I’m not a fan of mobile games

Not because I don’t like playing, but because a questionable business model has developed around mobile games, making it very difficult to find the true gems. It seems like it’s more about selling ad space or generating in-app purchases with simple game mechanics. Of course, there are exceptions, but they get lost in the sheer volume of offerings.

I recently stumbled upon one of these games by chance, and it perfectly represents these accusations: Dozer Demolish .

On Google Play, the game is advertised without an age rating, while on Apple’s App Store, it’s rated 4 years and up. The Android store mentions over 10 million downloads, according to developer Eternal Studio, it’s more than 15 million .

The game is distributed by HOMA , which also contracts other developers. Headquarters: France. So within the jurisdiction of the GDPR. The motto of HOMA is:

“Amazing Content” - Well, let’s see!

Games in the “Convenience Gaming” category follow the same principle: There’s hardly any depth, the rules are quickly explained, the controls are intuitive, and often not much skill or thought is required. Everything is geared towards short-term dopamine release. This doesn’t have to be derogatory; it’s a form of entertainment that attracts millions of players.

The gameplay of Dozer Demolish adheres to the industry’s principle. You roam with heavy machinery across changing landscapes, destroy buildings, collect their remains, and earn money to buy new vehicles or upgrade existing ones. One-handed and on the side. On the toilet. In bed. On the train. During meetings. “Convenience Gaming,” indeed.

The thing about data privacy

So far, so unspectacular. Things get interesting, provided you have a penchant for such details, when it comes to data privacy.

According to its self-disclosure, the app shares data in the following categories with other companies:

• Financial data
• Personal data such as email addresses and user IDs
• App activities

Not inherently reprehensible, as this makes sense for in-app purchases and advertising.

But location data? (Hint: Location-based advertising…)

Problematic. But that’s not all. Under security measures, it states:

Data is not encrypted. Data cannot be deleted.

Okay. At least honest, if not up-to-date. On Google’s Play Store, the developer’s privacy policy is referenced, which hardly deserves the name “privacy policy.” A Google email address, a paragraph on Google Analytics, and then a note on “minors”:

“Eternal Studio does not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13.”

Of course not. Too bad the game is offered without an age rating.

“If Eternal Studio learns that Eternal Studio has inadvertently gathered personal information from children under 13 years of age, Eternal Studio will take reasonable measures to promptly delete such personal data from Eternal Studio’s records.”

“inadvertently” - that sounds a bit like shirking responsibility.

This is only surpassed by the following note:

“If you are under the age of 13 or a minor in your country of residence, please ask your legal guardian’s permission to access and use our services.”

So the 4-year-old child is supposed to read the English privacy policy and then ask their parents for permission. Hilarious. Reminder: The game has an enormous reach with 15 million downloads. A bit more professionalism isn’t too much to ask, is it?

Needless to say, the site provides no information about who you’re actually dealing with. According to the “Impressum,” you can contact them via xxx@eternalgamestudio.com . In the privacy policy itself, it’s xxx@gmail.com . [The Facebook page](refers to xxx@gmail.com . [On X/Twitter](you at least learn that the developer studio is presumably based in Michigan (USA).

(Email addresses anonymized, although they are publicly accessible, but who knows…)

Enough complaining; perhaps — and I say this quite sincerely — the developer was surprised by the success, and I just happened to stumble upon a rare exception. Nevertheless, the game is backed by a fairly large publisher. A product with 15 million users and such an aggressive advertising strategy deserves closer scrutiny.

(The Apple App Store, by the way, refers to [the publisher’s privacy policy](It’s casually written and quite detailed.)

At first glance, formal data privacy already fails. What about the app itself?

It starts with the usual consent dialog. Here, you can either accept everything unseen or influence the collected data via detailed selection. Problematic: There’s no button to “reject all.” The detailed selection is hidden in a second view and is not immediately accessible.

The list of technologies used is impressively long for a game. 69 vendors measure ad performance, 24 measure app performance. 33 providers analyze target groups, 57 improve services. 7 providers handle targeting.

Each category is optimistically declared as “legitimate interest.” Reminder: The game is offered without an age rating. For minors, special protections apply under the GDPR.

Even the individual processing categories must be manually deselected. Needless to say, the explanations are anything but understandable for a normal user, let alone a minor. (Incidentally, the industry association IAB has done an excellent job here, selling this kind of overspecification called TCF (Transparency and Consent Framework) as “transparency.”)

Legitimate interest? Please manually deselect!

Transparency doesn't mean comprehensibility

But that’s not all: In the app, you can’t correct your selection afterward; there’s simply no menu option for it. This is also hardly compatible with GDPR requirements.

