How to build great playable ads for midcore/hardcore games

How do you build effective playable ads for midcore and hardcore games? Greg Castro, the VP of global partnerships at Mobvista, offers some practical tips for developers and marketing teams.

Midcore and hardcore games feature intricate design and mechanics alongside rich and detailed audiovisual thrills. After all, that's what their players love. But translating gaming experiences into effective ad creatives presents a real challenge for app developers.

If you are creating your first playable ads for a mid- or hardcore game title, our guide below will help you navigate interactive ad creation. Backed by practical experience and data from Playturbo by Mobvista's most successful campaigns, these tips are designed to help you turn complex gameplay into engaging, high-performing playable creatives that resonate with your potential users.

Are playables a match for mid and hardcore titles?

Our data shows that mid- and hardcore titles have adopted interactive ad formats strongly, but usage patterns vary across subcategories. For example, Idle Simulation's top interactive ad campaigns generate 97% impressions and 96% of installs through interactive ads (the best performance overall). Further, retention from these campaigns (15%) outperforms standard templates and many similar categories.

In contrast, only 47% of Hardcore Action campaigns use interactive ads. But when they are used, interactive creatives for RPGs consistently deliver stronger day one (D1) retention compared to more typical advertising, highlighting an untapped opportunity. 

Interactive ads work well for many genres. In a separate study, we found that creative concepts used in ad campaigns show minimal variation across regions, suggesting that strong gameplay fundamentals and engaging creative storytelling resonate globally.

How do gamers interact with playables?

User interaction patterns reveal one insight: initial interaction rates are high, but completion rates drop rapidly. This means that while many users are drawn to interactive ads, a substantial portion of them abandon the experience before it is completed. In fact, the average time to first meaningful engagement (TTE) across categories is around five seconds. This short window is critical: if an ad doesn't hook a user fast, the chance of completion declines quickly.

First interaction rates (measured by playing with the ad) average 65%. Completion rates drop by 43% to an average of 37%. This is obviously an expected outcome; after all, not everyone will play your ad to the end. However, some genres, such as sports games and hardcore music, defy the odds with relatively high completion rates.

How can you make better playables?

Here are three tips for improving ads in whatever genre you operate in.

Ensure your playable feels complete

Playable ads for mid- and hardcore games often feature a longer interaction flow, typically around 10 steps and 10 to 15 seconds. This extended structure allows enough time to demonstrate a deeper gameplay experience while maintaining fast-paced momentum to keep users engaged.

Balance accessibility with challenge

A moderate level of challenge is key to keeping users engaged. The ad should be easy to pick up, but not overly simplistic. Though top-performing playable creatives for mid and hardcore games typically highlight only one to two core gameplay mechanics, you should consider introducing achievable objectives early in the ad. This could include defeating a boss, reaching a target upgrade, or completing a milestone. Setting this initial goal gives users a clear purpose, increasing their likelihood of completing the playable demo. 

Tailor visual and audio design by genre

Fast-paced genres like Shooting Games benefit from intense feedback mechanics like particle explosions, screen flashes, and fast-paced music to deliver a high-energy experience.

Meanwhile, slower adventures benefit from clear guidance, instructions, and visual cues that walk players through the gameplay loops in a methodical way.

How often should you update playable ad creatives?

It's vital to keep your creatives fresh, but how often should you change them up? On average, global advertisers launch a new interactive ad every 43 days. However, the creative lifecycle for interactive ads in mid- and hardcore games varies by region. For instance, North America sees the fastest creative turnover, introducing new interactive ads about every 36 days. In contrast, East Asia (Japan and Korea) tends to adopt a slower pace, updating creatives roughly every 51 days.

Understanding these benchmarks enables advertisers to allocate creative assets more effectively, plan production cycles more efficiently, and adapt to regional performance norms. If your campaign performance stagnates, you could try:

• Benchmarking against faster-iterating regions.
• Increasing your creative update cadence.
• Testing more new or diverse concepts to keep content fresh and engaging.

• Time Period: Creatives were analysed over 31 days.
• Update Frequency (days/creative): The average time interval between creative updates under the same offer.
• Extreme: Outliers with time intervals greater than 180 days.

Turning insights into actions

Playable ads open up exciting opportunities for mid- and hardcore game developers, but success doesn't come from simply replicating gameplay scenes or cramming in every feature. The key is understanding your game and your audience to create interactive creatives that resonate and drive conversions.

Ensure you partner effectively to build tailored, high-performing creatives that hit your campaign objectives. Playturbo by Mobvista simplifies your ad creative workflow. Our ad creator tools facilitate seamless creative testing, optimisation, and localisation, enabling advertisers to drive performance. Playturbo also lets you make data-driven decisions to improve your ad creatives for the best possible results instantly.

Best practice spotlight: Legend of Slime: Idle RPG

Let's take the action game Legend of Slime: Idle RPG War as a final example of how a well-executed playable ad can effectively showcase gameplay mechanics — something harder to achieve with static or video creatives.

To bring the game's core features to life, Playturbo by Mobvista supported the game by focusing on one key mechanic: the character upgrade system. The ad we produced together allowed users to experiment with how different character combinations impact the battle experience. This creative step also added replayability to the ad as an added bonus.

In addition, Playturbo's playable creatives also incorporated audiovisual feedback such as animated power surges, expressive character reactions to attacks, and defeated enemies turning into cartoonish skeletons. These dynamic effects enabled players to visualise their progress and impact, keeping them engaged throughout. Compared to using video ads alone, playable ads led to an impressive improvement in UA performance for Legend of Slime, with a 30% to 40% increase in Day 7 ROAS.