Overtly sexual and offensive in-game ads fingered again

Yet more evidence has emerged on how some brands have a blatant disregard for keeping their online advertising “legal, decent, honest and truthful”, where no company seems to take responsibility, no matter how offensive things get.

The latest case involves an “objectifying, overtly sexual and offensive” in-game ad for the Gorgeous Shard Puzzle Studio.

The ad featured an animated image of a woman who appeared to be tied up, laying on her back nude with her legs spread facing the camera. Her face, breasts and crotch were obscured by three tiles that displayed a silhouette of a woman’s body.

Underneath the image were three corresponding tiles that featured the woman’s partially covered breasts, the top half of her head, and her partially obscured crotch. Text stated “Gorgeous Shard Puzzle Install and Play for Free”.

The ad prompted gamers, who believed it ad sexualised and objectified women, to challenge the Advertising Standards Authority to investigate whether the ad was offensive and promoted a harmful gender stereotype.

Not for the first time, however, the advertiser – Gorgeous Shard Puzzle Studio – did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries and therefore no-one actually knows who they arer or where they are from.

MyGames, however, the developer of the game Global City in which the ad was seen, insisted it had strict content standards for the ads that were shown in its apps. It stated that ads displayed in its games were served through third-party networks who were responsible for the selection and moderation of the ads.

In fact, MyGames’ internal team were not able to perform pre-moderation of any ads, the firm claimed, but regularly processed user complaints and blocked inappropriate ads when they were identified.

Upon receiving notification of the ASA’s investigation, it had blocked the ad and the advertised application across all ad networks it partnered with. MyGames confirmed they had not received any direct complaints about the ad from consumers.

Unity Ads, the ad network which served the ad, provided information on its terms of service, content policy, and content moderation process. It maintained that advertisers were responsible for the content of their own ads, yet it did apply its own moderation process to identify and block any content that breached its policies, although this ad slipped through the net.

In fact, it was only after it discovered the ASA was carrying out an investigation, that it blocked the ad from its platform and claimed to be reviewing its moderation processes related to sexualised content and ads that featured harmful gender stereotypes.

In its ruling, the ASA started off by berating Gorgeous Shard Puzzle Studio for its lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which is itself was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay).

Then the watchdog got down to the main business, ruling that the manner in which the animated woman was depicted was overtly sexual and likely to cause serious offence. In addition, it considered that because her body was depicted as being part of the game in which she was controlled by the viewer, while also being extremely sexualised, the ad depicted the woman as a passive sexual object and included a harmful gender stereotype.

Banning the ad for being objectifying and overtly sexual, the ASA said it was likely to cause serious offence, plus it included a gender stereotype in a way that was likely to cause harm.

Despite not knowing who Gorgeous Shard Puzzle Studio is, the firm was also issued with a stark warning about future activity; whether they will be listening, of course, is another matter.

A company called “Puzzle Studio Ltd” was dissolved in the UK in September 2022, but there is no confirmed connection between it and Gorgeous Shard Puzzle Studio. The ASA ruling lists a London address for the listed companies, but the company’s registration information is not available.