AppLovin will be caught in up in an ad fraud scandal within two years. I can't share the data but we've stopped spending any money through them due to obvious fraud. Previously we were spending ~20k/day with them.
To be fair, unity isn't clean either. For over a month in Q1 of this year they had a whole lot of ads where the "x" button to close was actually covered by the ad, so ~50% of ads were being clicked when a user wanted to close them.
Isn't it standard practice to give the X button on ads a near-impossible-to-tap hitbox?
I'm amazed there's still so much money in mobile ads, as the games/apps that use them have become so obnoxious that I've got no desire to go near them any more.
It's moved on from 'annoying by somewhat honest' ads, to completely fake gameplay footage, and ads for real-money gambling in games that kids may be playing.
And the model of having thousands of short-lived/unprofitable games pushing ever more players towards the same few aggressively-monetised megahits doesn't seem like it should be sustainable.
Is it legally fraud of a ad SDK uses these kinda of tricks? I encounter these kinds of tricks in many of the games my daughter plays on the iPad and hate it immensely, but it seems everybody gets away with it ...
Are there any laws that should prevent these kinds of dark patterns?
Hard to definitely label it as a fraud, because from my experience mobile advertising SDKs tend to have a lot of bugs in their presentation layer, and not all of them may benefit ad provider.
If you are spending thousands per day you should be backing out real time ROI/LTV which eliminates nearly all potential fraud.
The performance ad market moved from pay per impression to pay per click and then finally to pay per conversion years ago. Pay per conversion is the foundation of Facebook's lookalike audiences and Google's long-tail search campaign tools. When I see problematic campaigns these days it's usually because the media buyer hasn't set up their funnels/KPIs correctly.
Unreal Engine is redefining game engines into something capable of creating both movies and games, and pushing the state of the art to somewhere amazing.
Whilst..... Unity is laying off people and leaning into low quality advertising.
It's weird also that the big players like Microsoft didn't swing in to buy Unity and do the same thing that Unreal is doing.
It's like the future of high end media is being created in this space and Unity is tossing away their second place position entirely.
But in practice they can't do any acquisitions anymore because of antitrust. Two recent examples:
- Meta purchased a VR fitness app maker called Within, and the FTC is now blocking the sale.
- Meta purchased Giphy years ago, and the UK antitrust authority now wants the sale unwound even though Giphy did no business in the UK.
Multi-billion dollar acquisitions of public companies like Unity are out of the question for Meta because they're subject to a much higher standard than anyone else. Microsoft can probably get away with buying Activision Blizzard while Meta can't buy one insignificant VR game.
Unity is still the engine for the vast majority of 2D and 3D games, especially VR. It feels like each has filled their niche well, and they are now bifurcating to target different audiences.
It doesn't seem to me like Unreal will ever capture the majority of the market, unless their tactics change.
There were alleged rumors that Microsoft did try to acquire Unity at one point. It takes two to tango and the allegation was always that Unity wasn't interested in selling to Microsoft. The impression that I have is that Unity didn't get to this "weird ad company with a game engine byproduct" by accident, they seem to have had board members where this was their exit in mind all along and the (weird, gross) direction they intended to move the company.
The title is too simplified. The merger/acquisition will create a new entity in which Unity will own 55% of the total shares and 49% of voting shares. Unity CEO John Riccitiello will become CEO of the combined business, while AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi will take the COO role.
This is basically a desperate play by AppLovin to prevent Unity from acquiring ironSource (its main competitor) and cutting it out of the mobile ads business.
I just commented about this. I get the impression large investors are using other lesser known companies to make acquisitions probably to conceal financial records somehow. It's like a shell corp but one that is legitimate enough to not be called a shell corp outright.
For those discussing the dollar amounts, it's really just a merger with AppLovin as the dominant partner [1]. It's an all-stock deal, so I don't think there's any need for external money.
It is surprising they didn't, and while I am glad they didn't for Unity's sake, it feels like Unity is about to get shagged anyway. There are sharks circling their value propositions to developers, and they're spending their energy on acquisitions that demonstrate their focus is shifting away from those same developers. Who wants to commit a multi-year, company wide project to an engine with lagging technical offerings AND a faltering mission statement?
The US government won't let FB acquire any company that generates a headline when an acquisition is announced. We are in a period of government-incentivized small-ness.
I haven't coded anything in Unity in a few years, but I did, and others I know well did. They ran into the problem that Unity wants its resources to all be defined at compile time. A metaverse is totally data driven (at least should be), so Unity and a metaverse are not compatible.
AppLovin and Unity has a similar market cap, making this merger almost equal in power - which typically leads to an uphill battle in management of who has the power.
