It seems like if what you’re showing is what you understand they find appealing and fun, then surely that’s what should be in the game. You give them that.
But instead, you give them something else that is unrelated to what they’ve seen on the ad? A gem matching candy crush clone they’ve seen a thousand times?
How is that model working? How is that holding up as a marketing technique???
I’m a software dev and have worked with some of these companies. It’s kind of sad because I liked the idea of mobile games and working with them was a bit like seeing the devil behind the curtains. I dreamt of making cool little games based on fun and unique ideas and quickly learned it’s all a huge well oiled machine chugging through market data to find the most effective money extracting methods they can come up with.
For every bit you think these companies are grimey money chasers, I promise you it’s at least 5 times worse.
What are you on about? Why does any dev in the mobile need to deal with companies like this?? Unless you’re looking to work for Niantic, EA, Ubisoft/Gameloft etc you can just self publish and that’s what people do daily. Lots of self published games and apps exist and more are available every day.
I am concerned with the larping you’re doing here. Why are you trying to scare people ?