Been banned for complaining about ads!

[Zofloramummy]

I’ve been playing a home renovation game on my phone. It was a free download and there is no minimum age limit.

It’s been a fun game to play but over the last week or so it has been inundated with adverts for ‘Chapters’.

This is a sim based game where the basic premise seems to be that women need men to be happy (preferably rich), women can be seen as slutty or cheap, it’s a good thing to have a mafia stepfather, men who break into your house you should let stay if they’re cute!!! This is a snapshot of the absolute tripe I’ve seen on the adverts. My 9 year old likes playing this game with me as she enjoys picking the wallpaper, colours etc.

I contacted their customer services via messaging and basically said that this game is played by children and that the ads were overly sexual and inappropriate. They’ve banned me for ‘inappropriate in-game activities’!!

Didn’t even contact me at all just straight up banned. This kind of game perpetuates the misogyny of women needing to look a certain way, act a certain way and makes me so annoyed that games like this are so easily viewed by young people.

Just venting really!

What is the game?

The home game was ‘Property Brothers’ but the ads o was complaining about are for a game called ‘Chapters’.

I am inundated with Chapters adverts during games too. I can't believe anyone would play it!

"I can't believe he is cheating on me even after all the house work I do" is a regular one.

Ridiculous they banned you.

I think all you can do is vote with your feet. There’s too much on the internet that perpetuates misogyny and the like. Not engaging is the best bet but accept you’ll never change the bastards who peddle this shite.

It’s just ridiculous how invasive it is, the other regular one is dumped when pregnant, instant new boyfriend and then should I take the cheater back!

All I can think is that they must be paying a fair amount of cash out to game companies to keep seeing this rubbish so frequently. If no one complains though it will never change anything.

Oh goodness, the Chapters adverts give me the creeps.
I can't understand how anyone would find a game with those types of storylines attractive.

They're misogynistic, abusive, degrading to women and have a hint of Stockholm syndrome about them.
It's just awful.

Good on you for complaining!

Posted too soon;

It's unbelievable they've banned you for doing so. Do you have social media? Could you tweet the developer of the game and ask what the hell they're playing at?
You can't complain about an advert without being banned? Seems very fishy.

@TinkersTailor that’s basically what I said in a polite way, but that was enough to ban me.

I’ve messaged them via their online support page and received the automated response. I await with baited breath to see what a human has to say about it when they have a look.

I presume it was a human who made the decision to ban me earlier today rather than a computer though so I don’t hold out much hope of them being communicative!

There’s really grim ads for a game called Campus which come up during a very boring block breaking game I play. I didn’t know you could report them but I will do that next time I see one!

@GingerAndTheBiscuits there should be a settings button/cogwheel thingy somewhere on the home page of the game and you can usually contact support from there. Be careful you don’t get banned too!

Is this the game ad where they are Asian? There’s one particular ad where they change the colour of the baby “improvement” from dark skin to light that makes me feel sick.

@Nameisthegame

Is this the game ad where they are Asian? There’s one particular ad where they change the colour of the baby “improvement” from dark skin to light that makes me feel sick.

Good god, that is absolutely horrifying! Ffs, it's 2020! Who plays these shit games?

How gross!

I wish you could choose not to see certain ads.

I highly recommend complaining on Twitter (adding screenshots if you can) then posting the tweet here so we can retweet.

@Hairthrowaway I didn’t see the particular ad but cringe ones from the same company, Project nightfall covered it in one of his videos about racists advertising and mentality.

I think they pulled the particular ad which should never have even been a thought.

Is it possible there may have been a communication breakdown OP? Has the customer service agent completely misconstrued your overly sexual complaint and perhaps doesn't understand English? just a suggestion.

Furthermore, thinking on it, I've used a pop-up chat recently to make a query, and the computerised advisor couldn't understand what I was asking, I tried several key words to no avail - maybe as I suggested above, the 'overly sexual' words you used in your complaint automatically banned you from the app?

That’s a possibility I hadn’t even though of! It is possible that the computer thought I was being offensive .

I don’t use twitter or instagram, only fb I’m a dinosaur really!

I really do wonder what goes through the heads of these games developers at times. I mean who thinks up this rubbish? And worse thinks people will want to engage in such a morally dubious concept.

I searched the game out of curiosity, full of reddit posts complaining about the sleazy ads! You know the ads are in bad taste if reddit users are concerned! Everything is overtly sexual eg a woman can’t afford to pay a delivery guy and one of the options is to pay him “in another way”, or one where a girl is saying she’s drunk (and laying down with her legs extended out). Weird