Time recently published an article slamming Machine Zone Games’ titillating ads for their mobile strategy game Game of War. The cheap name that sounds similar to Game of Thrones and Gears of War was advertised heavily during Super Bowl season, featuring the busty supermodel Kate Upton. According to Time, the ads fail to represent the sensibilities of today’s young males… but according to real world revenue margins and daily active user statistics, sex still sells.

The Time article labeled “Everything You Know About Boys and Video Games Is Wrong” was published on July 8th, 2015. The article starts off on a diatribe against Machine Zone Games’ Kate Upton ads for the mobile strategy game Game of War. The early half of the article attempts to tear the game’s ads down, stating that…

“When the ads for Game of War started showing up on my students’ phones last year—they haven’t stopped—many were annoyed. They hated that it was impossible to close the ad, forcing them instead to watch the video until the end. But what really irritated them was Ms. Upton, in a full-cleavage-baring white flowing dress. The ads are clearly effective for some, but the message is obvious: Game of War is a boys’ game, and Upton is the game’s mascot, walking through battles totally unscathed and doing nothing except looking pretty.”

The article stats that out of a moderate sample pool of 1,400 middle and high-school students 47% of the middle school boys believed that females are treated as sex objects in the world of interactive entertainment and 67% of high-school students believed that women are treated as sex objects.

The rest of the article follows along very finely picked wording surrounding the idea that males aren’t as interested in sexualized females as the consumer market may lead on, and that some trends – such as the one including Machine Zone Games’ Kate Upton ads for their mobile title – are not representative of gamers today.

As a caveat, the article at least goes as far as to say that this wasn’t a thorough scientific or peer reviewed study, noting…

“Our survey was exploratory—we didn’t have the resources to conduct a thorough evaluation—but we believed it was an important issue to study and hope others will follow.”

While the 67% of those 1,400 (although technically it would be 67% of whatever percentage made up for male high-schoolers) seems significant in a standalone space as contextualized by Time, it pales in comparison to what people really think about how sex sells in the consumer market, not just games.

The following ad for Machine Zone Games’ Game of War was viewed nearly 10 million times as of the writing of this article. Ratings have obviously been disabled, and the comments on the ad speak for themselves.

Game of War – 2015 Super Bowl Commercial “Who I Am” ft. Kate Upton Join Kate Upton in Game of War, the first truly global FREE online mobile game. Befriend, help and destroy players from all over the world in this real-time strategy MMO! #GameofWar Play for FREE: https://smarturl.it/3z7a0j Need More Game of War? https://twitter.com/gameofwar https://facebook.com/gameofwar

For reference, here’s how the game actually looks, courtesy of YouTuber giancarloparimango11.

Game Of War Gameplay Download Game of War! https://smarturl.it/PokeGoW

Take note that Kate Upton isn’t even in the game and many gamers have regularly pelted the game for being a poorly designed strategy title that gained most of its fame from those sultry ads starring the Sports Illustrated cover model.

While it could be argued that people viewed the ads but were disgusted by the objectification of supermodel Kate Upton, the ad’s penetration rate has been very effective for Machine Zone Games, translating into actual users spending actual money.

Back on April 3rd, 2015 the LA Times published an article detailing some of the statistics behind this popular and now ubiquitous ad campaign, detailing how Machine Zone Games has spent an estimated $80 million in marketing to run the Kate Upton ads around 9,000 times since November, 2014 up through April, 2015.

According to Think Gaming, Game of War – since the ads first starting running – has been accruing an average of $1.1 million a day. Game of War has also been one of the top ranking mobile games on the market next to Clash of Clans. As of July 8th, 2015, the game manages more than 3.2 million daily active users.

Even if we were generous and said that the 67% of that 1,400 were genuine in being angered or disgusted with the ads featuring Kate Upton, there are millions of people playing and dumping money into this game that were compelled to do so based on Upton’s bountiful assets.

Even if we gave a rough estimate of how much Machine Zone Games has brought in for this year alone, based on Think Gaming’s stats, we’re roughly looking at $206 million in potential revenue for Machine Zone Games based on Game of War alone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company was set on making an annual revenue of $600 million in 2014 and the company’s market valuation is estimated at $3 billion.

It’s convenient that none of the sales, company or advertising figures make it into the Time article. We can’t have facts getting in the way of feels.

The Time article also makes some wild assumptions without really looking at any of the stats that drive the gaming industry. For instance, the one paragraph states…

“Action games with big battles like Game of War are incredibly exciting to kids. And kids I’ve worked with, both male and female, will put up with a lot to play exciting games. But it doesn’t mean they like the way women are portrayed. Yet the video game industry seems to base much of its game and character design on a few assumptions, among them that girls don’t play big action games, boys won’t play games with strong female characters, and male players like the sexual objectification of female characters.”

According to that $206 million, I’m guessing some people like the way Upton was portrayed… in the commercials at least. That’s not to say that it’s right or wrong, but simply that the ads have been effective, especially in a mobile market where majority of the games released are likely to sink than swim.

As noted in one report, there are an average of 500 mobile games that launch a day on the app store, but very few ever go on to turn a profit, as noted in a report by Small Business. The same applies to larger platforms as well, such as PC and home consoles.

While the Time article would lead people to believe that gamers are above being enticed to play games based on sex appeal, the idea that simply making more diverse games featuring certain characters still hasn’t proven to be as profitable as the basic “sex sells” approach.

In fact, even games that star female protagonists like Dreamfall Chapters have only managed 73,000 players on Steam, according to Steam Spy – barely a fraction of Game of War’s DAU. And while games like Giana Sisters have managed just over a million sales across all platforms according to Nintendo Enthusiast, it still pales in comparison to Game of War’s massive user base, despite Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams being a far better designed and critically acclaimed game.

As convenient as it may be for some media outlets to take jabs at the sexualization used in consumer markets to shift product(s), the sad reality is that in some cases it works… and it works really well.

The complete opposite scenario of Game of War is Tale of Tales’ straight-laced marketing for their game Sunset, starring a black female in a war-torn country attempting to find a way to escape. The game was advertised across major gaming media websites and was reviewed by many top critics in the field, yet it only opened with barely 4,000 unit sales and that included the people who crowd-funded the game on Kickstarter. The abysmal sales of the game resulted in the game developers having to cease game development.

What’s interesting is that a lot of people would step away from the Time article being led to believe that Kate Upton’s ads for Game of War weren’t effective. They were.

A lot of people would also step away from the article being led to believe that people didn’t play Game of War in result of Upton’s ads. They did.

And finally, a lot of people would step away from the article thinking that sex doesn’t sell and that Machine Zone Games didn’t profit from their expensive stunt. It does and they did.