This first and foremost blocks the IronSource merger, and it's probably something that Unity management don't want to do. But the board must consider it or otherwise it will suffer hell of litigation from shareholders.
It's super interesting to see where this all leads.
Why do I get a sense that some of these companies making acquisitions are just fronts for acquisitions. Regardless, personally I see a lot more value in Unity than Twitter.
[+] [-] soared|3 years ago|reply
To be fair, unity isn't clean either. For over a month in Q1 of this year they had a whole lot of ads where the "x" button to close was actually covered by the ad, so ~50% of ads were being clicked when a user wanted to close them.
[+] [-] bluescrn|3 years ago|reply
I'm amazed there's still so much money in mobile ads, as the games/apps that use them have become so obnoxious that I've got no desire to go near them any more.
It's moved on from 'annoying by somewhat honest' ads, to completely fake gameplay footage, and ads for real-money gambling in games that kids may be playing.
And the model of having thousands of short-lived/unprofitable games pushing ever more players towards the same few aggressively-monetised megahits doesn't seem like it should be sustainable.
[+] [-] wsc981|3 years ago|reply
Are there any laws that should prevent these kinds of dark patterns?
[+] [-] viktorcode|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anthropodie|3 years ago|reply
Even Android has patterns like these
[+] [-] nugget|3 years ago|reply
The performance ad market moved from pay per impression to pay per click and then finally to pay per conversion years ago. Pay per conversion is the foundation of Facebook's lookalike audiences and Google's long-tail search campaign tools. When I see problematic campaigns these days it's usually because the media buyer hasn't set up their funnels/KPIs correctly.
[+] [-] faraaz98|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foolfoolz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strikelaserclaw|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewstuart|3 years ago|reply
Unreal Engine is redefining game engines into something capable of creating both movies and games, and pushing the state of the art to somewhere amazing.
Whilst..... Unity is laying off people and leaning into low quality advertising.
It's weird also that the big players like Microsoft didn't swing in to buy Unity and do the same thing that Unreal is doing.
It's like the future of high end media is being created in this space and Unity is tossing away their second place position entirely.
[+] [-] pavlov|3 years ago|reply
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/13/facebook-mulled-multi-bill...
But in practice they can't do any acquisitions anymore because of antitrust. Two recent examples:
- Meta purchased a VR fitness app maker called Within, and the FTC is now blocking the sale.
- Meta purchased Giphy years ago, and the UK antitrust authority now wants the sale unwound even though Giphy did no business in the UK.
Multi-billion dollar acquisitions of public companies like Unity are out of the question for Meta because they're subject to a much higher standard than anyone else. Microsoft can probably get away with buying Activision Blizzard while Meta can't buy one insignificant VR game.
[+] [-] gibolt|3 years ago|reply
It doesn't seem to me like Unreal will ever capture the majority of the market, unless their tactics change.
[+] [-] WorldMaker|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MikusR|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nottorp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] password4321|3 years ago|reply
dupe
2022-08-09 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32397510 (AppLovin offers to buy Unity Software in $17.5 bln deal)
> For people wondering what happens with the ironSource deal, this bid is meant to derail it.
see also
2022-07-14 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32097752 (Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO)
2022-07-14 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32096371 (Unity is acquiring a company who made a malware installer)
2022-07-13 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32081051 (Unity merges with IronSource)
[+] [-] matheusmoreira|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cowpig|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paxys|3 years ago|reply
This is basically a desperate play by AppLovin to prevent Unity from acquiring ironSource (its main competitor) and cutting it out of the mobile ads business.
[+] [-] pigtailgirl|3 years ago|reply
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/15/twilio-acquires-email-api-...
[+] [-] maxerickson|3 years ago|reply
This article lays it out pretty clearly:
https://www.barrons.com/articles/applovin-unity-software-tak...
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] encryptluks2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bpodgursky|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/applovin-submits-bid-to-bu...
[+] [-] ztrww|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _jezell_|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ehnto|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MikeTheRocker|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/13/facebook-mulled-multi-bill...
[+] [-] colinmhayes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seibelj|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phendrenad2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cma|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] BatFastard|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pclmulqdq|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snird|3 years ago|reply
AppLovin and Unity has a similar market cap, making this merger almost equal in power - which typically leads to an uphill battle in management of who has the power.
This first and foremost blocks the IronSource merger, and it's probably something that Unity management don't want to do. But the board must consider it or otherwise it will suffer hell of litigation from shareholders.
It's super interesting to see where this all leads.
[+] [-] uomo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] encryptluks2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] robotburrito|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sprkwd|3 years ago|reply