Sleeper Hits: Games With No Ad Revenue

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Today, I wanted to write about some games that I enjoy that also appear to have no advertising, ever, for one reason or another. Either the studio just doesn’t spend any money on ads, or they have no money to spend. In the past, I firmly believe this has been the reason games like Wildstar were eventually shutdown. You probably heard of that MMO, and also probably its demise, but had you seen any advertisements for or about it years after its launch? Probably not. Or, with how Second Life has been running for over 20 years, and there are virtually no and/or never any advertising campaigns about it. Yet, somehow, it thrives based on word-of-mouth, alone.

If you’ve read my blog here and there over the past year, you might remember when I wrote about the game POOLS, which I believed to be a liminal horror walking simulator that stands as an allegory to abuse. Or, any of the other more traditional Backrooms related games, that come, go, and never get talked about.

One of them, being, The Complex: Expedition.

If you’re familiar with the Kane Pixels’ Youtube series of Backrooms content, diving into this game will feel like the same territory. And, although, it’s not directly based on Kane’s work, it is very much obviously inspired by it.

In an almost frighteningly real looking excursion into the Backrooms, as one of the hazmat-suit-wearing researchers, you crawl beneath a crevice, and while within the complex itself, you slip through a null zone and sink further into it. Effectively cutting you off from your team. Hence begins your expedition, a personal walk around the actual Backrooms.

Another game that I’ve been enjoying lately, along with a few others from the publisher and studios that are currently undergoing a possible acquisition, i.e., Ubisoft, is Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

Firstly, it’s really no surprise that Ubisoft is about to be bought out by a larger company (like Tencent), after one of their executives fumbled its customer relations so disturbingly badly.

But, as we all know, studios within a publishing house don’t really always reflect the opinions of out-of-touch stock-jockeys.

So, we enter the world of Pandora, not through the eyes of one of the humans attempting to colonize and exploit the planet, and not even through the eyes of one of the human freedom fighters, but through a native of the planet itself. Which is really cool.

Think: Farcry meets Avatar.

You’ve got a massively expansive world to explore, places to liberate from human exploitation, and a crafting system that involves foraging and looting in a way that fits well within the nature-bound lifestyle of the Na’vi.

And, like the previous game I mentioned, AFOP has next to none, or absolutely no advertising, whatsoever. Which is especially strange, since it appears to have multiple expansions. Not to mention, the backing of three movies that cost more than potentially buying the city of New York for your personal amusement.

Third on my list, is a Call of Duty clone by Ukrainian developers, Alfa Bravo Inc, that is originally a mobile game, but entirely functional on Linux, with zero intrusive kernel-level anti-cheat.

The game plays like a slightly fumbly-ish Call of Duty Modern Warfare, except it’s not being replaced every 6 months with another 200 gig iteration. In fact, the game only takes up around about a single gigabyte of storage.

“WHAT?!” You say.

Yes.

It’s great for blowing off some steam, and especially for scratching that itch you may be missing having abandoned Windows. Which, you should, because fuck Microsoft.

When I say “fumbly,” though, I mean, it could do with a bit more polish in the area of character movement. It doesn’t feel as tight as it would in Call of Duty. You sometimes feel like a piece of jello bouncing around. But, other than that, it’s great! And it’s not at all like its polar opposite, which also works on Linux, Counterstrike.

Personally, I’ve had so much time in CS:GO, that it’s virtually uninteresting to me in 2025. I was playing that game in … frikken, uh, 2002 (the original CS, obviously)?

And, like the others, you’ve probably never heard of this game before.

But that’s just three of the sleepers I wanted to mention. Honestly, this post could go on and on for hours about numerous games that I think are really cool, that nobody ever talks about, that you never even see on milquetoast social media adverts (I don’t even really look at that stuff anymore, anyway). I could write detailed information on Sacred 2 Gold, an extremely old action RPG, Grim Dawn, another ARPG, or even, something way out of left field, Quake Champions!

Although … Quake Champions is kind of a … lukewarm re-imagining of the classic arena shooter, that I honestly think is not that popular, solely because they tried to reinvent something that didn’t need reinventing, with … hero classes.

But anyway, I’m not writing this post to talk about why I think Quake Champions is never talked about or even mentioned, anywhere.

No matter if you’re a fan of liminal horror, Farcry, or shooters, I’m sure everyone reading this will find something they enjoy about at least one of the three titles I’ve mentioned.