Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

• Matthew 5:37

Then Joshua summoned the Gibeonites and said, “Why did you deceive us by saying, ‘We live a long way from you,’ while actually you live near us?

• Joshua 9:22

Now do not let Hezekiah deceive you and mislead you like this. Do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or the hand of my predecessors. How much less will your god deliver you from my hand!”

• 2 Chronicles 32:15

The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’

• Obadiah 1:3

I did not even need Sophia Yeggs and her codebreakers to crack the code.

What code?  The code where countless puzzle games for your phone have the same advertisement promises, but none seem to be totally true.  They might come close to one or two, but some fail all the claims.

How do they get away with it?

Some of it is the relative truth concept, but the point here is the “code.”  Every point in their advertisement has a code.

Designed for Seniors

When it is a larger font so that you can read it more easily, I am not offended.  In one ad, I see a photo of Jack Lemmon.  I grew up watching Jack Lemmon movies, but his last movie was made for TV where he played Morrie in Tuesdays with Morrie.  He won the Emmy for that in 1999, and he died two years later.  I loved his attempts to make the cut in the Pebble Beach Pro Am Golf Tournament, never making the cut, but the amateur trophy was named after him.  But you pretty much have to be middle-aged or you like old movies to know who he was.  That kind of thing does not bother me.  But the code can also mean that the clues are dumbed down for the “feeble-minded.”  That I find offensive.

Free to Download

Have you ever downloaded a game that was “free to download,” but then you were asked to input your credit card before you could play the game?  They were not lying when they said it was free to download.  They never admitted to being free to play.  That has happened to me at least twice and I simply deleted the game.

No Wi-Fi Needed

This is a tricky one and involves some of the other advertising points.  When the game is downloaded, they do not download everything.  You can play for a while, but then you need to download more images, levels, etc.  So, to a point, this is almost telling the truth.  You can play, but how many times do you want to put the same jigsaw puzzle together without getting a new image?

No Annoying Ads

The ad that annoys you will say that their game has no annoying ads.  They purposefully make their ad annoying so that you blame the game you are now playing, and not their game that promises no annoying ads.  How do they have ads with every click in the game, but they claim no annoying ads.  Simple, they do not think their ads are annoying.  That’s where the relative truth comes in.  But I continue to play a game that interrupts normal game play to have an ad, but they claimed no annoying ads.  They have a button that you can press and get rid of the ads for a price or for that gaming session if… you watch a few ads all at once.  So, if you watch a few ads, then you could avoid the ads until you close the game and then reopen it, and you have to watch the ads again.  But remember, they do not think their ads are annoying.

No In-App Purchases

They have in-app purchases, but you can play without those purchases.  Good luck getting past level 37 without a half dozen of a certain kind of booster without buying them.  I have deleted several games for that very reason.

Free to Play

This is a corollary “promise” to the previous one.  You can play until you reach a particular level that requires an in-app purchase to get past that level.  You almost never get No In-App purchases and Free to Play in the same ad.  If you find one, those people have no conscience at all.

60,000 images, levels, puzzles, etc.

They will not download all of it at once, requiring Wi-Fi (see above) and can you ever play the game enough to call their bluff?

See? They are not making false claims.  They are using code.  A deliberately deceiving code, but a code that they understand, and now you do too.

So, if you wanted to take these people to court, the above explanations are what their lawyers will tell you.

My advice is to never give them your credit card or pay pal account and then mute the ads (those annoyingly not annoying ones), if they allow you to do so.

If you are like me, you only play them to clear your mind while resting between writing sessions at the keyboard.

And remember, God loves you, even when you are wasting your time on those games.

Sorry, judgmental there, and hypocritical since I play a few…

God loves you, all the same when glorifying His Name while playing a game.

Wow!  I even got that one to rhyme!

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.