Submitted via IRC for chromas
Google Play will let developers earn more money by having users watch ads in exchange for rewards
[In free-to-play games] you'll often be offered the ability to watch a video advertisement to receive some sort of bonus. This bonus can come in the form of double the in-game currency for X number of minutes, an extra chance at a particular level, or anything else that can benefit the user. Developers could add this feature with Unity Ads, but now Google has announced they are building it into the Google Play Billing Library or AIDL interface with only a few additional API calls. The featured is called a "rewarded product" and instructions on how to set it up can be found here.
This means the developer doesn't have to integrate any other SDK into their application or game which should reduce the work required to add this extra monetization opportunity. The feature is powered by Google's Admob technology so developers will have access to the large number of advertisers who they are working with.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Pino P on Monday March 11 2019, @08:03PM
It'll be hard for that to happen so long as the only input that game developers can depend on is a flat sheet of glass. Because an Android device's touch surface is flat, the player looking at the action in the center of the screen cannot discern whether his or her thumbs are centered over a button. Thus it's hard to place buttons such that the player is unlikely to press the wrong button or "whiff" (press the dead space between buttons). Third-party clip-on controllers for Android phones exist, and they would partly solve this problem if developers could depend on the player owning one. But because the manufacturers of these controllers have not released sales numbers, developers cannot.