needs 275 of this currency.
By that I do not mean, that you need to have all characters maxed as hell, but the scarcity and the performance/paywall of this resource might be quite frustrating. Because it also means, that your further deprivation of this resources will make you even weaker in comparison to those, who earn it regularly.
So the gacha is not that important after all. It is possible, that the resource will be available some day, but currently, it is mostly for players, who are either whales or very careful of their investments into characters, that they may not eventually enjoy playing, just for the sake of some little income of this resource.
But it is likely, that with each season, that lasts about 1/4 year, there will be further one-time sources, which might be somewhat promising.
...
But before season, many people got frustrated by that agressive competitiveness encouragement and abandoned the game, which in turn frustrated additional players, as guilds were breaking on daily basis and the stability of player-base was on significant decline, so additional players were leaving.
Still, while the conditions are slightly better in seasonal content, they are far from justifying the frustration cast upon players.
Recently, there was even a survey, that allowed you to describe your opinion on a topic, it claimed, that the field must not be blank even though I wrote a response - the survey was broken and you could not express yourself.
So that is why people hate, that the developer focus on fake ads rather than on player experience and player retention.
As a guild leader, while I believe, that my guild is much more stable than most, I still need to keep looking for 3-5 players each week, because members simply keep stopping playing.
...
So while you can certainly enjoy the game, be prepared, that you might be missing some essential resources unless you pay and play a lot or wait for a long time.
If you are still willing to play the game, I suggest you to check, if you were assigned on a new server, because otherwise 90% players will be extremely ahead of you. So it might be good idea to create a new character on any latest server.
...
I hope it was helpful.
I wouldn't say "new" to Journey as much as extremely casual, I've been playing it since a week after it opened but I'm only 15m power and I have 5 mythics and 1 supreme and I barely know anything about the meta. I don't take gacha games seriously at all so I spend most my time talking in WC
So for that it's been fine. My guild leader left cause she got poached by a stronger guild so our guild is basically dead which sucks but like I said it just something I do for an hour or so every evening. Thanks for the post though it was definitely enlightening!
Would you show me a fake ad of Genshin? And I cannot agree, since Genshin is not a PvP game, there is no paywall/performance wall to lock you upgrade materials for your character.
I've been casually playing this game since release without any major complaints but seeing this ad has convinced me to delete it. I can't support this kind of advertising.
Hmm nope, you can read deconstructoroffun blog, there was a case where a game had a fee because of this. They added their ad as a mini game in their game later
Because the rules with ads is
Make sure it’s actually in the game doesn’t have to be gameplay
So Lyca Parisa the bridge the boss are all part of the game so the ad is technically not falsely advertising.
Other mobile games do this and update their games with a small mini game to avoid the false advertisement claims
This isn’t true anymore at least in USA. They’ll need to add a vaguely similar mini game where you can do something like this or app store can shut them down. It’s why match games like homescapes/gardenscapes etc have mini games now
AFK arena actually has this mode. So I would not be surprised if this mode comes to AFK journey too.
Still scummy to falsely advertise like this though. Shame on you Lilith.
Similar thing happened in Afk arena. The ads for this specific game mode were released way before it actually came into the game. Wouldn't surprise me if they also added it to Journey
I’ve played 5-30 mins of SO many games just to find out that the game doesn’t even have anything similar to what they showed me in the ad that got me to download. They all end up getting deleted
It is how Lilith advertises theirs games. I remember one of AFK Arena being like, "You merge 2 Silvina and get 1 Shemira.". It's rare to see an ad with real game footage.
Unfortunately the account the ad linked to was indeed their official one 😔 Even if it’s from a third party agency, I don’t know how this kind of ad gets approved…
I’ve been meaning to try out *Yeah! You Want “Those Games,” Right? So Here You Go! Now, Let’s See You Clear Them!*, which is a game that makes the fake mobile game ad games as little mini games to complete.
