[Question] What is Unity ads downloading upon start up of android app?

Hi, I realized that when I start up my app on my mobile(android) with unity ads service turned on BUT I never use any function of it, it will download some 3mb data.. may I know what kind of data is it downloading and why is it so much? This does not happen when I turn off the advertisement service. And then if I ever watch an ad, it downloads another 3.7mb~5mb(I know this is normal for videos), but I really want to know what are they downloading during the load up (3.7mb~)
I am using Unity Version 5.4.0f3 (Personal) and using Unity Ads 2.0


edit: I just read a post by HeikkiTunkelo stating that it will make an ad request everytime the app is started, now my question is, is it really necessary?

 

Hi,

Correct, we download/cache videos before they are shown, since this based on experience and AB testing shows to result in best user experience. Spinning "buffering..." icons in a middle of video doesn't help on how users perceive the game being advertised

If you want better control over when videos are cached, you can use the Asset Store package (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/66123) where you will have to initlialize Ads SDK yourself, meaning you can postpone this to later in game. Although make sure you give some seconds from initialization to showing ads.

/Rasmus

 

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, well, if one ad video is around 3.8mb~ from what I measured when I watch 1 ad. I assume you guys are downloading 1 ad video upon app start up? And am I right to say that when I do a ShowAd(), it will load the ad from the cache and at the same time download another ad video for the 2nd ad? Need to clear this up as some players start the game but are not required to watch an ad and it just eats up their bandwidth.

So with that SDK, I can initialize and request whenever I want to? e.g not at start up