The app doesn’t leave the best impression regarding data privacy. But that’s not all, let alone what makes a game.

(And here we are again with my general criticism of data privacy: Most users are probably more annoyed by the endless consent banners than feeling informed. Complete data collection avoidance isn’t feasible either; as a data analyst, I’m aware of this. But smaller studios and companies are likely overwhelmed by the legal requirements.)

Never mind. What about the content?

The thing about advertising

As mentioned above, a business model has established itself here where free games seemingly only serve as platforms to push advertising onto devices with — attention, subjective exaggeration for dramatic effect — a blatant lack of subtlety. It reminds me of a not-so-famous quote that I once fittingly recited :

Journalistic content is the vehicle to capture the audience’s attention for advertising content.

Springer lawyers in 2015

And here, it seems no different. From a business perspective, I respect the success. From a user’s perspective, this practice is only a hair away from being a scam.

The game is offered for free. For €1.99, you can purchase an ad-free package. This is at least misleading — more on that shortly — and technically poorly implemented:

I bought the package on one device, but on a second device, ad banners still appear at the bottom of the game.

The entire advertising isn’t even disabled. You get three dozen “upgrade tickets,” which finance certain in-game actions. After about 1 hour of gameplay, these are already used up. Then, upgrades and other game mechanics sporadically but also with intrusive regularity require ad videos.

And these are intense. We’re not talking about small 30-second inserts like on YouTube.

“Dozer Demolish” usually plays two spots, totaling almost 2 minutes. Some of the advertised games can even be played directly for about 15 seconds. Can you close the ad overlay now? No. First, you’re taken to the Play Store. From there, you return to the ad overlay, with a final ad message that can now be closed.

Wow.

The first insert usually lasts 60 seconds.

Then another one, about the same length.

Since basic game mechanics are affected by these inserts, you easily spend 2 minutes playing and 2 minutes under ad pressure. If you don’t want this, you can replenish the upgrade ticket quota. For example, 10 tickets cost €6.99. This corresponds to about 10 minutes of gameplay under normal conditions. The most expensive package costs €9.99 and contains 60 tickets.

In-app purchases in "Dozer Demolish" (Source: iOS App Store)

The best value: 60 tickets for €9.99—2 minutes of your life cost you €0.16.

Special offer! €6.99 for 10 tickets and some upgrades. The price of your life increases to €0.69!

What’s the problem?

“Well, everyone can decide for themselves!” one might say. What’s the problem? As mentioned, it’s a brilliant business model. The problem is primarily the age rating and the handling of data privacy requirements. Secondly, from a personal perspective, the excessive coupling of game mechanics to ad delivery.

Do you want to develop games or deliver ads?

Problem 1: Legal capacity of minors

With an age rating of 0 (or 4 years on iOS), this game is accessible to a group of people who, at least under German law, are not legally capable. Only at 7 years old are they partially legally capable and can make small purchases (“pocket money clause”) without parental consent. How does this align with the sometimes very expensive in-app purchases?

Google describes the age rating of 0 in two different ways:

or way less informative:

Problem 2: Dark patterns

The game uses dark patterns to place ads, such as when transitioning to a new day. A large green button starts an ad block and rewards with in-game currency. The small text below skips it. Many upgrades are advertised as “free,” but they usually involve an ad insert. Does only my moral compass sound the alarm when this practice is applied to minors?

Please press the big green button; it won't be to your disadvantage!

Behind this button is an ad insert. Would you have recognized it?

Problem 3: Accessibility of games with higher age ratings

The ads are not only intrusive; they are often far from age-appropriate! This is especially problematic when a minor has the opportunity (not to say “is forced”) to test a game for 15 seconds, and the advertised game has a different age rating! Imagine going to the cinema with your child to watch Cars 7, and before the movie, there’s a trailer for Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Hey kid, still unsure? Test our game now. Or resist the temptation for 15 seconds.	The game is rated 12 years and up. But you don't have to tell your parents.	This game can also be tested during the ad break.
Rated 12 years and up here as well.	Every 4-year-old loves it. Shooting.	And so it's not just watching: Shooting yourself makes you want more!
Rated 12 years and up here as well.	A Monopoly clone is also advertised. Rating here: 16 years	Can't be missing as ad entertainment: A zombie game, rated 16+. Sweet dreams tonight, little prince.

Guess why Monopoly is rated 16 years and up? Not because of violence, apparently, but because of incentives to buy and in-game purchases.

Sad isolated case?

I stumbled upon Dozer Demolish by chance. Homa currently offers 50 games in the Google Play Store. I looked at four other games.

