Such a conclusion was reached by the company AppHarbr, which analyzed advertising in 500 mobile games and applications from November 2025 to January 2026.
According to AppHarbr's calculations, in non-gaming apps, every 165th ad is malicious. In games, it occurs more frequently—approximately once in every 58 instances. AppHarbr categorized these as advertisements featuring various fraudulent practices: from phishing to forced redirects to unsafe links.
Experts also noted that users of the games they studied often cannot opt-out of watching ads—every tenth rewarded ad and every fifth pop-up ad were unskippable.
In conclusion, AppHarbr indicated that, according to their estimates, 84% of gamers delete games if their experience with advertising is negative. They did not provide specific examples of games containing malicious or intrusive ads.