Rewarded ads with Unity Mediation#

Incentivizing players to watch an ad can be a great way to increase your game's revenue. This sample demonstrates how to offer players double rewards for completing a level if they choose to watch an ad.The sample further gamifies this feature by implementing a random chance for additional rewards. Every so often the player sees a meter with 2x, 3x, and 5x reward multipliers. Stopping the meter at the right time results in even greater incentives for viewing the ad. This makes rewarded ads more fun and tempting for players to interact with.

Prerequisites#

To use this sample use case, you must download and install the UGS Use Cases project in your Unity project.

Overview#

To see this use case in action, open the samples menu and navigate to Rewarded Ads with Unity Mediation. To open this scene directly and interact with the use case:

1. In the Unity Editor Project window, select Assets > Use Case Samples > Rewarded Ads With Unity Mediation, then double-click RewardedAdsSample.unity to open the sample scene.
2. Press Play to enter Play mode.

Note: Unity Mediation only supports iOS and Android. If the project's build targets any other platform, the console will log warnings in Play mode when you attempt to initialize services. You can still interact with the sample, however, if you create a build for one of the unsupported platforms, ads will not show. To see the use case without warnings, change the project's build target to iOS or Android.

Initialization#

The RewardedAdsSceneManager.cs script performs the following initialization tasks in its Start function:

1. Initializes Unity Gaming Services.
2. Signs in the player anonymously using the Authentication service. If you’ve previously initialized any of the other sample scenes, Authentication will use your cached Player ID instead of creating a new one.
3. Retrieves and updates the player's currency balances from the Economy service.
4. Loads (pre-caches) the first ad from the Unity Mediation service.

Functionality#

The sample simulates completing a level by clicking a button. When you click the Complete Level button, the following occurs:

1. The button's OnClick method executes the RewardedAdsSceneManager.cs script's OnCompleteLevelButtonPressed function.
2. The OnCompleteLevelButtonPressed function determines whether to display the LEVEL COMPLETE! pop-up with or without the rewarded ad mini-game, and then increments the level count and disables the button's interactivity.

Note: The level count is stored in Cloud Save. In this sample, the mini-game is hardcoded to appear after the first level, and then every three levels thereafter. Depending on the level increment, the following scenarios can occur.

Double rewards incentive#

In this scenario, the LEVEL COMPLETE! pop-up prompts you to either collect the standard 25 Gem reward or watch an ad to double the reward. If you click the Get 25 button, you will receive 25 Gems, and then the pop-up will close and you can continue simulating levels. The following occurs:

1. The button's OnClick method executes the RewardedAdsSceneManager.cs script's OnClaimLevelEndRewardsButtonPressed function.
2. The OnClaimLevelEndRewardsButtonPressed function distributes the baseRewardAmount of the rewardCurrencyId configured in the RewardedAds_GrantLevelEndRewards.js Cloud Code script by using the Economy service.

If you click the Claim 50 button, you will receive the standard amount of Gems (25), and then receive another 25 upon finishing the ad. When you dismiss the ad, the pop-up will close and you can continue simulating levels. The following occurs on the backend:

1. The button's OnClick method executes the RewardedAdsSceneManager.cs script's OnWatchRewardedAdButtonPressed function, which calls the RewardedAds_GrantLevelEndRewards.js Cloud Code script to distribute the specified baseRewardAmount of the rewardCurrencyId through the Economy service. This ensures that the player receives the standard level completion rewards, even if they close the ad prematurely.
2. The OnWatchRewardedAdButtonPressed function calls the MediationManager.cs script's ShowAd function, which uses the Unity Mediation service to show the pre-cached ad. As soon as the ad successfully begins to play, the script requests another ad to cache. This gives the ad time to load and be ready for the next interaction.
3. The ShowAd function takes an integer argument for the additional currency to grant (in this case, the standardRewardedAdMultiplier). If the result callback indicates that the player finished viewing the ad, the bonus currency is allocated by using the Economy service.

