Embedded Video Ads in Webplayer - Research and Development (RnD)

News & General Discussion
1

Hi folks,

Embedded video ads within Unity could be a much needed feature for companies looking to monetize web player games going forward. Video ads are paving their way onto BIG sites like Youtube and Google has expanded AdWords to video. The market has shown that video ads can be a sustainable business strategy.

Furthermore, does anyone still look at banner ads? Is running banner ads enough to cover costs? Gamer demographics, who spend tons of hours online, have either installed AdBlock or trained their eyes to ignore it. With the right number of users, I think that any form of internet advertising is good business. But there is a trend for modern entertainment sites to move towards video ads. The reasons are evident, these video ads generally have a higher production quality and are often from reliable, familiar sources like big corporations instead of blue pill ads and free iPad contests. Any sane business owner would rather have a Coca-cola or Bud Light clip and chances are they would pay you better too.

I think embedded video is particularly well fitted to video games because, unlike most websites, there are loading downtimes where a player would be waiting anyways. This means the cost to the player is virtually zero, unlike sites like Youtube and many others where watching the video incurs the cost of waiting to see the content.

For those of us working in the Unity space there is currently no solution for serving embedded video ads. Therefore, I have proposed this thread as Research and Development for the good of the community and aim to reach the common goal of bringing an embedded video ad solution to Unity.

From what I have found, the main issue with using AdSense is that HTML is not supported inside Unity.

For someone who wanted to make it work as a POC (Proof of Concept), I see 3 possible routes:

  1. Use an HTML Plugin to serve existing Ad services (like this one: Unity Asset Store - The Best Assets for Game Making)
    Pros:
  • Don’t have to find advertising sources
    Cons:
  • Unforeseen technical challenges working to a closed platform
  1. Use creative Javascript in the browser to overlay videos
    Pros:
  • Likely the easiest
    Cons:
  • Only works for web player
  1. Build a custom embedded video solution
    Pros:
  • Robust solution that could be used with many ad sources
    Cons:
  • Likely the most technically challenging

Answer the poll, and leave your feedback about what kind of approach you think sounds the most sane.

Welcome to the RnD club 8)

2

I use aggressive adblocking plugins for a reason. If you want to sell me something, find away to do it other than blasting me with ad space.

3

You could probably have success if the ads are playing from within the webplayer as there are currently no add blocks that target the webplayer(Just a guess, I don’t know how they work.)