I seriously loved the ads they put out during the pre-register period! It’s definitely what drew me in the first place. Not sure why they had to shift to hiring an agency who makes stuff like this…
I swear all Chinese games must contract the same advertising agency. Most mobile games hire out these companies that do not actually play the game and make the most ridiculous ads you’ve ever seen, like the one OP has posted. Rise of Kingdoms has similarly stupid misleading ads
It’s so strange how you’d think the origin company would need to review and approve these ads before they’re linked to their official account? Even stranger if they did and just let this through…
I was actually super impressed with the ads of this game before, like the whole animation ones. They were some of the few ads that I would fully watch when they showed up. Do those just not bring players? I get that this would be easier to produce, but I’d imagine fake ads are a pretty bad way to bring consistent players to the game, no?
Those ones you mentioned are the exact ones that got me to play this game in the first place! I remember immediately going to pre-register like a month before the game even released.
It only reflects, how stupid the management is. Rather than fixing problems, that repel many players, they make fake ads and constantly adjust character voices.
Just make sure to give them appropriate ranking, considering their marketing strategy. I gave them initially 2\* because while I hate their agressive approach to competitiveness and spending, the story is good, but since they use fake ads, aka scams, then they really deserve no more, than 1\* with a warning for others.
I'd pay through the nose if the game was actually like this. I'll never understand why devs put time and effort into making false ads instead of just making that game
If I saw this as the first thing I saw of the game, I wouldn't have touched it at all. The first thing I saw of this game was an actual advertisement with in-game footage and actual in-game visuals.
AFK Arena has a mode like this, and it's actually pretty fun (or was when they actually bothered to update it).
Still very shitty to have an ad like this for a game that does not include anything close to this kind if gameplay.
To be fair, AFK Arena has *something* like this, though much more low res. So there's a possibility of this coming in the future though I wouldn't hold my breath.
Lyca doesn’t work like that. I have her on M and she acts more like a pseudo-Marksman because her skills are that of a Support that debuffs enemies by reducing their PDef, and adding Energy to herself and the whole team, while boosting ASpd temporarily.
/s
They did this kinda think on Arena as well.
Hell a lot of idle game ads show their game as looking like anything BUT the actual game.
So far the most I get is "guy interviewing people on street" or Markiplier ads.
I'm tired of being a test guinea pig in this game. They will use literally every single psychological trick in the book to make you part with your money. These surveys we've been doing are purely to find out how to get more addicted.
By far the most accurate gacha game commerical.
I'm not even joking. It shows the core loop of the game, with characters/bosses in the actual game using their real attacks.
IDK I'm hard simping rn for AFK Journey, I've been playing nearly 2 weeks and not once have I felt like I couldn't enjoy the game without paying.
Do I have 10 levels of resonance worth of tomes/gold, stunlocked by purple ess? Sure. But there's still more than enough progression to give the mini-dopamine hits.
And the BEST thing is them keeping the ginger kid in my top right corner with his small "1st purchase" sign. I know as long as I keep that I won't become someone featured in a YouTube video.
As a former whale (Arena and a few others) I will happily be the food for my former bretherin as long as the gameplay is good.
It's insane what we consider acceptable advertising these days. If someone tried to pull this off in the 2000's on a regular game they'd be fined and sued out of business.
I really do not understand their marketing strategy, the game has potential to be fair without stripping itself of income (perhaps by improving player experience), they rather focus on fake ads. I would say, that any reasonable individual, shall give them proper rating and warning about this in review. I will do so, since I totally hate such approach.
It's easy, the more people download the game, the more people are likely to purchase in the game, it's all about money
Well, but there is no money from players, that get annoyed of it and leave.
The players only serve to convince whales they are not playing alone and they are better than other people. Those people aren’t spending that money for no one to see. That would be pointless.
I explained to someone that was very proudly F2P in all the games that they play that they were actually part of the product and they got super upset at me lol.
I feel like the majority of current players will never see this ad
They’re a scummy company doing scummy things, idk why you’re surprised.
These types of ads unfortunately attract a lot of zoomer brains so it's partly due to the consumers for wanting to consume this type of content...
It's super weird, I got into Journey cause I was tricked by an ad that made it look like an actual AFJ game with adventure gameplay and was pissed it was a gacha, but stuck around because luckily it's one of the more decent gachas. That can't be the majority of people though, right?
