I Am Ensnared By Eerie Mobile Game Ads

A so-bad-it’s-funny game ad compilation followed by a concerning message

Shirley Lee
10 min readAug 17, 2022
A screenshot of a recent Merge Mansion ad. From here

I am having a long holiday. Before the holiday, I have put together a list of things I want to do during the holiday.

And then of course I did a completely different, extremely important thing instead: I immediately downloaded several mobile games on the first day of the holiday then wasted weeks away.

I hated myself when I was playing the game. Even more so when I was watching fifty phone game ads per second to fill the “energy” bar in the game.

Those ads are very weird.

Strap in, ’cause you’re not working either. You’re here, about to read all about them instead.

How I Got Myself In This Hot Mess

During workdays, I “play” a game called X2 Blocks. It is more like a fidget toy for me — I open the app during lunch breaks with colleagues, long calls with friends, and occasionally in some boring work meetings. It helps me focus on the content and keeps me awake. And sometimes I click the ad button to get some in-game coins. I thought it would be nice to support the game as well.

Then I came across a series of ads by a game called Merge Mansion.

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