Online game company Mobile Premier League (MPL) this week released a new study in which it reveals a trend in the reviews of some of the most popular mobile games: Namely, that many of the gamers who play these titles are unhappy with in-game advertising. Players can have similar negative reactions to things such as updates and technical problems, but the distribution of their positive and negative sentiment can reveal different sentiments towards different gameplay approaches.

For its research, MPL selected the top 5 most downloaded games from Google Play as identified by AppRadar’s 2024 report, and then analyzed the 75,000 most relevant user reviews of those games. An MPL spokesperson summed up the general sentiment of these reviews in a statement, “The data reveals that volume of downloads doesn’t necessarily correlate with player satisfaction. Games with similar market penetration can have drastically different player sentiment profiles.”

As an example of the different player feelings, the report shows various player reactions to in-game monetization, and Candy Crush Saga shows a huge spike in negative sentiment, with many reviews specifically calling out intrusive ads. While many of the other games showed a similar dissatisfaction with ads, the increased mention of such in that game’s ads suggests gamers are unhappy with that particular monetization model.

The report shows players have similarly strong reactions to other in-game issues, with Talking Tom reviews being positive on gameplay while Ludo King shows a large number of negative mentions. Similarly, Subway Surfers reviews showed a high number of positive reviews that mention in-game updates, while Free Fire players showed negative sentiment towards them.

It’s worth keeping in mind that players who have negative experiences and impressions with a game might be more inclined to leave a review than those who have more lukewarm or pleasant-but-unexceptional experiences. But MPL’s report is an interesting snapshot into player satisfaction and engagement that goes beyond download numbers.