IMA for HTML5 games?

[Gaspy]

After reading through many materials, I am still confused about the best options to monetize a web HTML5 game.

From AdSense I can apply for AFG (AdSense for Games) and then after a series of questions I'm directed to IMA HTML5 SDK. However this SDK seems geared for video, not apps/games.

On the AdSense forum someone said that HTML5 apps should not use AdSense but AFG. On IMA forum I saw earlier discussions suggesting that IMA SDK is not for games and that games should use AdMob. But AdMob is for mobile only and they suggest that for websites I should use AdSense, so I'm back to square 1.

Regarding IMA, I have two conflicting views: "IMA is solely for integrating with video players, and does not support game environments" and "You certainly can use IMA to serve prerolls in your HTML5 games - AdSense for Games is a good choice".

So what should I do?

I made a single-page HTML5 game ported from Flash that runs in any modern browser (IE10+).

Should I use:

- AdSense with a banner next to it?

- AFG IMA HTML5 SDK?

If IMA is supported, can I use it for interstitials (like AdMob?). Is there any demo/tutorial for such a use case?

Thank you.

[Vu Chau (IMA SDK Team)]

Hi there,

So IMA does support monetizing HTML5 games.  The various statements you quoted each has some element of truth in it.  Historically there have been many who have found a way to do it, but we don't have any official docs for such integration.  And while IMA is indeed geared for video environments, you might be able to integrate it into your games with a few tweaks.  I won't comment on which server-side ad serving service (AdMob, AdSense, or AFG) to use here, and will only speak within the boundaries of IMA.

Let's say you are using the IMA HTML5 SDK, you can build a simple video player sufficient for playing ad.  Out of the box, IMA uses two video players - one for ad and one for content.  When you configure the SDK, don't pass in a URL for a content video (since you will only want to serve ads).  Once IMA is done playing the ad (i.e. when ALL_ADS_COMPLETED is fired), simply destroy the AdsManager, remove the video player element from the page, and make the transition to your game.  That use case will be the closest to an interstitial implementation on AdMob.

Vu Chau

IMA SDK Team

[Gaspy]

Many thanks for the info. I will look into it, should be relatively straightforward.