[GrinningFool]

It does seem to be a circle: games carry adverts. The overwhelming majority of adverts is for more games. If you get the advertised game, you're now seeing ads in that game for more games...

Mobile games are a weird, impossibly self-sustaining beast. Developers (usually have to) dump money into advertising, even as their own games are advertising the competition.

[techdragon]

Which as many people I’ve talked with about the mobile game industry tell me… is a cold calculated game of roulette, you burn money in adds trying to get enough attention to yourself that some whales spend enough on in game purchases to let the whole thing make some money… it’s a very “luck” driven market and they often are just experimenting with for side projects, which is one of the many less evil ways money flows into the mobile game advertising ecosystem.

[ratww]

The "luck driven" part is definitely true for Unity's whole niche. You can hear reports online of people "hustling", trying to hit jackpot, leaving jobs in order to spend a year doing random mobile in games to see what sticks.