Question Will Unity Ads (legacy) still run without switching to Unity LevelPlay?

Hello,
I'm a bit confused about the communication around Unity Ads.
In the dashboard an announcement invites to update my package to Unity Ads 4.4.1.


But when I updated Unity Ads from 3.7.5 to 4.4.1, I received this warning


So I looked for more information about advertising with Mediation, reading the migration guide at https://docs.unity.com/mediation/AdsWithMediationMigrationGuide.html.

I started to remove the legacy Unity Ads dependencies and now I was about to install the Unity Advertisement with Mediaiton package via the package manager and I saw this note:



Now let's check on Unity LevelPlay at https://unity.com/unity-ads-ironsource.
And here is my biggest confusion




My question is, will the Unity (legacy) ads be maintained over time or am I forced to adopt Unity LevelPlay even if I don't use the mediation?
If not, what is correct and not up to date between all these recommendations?

Thank you for the clarification.

 

In my opinion this is a strange combination. Because if I using the Level Play I can not disable the IronSource as an advertising source. It's very BAD!

 

Hi! When you say that the Advertisement (Legacy) package will be unsupported, do you mean that for any live game currently using the legacy package, the advertisements will stop working? Could you please describe what all the expected repercussions will be for such a game when the plug gets pulled on the legacy package?

 

Why are there so many conflicting instructions? This is a mess.

 

I fully agree with @RSH1 - Unity Ads is a disaster at the moment. There’s three different ad systems in the Package Manager, with one of them being partnered with IronSource and then there’s their installation advice on their website - use their SDK? Use the Package Manager one? I’m just so confused now

I applied for an IronSource account and received an email asking for my bank details so that I can be charged for user acquisition (never mind the fact that emailing my bank details is just so disconcerting).

I’m now at the stage that I’ll just let my game on the Google Play Store be removed by Google when it eventually fails to meet their standards.

This is just so disappointing because whilst my game has never made any real revenue via Unity Ads, it was at least an option to effectively promote my game, with the free game pulling people across to the paid version of my game when they wanted to stop seeing the ads.

Unity is great for indie developers but it’s also becoming a mess in so many areas (don’t get me started on the hours I spent trying to fix the Package Manager). I’m now at the stage where I’m honestly considering other engines like Unreal or Godot…

 

I am totally lost

 

But in order to integrate LevelPlay we have to integrate the SDK and create an account with ironsource directly, correct?

 

How to fix unity sdk failed due to environment check

 

I think that @Bazzajunior is right, implementing ads in Unity has become a mess.
I have to decide which of the three (!) packages use for my unreleased project.

Unity Ads seems the oldest one, dont know if its possible to use it for a new project
Unity Ads with Mediation seems well supported in the dashboard
Ironsource seems something new and not really ready (its an external package, shady procedures like asking for bank credentials via email)

I would go with Unity Ads with Mediation.

Thoughts?

 

You mean that the package Ads with mediation is currently managed by level play? Cause the documentation it says that in order to integrate level play is necessary to download an external package from level play website

 

the link of level play documentation is not working
https://docs.unity.com/levelplay/

 

I'd like to add that as I'm developing my project that is not published yet I had to move from Unity to Unity Mediation (with success, I got it working). Now I tried to move from Unity Mediation to LevelPlay. This is giving me headaches. Apart form getting an email to reply back with my account detail (FFS), they also requested links to stores to my app plus other details.
As my app is not published yet I am unable to activate ironsource account so it seems! This just ridiculous.

On top of that for the last 4 days I'm fighting this not ready solution that is Level Play.

I'm unable to make IronSource DemoScene load ads to my android device.

I'm unable to load test ads to android device in my own game either.

I'm going through 3 different ads solution in a space of a year or so. Complete nightmare. I now have unity mediation merged into levelplay so I have no way back to unity mediation. levelplay is not working. Ads with Unity is a complete catastrophe if you ask me.
Please sort it out.

 

Hello to who it may consern in unity 3d Ads I totally agree with 71kris , unity ads system is in big issues seemed like they don't know what they are doing and also not caring about devs who are tired and wasting a lot of their time , I'm tired of their recent irresponsibilty toward devs , before they had good ads system I mean Advertisement Legacy => then updated it and it was perfect initialising the ads at the start of the game ones only => then they changed to mediation beta => then mediation became official => then no mediation is under support anymore or legacy so what ?? => levelyplay and Ironsource S*** , a lot of integrations and nothing clear or working well but even thought I totally managed to deal with it ((integrating it + fixing the resolver dependencies and gradlew.bat file people went though this can understand what I'm saying)) for about a week of hard work and tests but always the same issues , ads not shwowing properly and they way I want and as I used to do before under test not the charboost one or ironsource , but neither unity interstitial the only one I can see on test is unity banner and rewarded video , also their mediation sucks because even I change the placement name to the ironsouce one still showing unity test only , anyways by the end I'm stucked here not being able to use lagacy and mediation and levelplay they should have been staying on their legacy only was perfect . this is just me simple dev doesn't have any power to change anything and besides that the day when they decide what to do and what is better for them and go on beta and official version and after a year I can think back of using Unity mobile ads . good luck everybody

 

Is there plans for the IS mediation solution to be refactored so it works 'neatly' with the package manager and feels more 'native'. ie no need for IS account, all managed through the Unity hub, I can essentially turn off everything except Unity Ads and have a 'Unity Ads Only'-like end result?

