This year's Super Bowl ads were a very mixed bag as some went for snarky humor, and others went for a very heart-warming flavor. One thing for sure was the presence of mobile gaming ads, revealing how popular they actually are. The one for Supercell's Clash of Clans is a favorite by YouTube users, and the game is growing in its popularity and hacks.
According to The Guardian, Supercell's advertisement for its mobile game, Clash of Clans, was the most popular. The ad features actor Liam Neeson, simply talking to his smartphone to another Clash of Clans user "Big Buffet Boy 85", and how he will have his revenge. Neeson delivers the line in the same manner of his now-classic line from the film Taken, as he threatens the kidnappers of his daughter over the phone.
Venture Beat reports that Liam Neeson's Clash of Clans Super Bowl ad was actually the number two ad. The first was a Nissan ad entitled "With Dad", which was a very heart-warming ad showing a father's relationship with his son, with "Cat's in the Cradle" playing ominously in the background. The Nissan ad has about 22 million views on YouTube, but the Clash of Clans ad has about 40 million views.
It should be noted that the Clash of Clans Super Bowl ad was not the only ad for a mobile game during the big game, where advertisement costs are in the millions. Developer Machine Zone also invested in a big-budget ad for their app Game of War, Fire Age and featured supermodel Kate Upton. Heroes Charge from uCool also ran its ad as well.
It is an interesting sign that these "freemium" mobile games actually achieve the budgets to not only advertise on television, but during its most watched event. Much of the profits from these games stems from in-app purchases and in-game ads rather than the user's initial game purchase. Supercell is estimated to have made 1 billion last year, and remains the high in Apple's top grossing games, as does Game of War.
For those unfamiliar with Clash of Clans, it is a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game that uses strategy elements. It was released to iOS in 2012, and quickly became a very huge success. It then came to Android about one year later, and its following continues to grow. In fact, Jeremy Lin and the rockets use it to build team chemistry.
The game is all about building cities and then tearing down other enemy strongholds in order to get gold and elixir required to make your stronghold stronger. The player starts out going against goblins, and then builds a town in order to stop invasions as well as invading those of other players, or clan war.
As mentioned before, much of Clash of Clans involves in-game purchases, as players can use their real money in order to purchase gaming gold and gems within the game to help them advance. This has led to players attempting hacks in order to get gold and gems for free, on sites like clashofclansgems.net, as well as questions of the legality of these hacking practices.
