It is not possible to interact with Unity Ads on Android TV with game pad or d-pad

Hello,
We have encountered the following odd behavior on Android TV with Unity Ads and Game Pad or D-Pad: When the ad is shown it is not possible in any way to click on any button on the ad - it is not possible to close the ad nor to install the advertised item. The only way to exit the ad screen is to use the back button on the controller to get back to the game. The problem is that this user experience is quite negative because the majority of the users are stuck on the ad screen and don't know what to do and also results in lost revenue because if somebody wants to install the advertised item it is not possible. It looks like the Unity Ads are designed to work only with touch devices and don't receive the focus for the controller on the Android TV. This has been reproduced with the Unity 5.4 and 5.5 releases. Has anyone seen a similar issue? Has this been fixed somehow? Is there any way to avoid this happening. Any help on this matter is highly appreciated

 

Hi @sferyx

Thank you for your message.

Unfortunately, we only currently support smartphones and tablets, not TVs or wearables. We are sorry that there has been an inconvenience caused

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

 

Hi @ClaireO,
Thank you for your quick reply - currently the same problem affects also iPad or other tablets when used with GamePad controller. I think the solution for this is quite simple - it is sufficient to specify a default selected button on the Ads window to get the focus and it will work as expected on all such devices. If your dev team makes some fixes for this we are ready to test it immediately. We have many ad views on Android TV and 0 installs because of this apparently easy to resolve problem.

 

@sferyx

Thank you for your comments and input. We greatly appreciate it.

I have passed on your message, and although compatibility is not in our immediate future, it is possible we will look into this in the future.

Thanks

 

Hello, I have the same behaviour on Android device.

This is a main issue. I have tested it on samsung 7 google phone on android 6 and 7, same as already reported in the thread

 

@Yuri1976 with a GamePad controller?

 

I know it's been nearly a year since the last post, but I think it's necessary to bump this thread again.

I developed an app using Unity and utilize Unity Ads. My app did NOT qualify for Google's "Designed for Android TV" because of an obvious silly glitch: the user CANNOT CLOSE the ad once the ad had finished playing!!!!!!!!

So I decided to test my app on an Android Emulator. By hitting the "Escape" key on the physical keyboard, I was able to close the ad when it finishes playing.
What it means: somewhere internally in Unity Ad API, you guys already took care of the action of closing the ad using the physical "Escape" key.

I really urge you guys to consider the "Cancel" virtual button as an alternative way to quit an ad. I know you said it before that Unity Ad doesn't support Android TV, but this silly glitch is the main reason why a lot of Unity-made app are not on Google TV! If this can be fixed, it would help a lot of people like me to publish their Unity app that are qualified for Android-TV.

If anyone has found a workaround, please kindly reply to this post. I highly appreciate your feedback!

 

Bumping for visibility. This is important.

 

this is still an issue...

Banner Ads and Video Ads only seem to work on with touch... when using a gamepad or dpad controller eg, nvidia shield remote you cannot skip or close video ads and if the user click on a banner advert it throws an invocation error.. when all unity sdk has to do is open up a webview to display the result of the banner click.. simples!!!

such simple development fixes too... i could personally fix this for you if the guys at development cant lol..

either way it would benefit both Unity Ads and developers if adverts were to be compatible with android tv / gamepads/ remotes..

 

This problem still persists. Making ad close and ad skip buttons selectable and clickable shouldn't be this hard. There are a lot of android tv users, they all complain about this situation.