Ad description
An in-game ad for the mobile game app Gorgeous Shard Puzzle Studio, seen in July 2025. The ad featured an animated image of a woman who appeared to be tied up, laying on her back nude with her legs spread facing the camera. Her face, breasts and crotch were obscured by three tiles that displayed a silhouette of a woman’s body. Underneath the image were three corresponding tiles that featured the woman’s partially covered breasts, the top half of her head, and her partially obscured crotch. Text stated “Gorgeous Shard Puzzle INSTALL AND PLAY FOR FREE”.
Issue
Five complainants, who believed that the ad sexualised and objectified women, challenged whether the ad was offensive and promoted a harmful gender stereotype.
Response
Person(s) unknown t/a Gorgeous Shard Puzzle Studio did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
MyGames, the developer of the game “Global City” in which the ad was seen, said they had strict content standards for the ads that were shown in their apps. They stated that ads displayed in their games were served through third-party networks who were responsible for the selection and moderation of the ads. MyGames’ internal team were not able to perform pre-moderation of any ads, but regularly processed user complaints and blocked inappropriate ads when they were identified. Upon receiving notification of the ASA’s investigation, they had blocked the ad and the advertised application across all ad networks they partnered with. MyGames confirmed they had not received any direct complaints about the ad from consumers.
Unity Ads, the ad network which served the ad, provided information on their terms of service, content policy, and content moderation process. Although advertisers were responsible for the content of their own ads, they applied their own moderation process to identify and block any content that breached their policies. In light of the ASA’s investigation, they had blocked the ad from their platform and were reviewing their moderation processes related to sexualised content and ads that featured harmful gender stereotypes.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by Gorgeous Shard Puzzle Studio’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
Upheld
The CAP Code required that ads must not cause serious or widespread offence and must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and society.
The ad was for a jigsaw puzzle app and featured an animated image of a nude woman laying on her back with her legs spread and facing the viewer. Her arms and legs appeared to be tied, and she was entirely naked except for small pieces of fabric partially covering her breasts and crotch. The ad included three tiles which could be used to complete the image. This had the effect of portraying her as part of a game, in which the tiles could be used to complete the image of her nearly naked body. We considered the manner in which she was depicted was overtly sexual and likely to cause serious offence. In addition, we considered that because her body was depicted as being part of the game in which she was controlled by the ‘viewer’, whilst also being extremely sexualised, the ad depicted the woman as a passive sexual object and included a harmful gender stereotype.
Because the ad was objectifying and overtly sexual, we considered it was likely to cause serious offence, plus it included a gender stereotype in a way that was likely to cause harm. We therefore concluded the ad was irresponsible and breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Social responsibility) and 4.1 and 4.9 (Harm and offence).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Person(s) unknown t/a Gorgeous Shard Puzzle Studio to ensure their ads were socially responsible and did not cause serious or widespread offence, including by objectifying and sexualising women and by including a harmful gender stereotype. We referred the matter to CAP’s Compliance team.