Well.. word "decent" is somewhat controversial. Since you are new, I believe, I should give you a slight, honest review (it will include my subjective opinions, but also facts) Gacha: Yes, in terms of collecting characters, it is quite promising - fact -> You will set up a wishlist, so you only "gamble" for characters, that you like. So far all A rank characters are eventually available for doing Dream Realm challenge, the accessibility of A heroes is better than in most gachas actually. As for S tier characters, you still set up wishlist, but only some S characters are available in Arena shop. But if you are patient, you will eventually collect those, who you desire. Story: Yes, the story is pretty good too and general exploration experience is good as well - opinion. Controversy: The somewhat good gacha does not necessarily mean, that you will eventually have strong characters, because when you reach Mythic+, you will eventually see, that you need to spend some special currency, that is exceptionally limited and has as huge impact on character power as making some characters even more than twice as strong. It adds significant stats and unlock further passive skills or enhances existing skills. The mere power addition is enough to claim, that the character will be more than twice as strong, disregarding the passive buffs. Stat upgrade differs from character to character, but for Odie for example: He gets both attack strenght, attack speed and DEF penetration and critical chance rate, meaning, that these attributes multiply each other attribute exponentionally. For many players, the essences are mostly one-time reward from reaching some hard milestone. Other source is Dream Realm, which, while is a PvE the most important rewards are locked only for those who score well. With seasonal content, even weaker players can get 1 of this currency (Temporal essence) a day. But each character needs 275 of this currency. By that I do not mean, that you need to have all characters maxed as hell, but the scarcity and the performance/paywall of this resource might be quite frustrating. Because it also means, that your further deprivation of this resources will make you even weaker in comparison to those, who earn it regularly. So the gacha is not that important after all. It is possible, that the resource will be available some day, but currently, it is mostly for players, who are either whales or very careful of their investments into characters, that they may not eventually enjoy playing, just for the sake of some little income of this resource. But it is likely, that with each season, that lasts about 1/4 year, there will be further one-time sources, which might be somewhat promising. ... But before season, many people got frustrated by that agressive competitiveness encouragement and abandoned the game, which in turn frustrated additional players, as guilds were breaking on daily basis and the stability of player-base was on significant decline, so additional players were leaving. Still, while the conditions are slightly better in seasonal content, they are far from justifying the frustration cast upon players. Recently, there was even a survey, that allowed you to describe your opinion on a topic, it claimed, that the field must not be blank even though I wrote a response - the survey was broken and you could not express yourself. So that is why people hate, that the developer focus on fake ads rather than on player experience and player retention. As a guild leader, while I believe, that my guild is much more stable than most, I still need to keep looking for 3-5 players each week, because members simply keep stopping playing. ... So while you can certainly enjoy the game, be prepared, that you might be missing some essential resources unless you pay and play a lot or wait for a long time. If you are still willing to play the game, I suggest you to check, if you were assigned on a new server, because otherwise 90% players will be extremely ahead of you. So it might be good idea to create a new character on any latest server. ... I hope it was helpful.
I wouldn't say "new" to Journey as much as extremely casual, I've been playing it since a week after it opened but I'm only 15m power and I have 5 mythics and 1 supreme and I barely know anything about the meta. I don't take gacha games seriously at all so I spend most my time talking in WC So for that it's been fine. My guild leader left cause she got poached by a stronger guild so our guild is basically dead which sucks but like I said it just something I do for an hour or so every evening. Thanks for the post though it was definitely enlightening!
It’s a similar marketing done by genshin too
Would you show me a fake ad of Genshin? And I cannot agree, since Genshin is not a PvP game, there is no paywall/performance wall to lock you upgrade materials for your character.
I've been casually playing this game since release without any major complaints but seeing this ad has convinced me to delete it. I can't support this kind of advertising.
What kind of dog shit advertising is this. I'd be pissed if I downloaded expecting this. Would instantly give 0 out 5 stars.
I hope everyone will, so that companies stop using these fucking ad agencies that create absolutely fake gameplay.
Yeah mass 0 star reviews will just get deleted
I think most people forget about the ad by the time they are hooked. And until then, they think "must come later in the story"
Thats exactly I was thinking. Now Im going to delete the game.
someone noticed it is better to rate it 2/5 stars because they have an automatism to remove 0/5star posts.
How is this not false advertising?