Currently it is a bit of a mess.

Installing Unity Ads tells you to use Unity Mediation. Then Untiy Mediation says its no longer being 'enhanced' and to move on the IS mediation. Oof.

 

We just want a nice, clean integration experience. Unity Ads (Legacy) is perfect - easy and clean. No project bloat.

 

Also is there an ETA on how long Unity Ads Legacy will be supported?

 

One thing you forgot to mention.
Mediation was supported through external tar ball before few months.
Now it has changed too.
First I was looking here and there. Then found aha now it comes with package maanger.
Then oh no , you need to go for another product called level play,
Oh no you have to make account with them too. Oh share app link oh share bank details.
We have enough time to waste in our life , do not we have plenty of time?

Unity thinks we developer get dream about product they are going to launch and they are super easy to integrate.
No email , no notification , suddenly product implementation strategy changes over the night .
Shame on you !

 

I also was really confused. Don't use Ads Legacy, use Ads with Mediation. Then don't use Ads with Mediation, use Iron Source. So I'm thinking about to continue using Ads Legacy till this chaos will end. Also want to know about ETA on how long Unity Ads Legacy will be supported.

 

Im also interested in this. Hopefully some Unity guy will reply ASAP

 

Same as most of you here. My first time trying to integrate ads with Unity went through setting up Unity Ads(Legacy?) => Advertisement with Mediation(Not supporting as well? Okay I'll use the latest thing) => LevelPlay(Cannot build) => 3rd party asset(Cannot build) => Maybe trying Unity Ads again. It's been several days without success.

I'm using Macbook with M1. I cannot build one Ad demo on my iOS device. There were issues building a proper Xcode project with cocoapods(solved), Admob(bitcode issue). Now I'm trying to use Unity Ads with Unity Mediation and got a new issue: [Mediation]: Warning, failed to retrieve game id from Dashboard on Unity 2022.2.9. I'm not providing details here(They are too many to summarize at once, I've been trying to solving them one by one with other posts) but I mean, it is very disappointing with all these changes and mess at the moment. I hope to see the day integrating ads with Unity becomes easy and stable. But it may not be that soon. It's already going to affect many people' plans and progress on their new apps.

 

I want to add my voice here. I started with IronSource. What a disaster. I couldn't get it to serve ads at all. Their advice was to try their sample project (when I went for support) which is no support at all. In the end I just reverted back to Unity's Legacy system since its easy to integrate.

To the folks at Unity. You have created a nightmare for developers. Do you not understand that? What you need to do is make the new system, easy to use like the old system, and then transition to it. I wasted two weeks on IronSource thinking it was the right thing to do.

Overall, and I don't know why the folks at Unity are not hearing this, you really messed this up and you need to fix it. An apology would be a good place to start.

 

At this point, learning C++ sounds easier than building a game with IronSource.

 

I spent 2 or 3 days handle ironSource things,when I build to xcode,it's ok,when I run on my iPhone,it's faled,I give up;
Iron source or LevelPlay is nightmare;
Unity with mediation is life killer;
We just want only UnityAds! it's fast! clean!

 

Try Google Ads then)

 

Yes, that's exactly what I expected. If levelPlay can be integrated as easily as Unity Ads, then I would be very happy to use it

 

Hope this will happen soon. I'm still using old Unity Ads and was unable to upgrade (

 

John Riccitiello is destroying this company and you all know it...

 

The use of levelplay should be like using unity ads, and it should be accessed from the dashboard and used in the same way. Impositions are not good and do not turn out well. Unity should take into account the wishes of the developers in this regard.

 

Is there any migration path for users who (like me) have a Unity Ads account AND an old IronSrc account?

Will the IronSrc backend be merged into the Unity Ads backend or will the UnityAds backend be merged into IronSrc? Will the accounts be merged at all?

Why is the latest update on the package from DECEMBER 2022?
Looks like a stale solution already. Has something changed? Should users get it from ironsrc directly?


My advice to those having trouble with IronSrc. Do what @hippogames recommended and keep using the legacy ads sdk until the merger is complete on a technical level. Give them time. They will sort it out.

Over the course of the last 10 years I have been integrating a least 10 to 15 different sdks on mobile and I can tell you that IronSrc was a blessing for mediation integration. Their SDK "just worked". I am positive they will get it done. Let's just hope they do before Google and Apple force us all to a newer SDK.

