In-Game Ads

Overview

In-game ads make it possible to release games for free or much cheaper than would otherwise be possible while still maintaining the potential to earn revenue. This makes it much easier to entice people to download your game and increase your user base. In-game ads using Apple's iAd advertising network can be added to games made for the iOS platform. The process of adding in-game ads is incredibly simple and only requires a few lines of code.

Important: Revenue earned from in-game ads counts as revenue earned from using UDK even if your game is free. If you use in-game ads, you must purchase a license for UDK before distributing your game.

Note: Ads will only be displayed when the game is run on an iOS device. The Mobile Previewer will not display ads.

Ad Manager

A special class, InGameAdManager, is responsible for managing and displaying the in-game advertisements via the iAd network. This class handles all functionality associated with obtaining, dsiplaying, and interacting with in-game ads.

Properties

• bShouldPauseWhileAdOpen - If TRUE, the game will pause when the user clicks on the ad, which could take over the screen.

Functions

• Init - Event called by the engine to handle initialization of the ad system.
• ShowBanner [bShowBottomOfScreen] - Makes in-game advertisements visible in a banner.
  • bShowBottomOfScreen - If TRUE, the banner will be displayed across the bottom of the screen. Otherwise, the banner is displayed across the top of the screen.
• HideBanner - Hides any visible in-game ad banners. If the ad is currently open (i.e., the user is interacting with the ad), the ad will be forcibly closed (see ForceCloseAd)
• ForceCloseAd - Forces an opened (clicked on) advertisement to close and return to the banner state. This may lead to loss of revenue, so don't do it unnecessarily.
• SetPauseWhileAdOpen [bShouldPause] - Sets whether the game should pause when an ad is clicked.
  • bShouldPause - If TRUE, the game will pause when the ad is clicked. Otherwise, the game will continue to run.

Delegates

The EAdManagerDelegate enum defines the IDs for the types of delegates that can receive callbacks. Delegates can be assigned to each of these using the Platform Interface Delegates system.

• AMD_ClickedBanner - Delegates assigned to this ID are executed when the user clicks on an banner ad.
  • bSuccessful - TRUE.
  • Data - Contains no data.
• AMD_UserClosedAd - Delegates assigned to this ID are executed when the user closes an ad (after clicking on banner). Base class already handles un-pausing, so a delegate is only needed if you need extra handling.
  • bSuccessful - TRUE.
  • Data - Contains no data.

Implementation

Making use of in-game ads on iOS platforms is extremely simple. The engine is already set up to handle them. It is just a matter of setting any delegates you wish to have executed and then telling the manager to show the banner. There is also some cleanup that should be performed when switching levels or the player ends the game.

In the PostBeginPlay() function of your PlayerController, the relevant delegates can be assigned and the banner can be shown. Of course, this is only if you want the banner displayed from the beginning of the game or level. You can choose to show or hide the ads anytime you desire by calling the relevant function on the InGameAdManager.

The PlatformInterfaceBase has a static function that will return a reference to the current InGameAdManager. You can use this in your PlayerController to get a reference to it and call its functions. Keep in mind this function will return None unless the game is being run on a platform that supports in-game ads.

Setup

Here, we get the reference to the InGameAdManager from the PlatformInterfaceBase and then add our delegates and show the ad banner. The delegates we have added are just examples to show that they are indeed being executed at the approproate times.

var InGameAdManager AdManager;

...

simulated function PostBeginPlay()
{
   Super.PostBeginPlay();

   AdManager = class'PlatformInterfaceBase'.static.GetInGameAdManager();
   if (AdManager != none)
   {
      AdManager.AddDelegate(AMD_ClickedBanner, OnUserClickedAdvertisement);
      AdManager.AddDelegate(AMD_UserClosedAd, OnUserClosedAdvertisement);
      AdManager.ShowBanner(true);
   }
}

/**
 * Called on all player controllers when an in-game advertisement has been clicked
 * on by the user. Game will probably want to pause, etc, at this point
 */
function OnUserClickedAdvertisement(const out PlatformInterfaceDelegateResult Result)
{
   `log("MobilePC::OnUserClickedBanner");
}

/**
 * Called on all player controllers when an in-game advertisement has been closed
 * down (usually when user clicks Done or similar). Game will want to unpause, etc here.
 */
event OnUserClosedAdvertisement(const out PlatformInterfaceDelegateResult Result)
{
   `log("MobilePC::OnUserClosedAd");
}

Cleanup

Using the Destroyed() event of the PlayerController allows us to do a little cleanup, such as removing any delegates we have previously assigned.

event Destroyed()
{
   super.Destroyed();

   if (AdManager != none)
   {
      AdManager.ClearDelegate(AMD_ClickedBanner, OnUserClickedAdvertisement);
      AdManager.ClearDelegate(AMD_UserClosedAd, OnUserClosedAdvertisement);
   }
}

Result

Running the game on an iOS device with the code above in your custom PlayerController should now result in the ad banner being shown along the bottom of the screen.

Tapping on the banner opens the full ad:

Obviously, you will only get test advertisements at this stage as you can see in the image above. You will need to join the iAd Network to receive real ads. This can be done through Apple's developer site.