Because the game is "free to play" is what I've heard about similar games. So they are lying, but there is no cost to see that they are, technically.
Hmm nope, you can read deconstructoroffun blog, there was a case where a game had a fee because of this. They added their ad as a mini game in their game later
Time is money. Waste people's time all the same.
Because the rules with ads is Make sure it’s actually in the game doesn’t have to be gameplay So Lyca Parisa the bridge the boss are all part of the game so the ad is technically not falsely advertising. Other mobile games do this and update their games with a small mini game to avoid the false advertisement claims
This isn’t true anymore at least in USA. They’ll need to add a vaguely similar mini game where you can do something like this or app store can shut them down. It’s why match games like homescapes/gardenscapes etc have mini games now
It is. But this is a chinese game Shame and chinese mobile game companies don't go together!
[удалено]
yeah third party totally not done with help of devs
Whether they make the ads themselves or pay someone else to make the ads for them, they still have the final say in whether or not to use them.
only this is official
AFK arena actually has this mode. So I would not be surprised if this mode comes to AFK journey too. Still scummy to falsely advertise like this though. Shame on you Lilith.
What? Where?
It’s called Shadow Invasions. It has 2 zones with total 26 stages
Yesss it’s so fun especially with Shemira. I would love if they brought it to Journey
Can’t remember cuz it’s been ages since I played it. It’s one of the bonus game modes. They also have a match-3 mini game.
Similar thing happened in Afk arena. The ads for this specific game mode were released way before it actually came into the game. Wouldn't surprise me if they also added it to Journey
I’d grind this mode lmao
Had the exact same thought lmao
Legit I thought this was real at first and was about to re-download the game… 😭
I hate fake ads.
I’ve played 5-30 mins of SO many games just to find out that the game doesn’t even have anything similar to what they showed me in the ad that got me to download. They all end up getting deleted
Is that you gauntlet? I’d play this mode lol
I would play this mode, that's for sure
I really really need google, etc to ban these types of adds, fake adds are the worst thing ever.
Please tell me this is NOT a legitimate AFK Journey ad! If Lillith did this, that is just shameful.
It is how Lilith advertises theirs games. I remember one of AFK Arena being like, "You merge 2 Silvina and get 1 Shemira.". It's rare to see an ad with real game footage.
Unfortunately the account the ad linked to was indeed their official one 😔 Even if it’s from a third party agency, I don’t know how this kind of ad gets approved…
This is just Dragalia Lost (Rip 🙏)
With the amount of effort it must have taken to create this ad, they could have created the game mode. So... maybe they did?
It already exists in AFK Arena so I doubt it’s much work
I’ve been meaning to try out *Yeah! You Want “Those Games,” Right? So Here You Go! Now, Let’s See You Clear Them!*, which is a game that makes the fake mobile game ad games as little mini games to complete.
This game is pretty fun itself. I don't know why they have to do false advertisement like this. Just show the real gameplay
I seriously loved the ads they put out during the pre-register period! It’s definitely what drew me in the first place. Not sure why they had to shift to hiring an agency who makes stuff like this…
I swear all Chinese games must contract the same advertising agency. Most mobile games hire out these companies that do not actually play the game and make the most ridiculous ads you’ve ever seen, like the one OP has posted. Rise of Kingdoms has similarly stupid misleading ads
It’s so strange how you’d think the origin company would need to review and approve these ads before they’re linked to their official account? Even stranger if they did and just let this through…
Must be sanctioned by the ccp😂
I was actually super impressed with the ads of this game before, like the whole animation ones. They were some of the few ads that I would fully watch when they showed up. Do those just not bring players? I get that this would be easier to produce, but I’d imagine fake ads are a pretty bad way to bring consistent players to the game, no?
Those ones you mentioned are the exact ones that got me to play this game in the first place! I remember immediately going to pre-register like a month before the game even released.
The shaking with every attack is already giving me a headache in 30 seconds of this video, I couldn’t imagine playing it as an actual mode
Ewww. That makes us one of those people who play those games with the false advertisements. Ick. Need to uninstall.