 

Just wanted to add my voice that it is very confusing right now

 

Our project never set up Waterfalls or used Unity Mediation, instead using the basic "Advertisement Legacy" and the "Unity" Ad Source.

Under Project Settings > Mediation Partner, it shows:

Mediation Partner Unity (not mediated)​

On this undated blog post https://unity.com/unity-ads-ironsource it says:

On October 1, 2023 we will end support for Unity Mediation and ad serving will be discontinued.​

My question for @ap-unity @ej-Unity @Unity_Adamski or anyone else at Unity is this ... what actually happens on October 1? We don't think we are using Unity Mediation, but will ads shown using Advertisement Legacy and using only the Unity Ad Source continue to show?

 

@Yasuyuki @ap-unity
I had a look at Levelplay documentation and it's not very inspiring when Unity didn't even bother to integrate the documentation in their own website and refactor the code to change from Ironsource to Levelplay.
It is pretty obvious that this is super temporary again and you will force in a few months developers to change the integration for the thousandth time when Levelplay will be really part of Unity, and not a rushed acquisition.
Why do you continue to do so?

 

That's a good question. Looks like they don't know what to do with ironSource after purchasing it.

 

I join the confused voices and I'll stick to legacy ads for now
And AdMob ofc

 

it seems you dont need unity legacy ads or unity mediation if you're using admob, can this be right?

 

i use both with a 50-50% chance per session

 

Looks like it is AdMob for now as well. Look how long people have been confused with it. It is over a year and still people struggle.

I have been struggling with this BS for weeks and quickly losing the will to solve it. Gradle errors, 3 different packages, separate IS account, what a mess is this? The final straw was today when trying to set up payment methods with Iron Source they asked me to fill in an American tax return !!!!WTF is that? I live and work in Europe. Why am I supposed to give my tax information to the IRS?? Is it only me who is finding this ridiculous?

 

If it's the W-8BEN or W8-BEN-E form you are refering to then this is quite normal and they are required to do this (any company in the US paying a foreigner has to do it).

Since you are from Europe the chances are high that your country has a tax treaty with the US and you will not have to pay any tax in the US. If you do not fill it out then your payout will be delayed until you do. If you don't claim a tax treaty in the form then they may deduct 20-30% witholding tax from your payout.

I am not sure if signing up for an IronSrc account is still necessary. Better just sign up for Unity Ads and use that account. I would assume IronSrc will be closed down eventually once all their services have been merged with Unity Ads.

 

Thanks for the answer @_geo__ , the tax thing comes from UNITY itself now as they have started with another company to process payments (my guess), which I am guessing is USA-based. It just gets progressively more difficult to make anything, GDPR, privacy policies, google policies.. F**ing nonsense, sorry for the rant. Also, I am not sure if they are planning to close down IronSource and merge it with Unity Ads completely, do you know that or you are guessing that?

 

I think they will eventually merge IronSrc customer accounts to Unity Level Play so it may not matter much. Though I am pretty sure Unity Ads is their advertisement brand for the future, not IronSrc. I had (still have) an ironsrc account and a Unity Ads account and I have seen them merge IronSrc stuff to UnityAds (not the other way round) so I'd say it's an educated guess from my side.

Their payment provider is Tipalti. They are an independent company used by many others too (Microsoft for example). Their old payment provider was WorldPay. Both are independent companies. Tipalti manages not only the payout but also the tax forms. The tax form may look like it's coming from Unity itself because it's wrapped in a nice iframe on their website but that's just them using Tipaltis white-label integration. IronSrc has been using Tipalti for a long time and currently UnityAds payouts are migrating from WorldPlay to Tipalti.

If you do fill out the tax from on IronSrc now you may have to do it again once you switch to Unity Ads because even though it ultimately is handled by the same company (Tipalti) Unity and IronSrc are probably still separate customers to them. That's another reason why I'd recommend going with Unity Ads and just drop IronSrc.

But ofc I could be wrong.

 

Hey @_geo__ . I appreciate your information. I will look it up more based on what you are saying. I might wait until they sort it out and Unity Ads are clearer to deal with. Maybe I will do some Ad Mob ads for now. Thanks again.

 

I have now spent a good amount of time figuring out how to integrate this LevelPlay instead of Advertisement Legacy. The result is bunch of back and forth linking between Unity and ironSource, dashboard setup guides and solid instructions on how the press an "install" button.

How do I replace the old unity ads with LevelPlay? Is there an example code for this? Everywhere it's just explained how to install and set it up, but not the actual integration - i.e. code.

1. Remove legacy ads
2. Install LevelPlay
3. Install Unity Ads from LevelPlay network manager
4. Set up things on ironSource and Unity cloud dashboards
5. ???