Remove ads is one of the few honestly good-value purchases in this genre, and also one of the most misunderstood, because the phrase covers only half of what most players think it does.
Two kinds of advertising
- Interruptive. Advertisements shown to you without asking: a full-screen panel between levels, a banner along the bottom, a video after a loss. You did not choose it and cannot decline it beyond waiting for the close button.
- Rewarded. Advertisements you opt into in exchange for something specific: an extra life, a booster, a doubling of a reward. Always presented as a choice, always declinable.
A remove-ads purchase almost universally removes the first category and leaves the second in place. That is not a trick, it is the only arrangement that makes sense: the rewarded video is how you obtain the reward, so removing it would take away the reward with it.
Read the purchase description before buying rather than the button label. The description usually distinguishes the two categories properly, and the button never does.
Is it worth it
For a game you play regularly, this is usually the best value purchase available in the whole genre, and it compares well against everything else on the shop screen. It is a one-off rather than a consumable, it improves every future session rather than one level, and it removes the mechanism most likely to make you stop playing.
Compare that with the alternatives: extra moves on a level you just lost are consumed instantly, coin packs are consumed within a session, and a booster bundle helps for an evening. Ad removal keeps working for as long as you keep the game.
The questions worth answering before buying
- Is it permanent or a subscription? Increasingly it is a subscription bundled with other benefits, which is a very different proposition from a one-off unlock and is disclosed in the purchase description rather than on the button.
- Is it tied to the account or the device? If progress is device-only, the purchase may be too, and replacing the phone can mean paying again. Both stores support restoring purchases, but only where the game implements it.
- Does it cover banners as well as interstitials? Usually yes, occasionally not.
- Does it change gameplay? In a few titles ad removal also grants a small permanent bonus, which is worth knowing but should not be the reason.
Restoring it later
Both platforms keep a record of non-consumable purchases, and most games offer a restore purchases button in settings. If you reinstall and the advertising comes back, use that before buying again; buying twice is common and avoidable.
If restore does not work, the receipt from Google or Apple is the evidence, and the studio can usually reinstate the entitlement from it. Keeping store receipts for anything permanent is worth the small effort for exactly this reason.
Australian and New Zealand consumer rules apply here too
A purchase in a game is a supply of a service to a consumer. Under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 it must match its description and be fit for its stated purpose, and under the Fair Trading Act 1986 the description must not be misleading. A purchase sold as removing advertising that visibly does not remove the advertising it described is a straightforward example of both.
In practice the first step is the store, since Google and Apple took the payment and handle refunds. If a purchase clearly did not do what it said, mentioning the specific mismatch rather than general dissatisfaction tends to move a refund request along considerably.
The free alternative, and its limits
Playing offline removes most advertising, because an ad cannot be fetched without a connection. It also removes events, teams, cloud saving and rewarded video, so it is a trade rather than a trick, and in some titles the game will eventually insist on connecting.
It is a reasonable way to sample how much the advertising bothers you before deciding whether removing it is worth the money. If an hour offline feels dramatically better, that is your answer.