All in Hole! . Here, ad delivery is much less aggressive. After 15 minutes of gameplay, there were no ads, not even as an overlay at the bottom of the screen. But the in-game purchases are hefty. The largest package costs €99. On consoles & PC, you get high-quality triple-A titles for that. Interesting: The age rating is 12 years. That doesn’t really make sense, as I didn’t see any ads here and the gameplay is anything but “not suitable for minors.”

[Aquarium Land]((from 0 years, 50 million downloads). Here, the first ad appears after 5 minutes. Again, a game from another age category is advertised.

[Cube Blast Journey]((0 years, 1 million): This game comes without a consent dialog. That’s unusual. And indeed: monitoring diligently records requests, some of which clearly count as tracking and analytics requests. For example, those to gameanalytics.com, amazon-adsystem.com, applovin.com, adjust.com, or doubleclick.net.

[Solitaire Klondike Classic]((0 years, >5 million). The game is distributed by Homa, but after a short time, you’re referred in broken German to “[the new version]((0 years, >1 million),” distributed by Freelax . Also, due to the banner at the top of the screen, it’s not really clear whether this is a legitimate reference or simply advertising.

In Solitaire Classic, right after the familiar TCF consent dialog, there’s another consent request — this time preselected. Since GDPR, this is no longer permitted, as it doesn’t constitute “explicit consent.”

The supposed successor is even bolder regarding consent. Here, starting the game is tied to consent—which is also legally questionable.

[Cat & Mouse]((6 years, 10 million). Here, too, ads are actively displayed, referring to apps and games that are not age-appropriate.

What about other publishers?

Remarkably, the games advertised that I mentioned previously do not pursue a comparable advertising strategy, in fact some do not even offer in-game ads at all. Which doesn’t mean that the publisher behind them doesn’t have assets in stock following the same principle. Let’s look at [Century Games PTE. LTD.](the publisher behind Kingshot. They have 23 games in their library, of which 12 have in-game ads (according to their Google Play Store listing), 5 with no age restriction. I checked these three:

[Tasty Travels: Merge Game](comes without a valid consent dialog, but according to their data privacy policy collects data for several purposes, including marketing. Eventually, after playing for a while, I was presented a playable demo for [Whiteout Survival](([Century Game PTE LTD](age rating 12+).

Playable ad for Family Farm Adventure

Playable ad for Idle Courier

Family Farm Adventure has a questionable consent dialog, like the one that Dozer Demolish offers. While I didn’t notice any ads at all, the prices are even worse than experienced before. 120 Euros for an in-game package - without knowing how long this lasts, this is clearly nothing you want to offer to minors.

[Idle Courier](also comes with this not-so-really-transparent consent dialog and the “coupled consent” (if you go on, you accept our privacy policy). In this game it only took me 2 minutes to face the first playable ad for Kingshot (rating 12 years and up).

River Game and Funfly PTE do not offer any games with an age rating of 0 years. FunPlus International AG has 15 games in stock. All of them with age ratings between 12 and 16 years. Scopely has just one game with age rating of 0, but without ads.

Conclusion?

The games mentioned pursue their advertising goals far less aggressively than “Dozer Demolish”, but the delivery also seems to suffer from the same problem: Although a certain age restriction is given, ads for games for older ages are displayed. And not only that, they can even be tried out directly.

Now, one can argue whether 4-year-old children should even have access to tablets and smartphones to play such games. But that’s a pedagogical question. Ultimately, the games are distributed with a certain age restriction, but still pave the way to content that is not age-appropriate. That’s no longer just a pedagogical issue. And I am not even talking about consent dialogs or price ranges way beyond reasonability.

It’s remarkable that such successful games fly under the radar. From my own experience, I know that Google at least formally has very strict requirements. Compliance with platform guidelines is (automated?) monitored and enforced with deadlines and the threat of de-publication. That’s my impression. Is Google sometimes a bit more lenient because its own revenue depends on advertising income?

Don’t get me wrong: Most of the games have quite a high quality, some even with a decent story behind them. It’s only fair that the developer or publisher tries to monetize the game to cover development costs. Also, I only stumbled upon Homa by chance, and I don’t want to portray the publisher as a black sheep here. But as this is about the youngest target group, lax data privacy practices, ads beyond control and expensive in-game purchases - I think it’s worth taking a closer look.

Some games make me wonder: Is it still about delivering good entertainment or just flooding the market with low effort to keep users glued to the device with simple game ideas for as long as possible, in order to show as much advertising as possible? Advertising that is no longer just the blinking banner at the edge of the screen, but interactive content that demands more time than the actual game?

I’m not a fan of mobile games. And now you know why.

Statement from Homa and Google

On 30.07. I asked Homa and Google for a statement. Homa responded within 2 days and announced that they would address the issue internally. Exemplary, I’m curious. Google has not responded so far.