The pin-pulling ads: which games actually use them

You know the one. A character is trapped, or about to drown, or standing under something heavy. Metal pins hold back lava, water or treasure. Pull them in the right order and the character lives. Pull the wrong one and the ad shows you failing, usually with a red cross and a taunt about your IQ.

The format works because it is a complete puzzle in four seconds, it invites you to correct someone else's mistake, and it demands no knowledge of the genre. It spread far beyond the studio that popularised it, and it is now used by games that share nothing else: match-3 puzzles, aquarium decorators, city-building strategy MMOs.

It is also the format with the most regulatory history behind it. When an advertising regulator first ruled against this style in 2020, the games did contain the puzzles, but only a handful across thousands of levels, placed far enough in that almost nobody reached them. Some publishers responded by moving the mini-games earlier and making them more frequent, so that the ad became true after the fact.