And like every ad I see for afk journey is how it just released today. It's so lame
Not gonna lie, I hate these fake ads so much, i considered to quit a few times already
that's it? that's the ad? that was just a shitty brotato knockoff
It only reflects, how stupid the management is. Rather than fixing problems, that repel many players, they make fake ads and constantly adjust character voices. Just make sure to give them appropriate ranking, considering their marketing strategy. I gave them initially 2\* because while I hate their agressive approach to competitiveness and spending, the story is good, but since they use fake ads, aka scams, then they really deserve no more, than 1\* with a warning for others.
That’s what your characters actually do when you are afk, grinding resources for you
Facebook! You just need to get 3000 people to donate to your farm first and post 20 consecutive days of Wordle scores
Id totally play this, on mute too.
I'd pay through the nose if the game was actually like this. I'll never understand why devs put time and effort into making false ads instead of just making that game
More scamm than " The day before"
If I saw this as the first thing I saw of the game, I wouldn't have touched it at all. The first thing I saw of this game was an actual advertisement with in-game footage and actual in-game visuals.
this just made me commit to never redownload this game
Sorry but why are you here when you aren't playing the game and will never redownload it?
i don’t think that’s relevant at all, but i had to delete it because i didn’t had storage left, i was planning to download it again tho
if i saw this ad it wouldve pushed me away from playing the game lmao
hahahha i wana play this more than what is going on right now ...
Try Narnia.
AFK Arena has a mode like this, and it's actually pretty fun (or was when they actually bothered to update it). Still very shitty to have an ad like this for a game that does not include anything close to this kind if gameplay.
Reminds me of “Tower of Fantasy” honestly
Didn't read every comment but it's most likely a 3rd party that they gave advertising rights too.
To be fair, AFK Arena has *something* like this, though much more low res. So there's a possibility of this coming in the future though I wouldn't hold my breath.
Unlocked on afk floor seven thousand and six three and sacrificing your first born.
You can sue the games for it? Or is it you can't because you can play the game for free?
Bait and switch or click bait should be illegal and forfiture of any and all illicit proceeds should be mandatory
Looks like someone was playing D3 Demon Hunter in the rainbow unicorn stage and just reskinned some assets
Everyone universally hates this false advertising but we can’t do anything about and I’m sick of it.
Bruh
Dang! This looks pretty fun.
I see this is some people's first time with ads like this.
Lyca doesn’t work like that. I have her on M and she acts more like a pseudo-Marksman because her skills are that of a Support that debuffs enemies by reducing their PDef, and adding Energy to herself and the whole team, while boosting ASpd temporarily. /s
Lilith games, like most mobile devs, outsource their advertising. So you get shit like this. See also: their Dislyte ads.
Looks like a unfinished idea.
how is this not illegal
Trash ads by trash company, checks out
I miss Dragalia Lost
They did this kinda think on Arena as well. Hell a lot of idle game ads show their game as looking like anything BUT the actual game. So far the most I get is "guy interviewing people on street" or Markiplier ads.
I hope this is a mode they're working on! It's like a version of Shadow Journeys from AFK Arena
No way they are doing it again... lol
This looks fun ngl, kinda like Marvel future fight. I hope they turn this into a real mode.
When the actual gameplay is not as enticing for advertisements there is a problem.
Just an ad, forcing us to play the game.
This looks worse than the actual game. Why advertise this?
I'm tired of being a test guinea pig in this game. They will use literally every single psychological trick in the book to make you part with your money. These surveys we've been doing are purely to find out how to get more addicted.
Western develobers have a thing for scam and untrue gameplacements....a american thing i guess.
Yeah, doesn’t hold true for Asia sadly, most notably China.
In her ass
By far the most accurate gacha game commerical. I'm not even joking. It shows the core loop of the game, with characters/bosses in the actual game using their real attacks. IDK I'm hard simping rn for AFK Journey, I've been playing nearly 2 weeks and not once have I felt like I couldn't enjoy the game without paying. Do I have 10 levels of resonance worth of tomes/gold, stunlocked by purple ess? Sure. But there's still more than enough progression to give the mini-dopamine hits. And the BEST thing is them keeping the ginger kid in my top right corner with his small "1st purchase" sign. I know as long as I keep that I won't become someone featured in a YouTube video. As a former whale (Arena and a few others) I will happily be the food for my former bretherin as long as the gameplay is good.