“Play games. Earn points. Save money.” It’s weird that Metro by T-Mobile doesn’t even use exclamation points to make this seem fun, considering they’re talking about games, right? And I don’t even like exclamation points(!).
I can just imagine somebody pitching this in a boardroom, in the sort of tired, exasperated voice that must be on repeat inside the head of somebody who is so hard up for money in today’s America that they have to drone their way through a bunch of games to earn points that can be converted to pocket change toward their cell phone bill.
this is a good thing, right? right?
It’s called Ad It Up (cute), and it’s available on the Apple App Store for Apple devices and the Google Play Store for Android devices. Of course, while you play you’ll be bombarded with ads like the unlucky kid in a game of dodgeball. You didn’t think this was all for the customer’s enjoyment, did you?
It doesn’t help that the webpage promoting Ad It Up uses product language that’s just a bit too sunny, a bit too glib. “Save big,” one blurb proclaims. “Instantly redeem earned points as payments to your Metro service, right in the Ad It Up app.”
I feel like I’m sitting through Rod Roddy’s sponsor messages on a sick day spent watching The Price Is Right and getting similarly nauseous. Are people in such a bad state that they have to play games to pay their cell phone bills? What’s next, dancing for subsidized Netflix?
“There are hundreds of mobile games to choose from—and Ad It Up will keep track of every point you earn,” the webpage says. Nobody’s yet counting up exactly how many games are on the app. Maybe counting them will be a game itself.
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