Note: You can close the test ad before it's finished to simulate skipping the ad and therefore the reward. In this case, the client does not call the Cloud Code script a second time to distribute bonus rewards.

Important: You will only see placeholder ad creatives in the Unity Editor. If you build this project to a device, you must enable test mode to prevent the Unity Ads SDK from serving live ads, which could lead to your account being flagged or suspended for fraud.

Rewards multiplier mini-game#

In this scenario, the LEVEL COMPLETE! pop-up prompts you to collect the standard 25 Gem reward, or click a special Claim button that stops an arrow oscillating between 2x, 3x, or 5x panels on a meter. The multiplier you land on applies to the rewards you receive for watching an ad. What you stop the meter, the following occurs:

1. The button's OnClick method executes the RewardedAdsSceneManager.cs script's OnMiniGameWatchRewardedAdButtonPressed function.
2. The OnMiniGameWatchRewardedAdButtonPressed function distributes the baseRewardAmount of the rewardCurrencyId configured in the RewardedAds_GrantLevelEndRewards.js Cloud Code script by using the Economy service. This ensures that the player receives the standard level completion rewards, even if they close the ad prematurely.
3. The OnWatchRewardedAdButtonPressed function calls the MediationManager.cs script's ShowAd function, which uses the Unity Mediation service to show the pre-cached ad. As soon as the ad successfully begins to play, the script requests another ad to cache. This gives the ad time to load and be ready for the next interaction.
4. The ShowAd function takes an integer argument for the multiplier to grant (rewardedAdBoosterActiveMultiplier). Cloud Code determines how many rewards to distribute by taking that multiplier minus one (to account for the initial base reward distribution prior to watching the ad), and multiplying it by the baseRewardAmount. If the result callback indicates that the player finished viewing the ad, Cloud Code allocates the bonus currency using the Economy service.

Note: The MiniGameArrowManager.cs script animates the arrow and updates the multiplier value in the Scene Manager by using a callback triggered by keyframes when the arrow moves from one section of the meter to the next. The Cloud Code script verifies that this multiplier is a legitimate value for the current level (for example, multipliers of 2, 3, and 5 are valid after the first level increment, but the second level increment can only have a 2x multiplier).

Standard level complete rewards#

In this scenario, the LEVEL COMPLETE! pop-up prompts you to collect the standard rewards for completing the level (25 Gems). This scenario only occurs if an ad fails to load from the Unity Mediation service, which can occur for various reasons, such as lack of internet connectivity or the sample being built on an unsupported platform.

Setup#

Requirements#

To replicate this use case, you'll need the following Unity packages in your project:

To use these services in your game, activate each service for your Organization and project in the Unity Dashboard.

Dashboard setup#

To replicate this sample scene's setup on your own dashboard, you will need to:

• Publish a script in Cloud Code.
• Create a Currency for the Economy service.
• Create two Ad Units for the Unity Mediation service.

Cloud Code#

Publish the following script in the LiveOps dashboard:

Note: The Cloud Code scripts included in the Cloud Code folder are local copies because you cannot view the sample project's dashboard. Changes to these scripts do not affect the behavior of this sample because they are not automatically uploaded to the Cloud Code service.

Economy#

Configure the following resource in the LiveOps dashboard:

Unity Mediation#

Ad Units represent surfacing areas in your game for players to see ad content. Create the following Ad Units for each mobile platform in the Monetization dashboard:

* You can access Allow skip in advanced settings after you create the Ad Unit.

Next, you need to attach each Ad Unit to a mediation waterfall. To do this from the Monetization dashboard:

1. In the secondary navigation menu, select Waterfalls.
2. Select the waterfall you want to assign Ad Units to.
3. Select the settings icon > Edit to configure the waterfall.
4. Scroll to the Ad Units settings section and select Edit.
5. Add the Ad Units that you want to attach, and then save your settings.

Attach the RewardedAds_Android Ad Unit that you created to the Android_Rewarded default waterfall. Attach the RewardedAds_iOS Ad Unit that you created to the iOS_Rewarded default waterfall.