4s: Saturation + sexy Screenshots sell. If you want to be competitive in a saturated market you goto have AAA graphics for promotion. Thus tons of work.
Interesting. For mobile games, it has become a very annoying trend to see heavily-produced, 100% fake, videos of the game in ads. Since advertisement is not as regulated as AppStore/Steam screenshots, I pretty much assume now that all ads are fake. I'm pretty sure some AAAs were accused of doing that in the past too.
I wonder how much this will last. On the other hand, maybe the point is not selling the game to people who see the ad, but merely to use them to prop up download numbers.
I get your point but I take more issue with fake gameplay videos than with obvious 90s cover illustrations or max-settings screenshots.
Mainly because, at least for mobile game ads, the quality of the fake gameplay video is technically achievable by my device. But the major problem is that the ads often show a much more fun and interesting game, mechanics and graphics…
If you want to compete with AAA games then you may need AAA graphics, but the market is larger than that. Look at Re-Logic (Terraria), Supergiant (Hades), Megacrit (Slay the Spire), Klei (Don't Starve), Evil Empire (Dead Cells), Team Cherry (Hollow Knight). Many smaller studios make games at an entirely different level of production. And there even smaller levels of success below that.
The point of the article is to find success at smaller levels before aiming higher.
However, you're right that good-looking screenshots sell, but that's just good art and not exclusively AAA art.
I wonder how much this will last. On the other hand, maybe the point is not selling the game to people who see the ad, but merely to use them to prop up download numbers.