YouTube Playables monetization

Turn your Playables into revenue with YouTube's built-in monetization.

Understand ads-based monetization

YouTube offers built-in monetization functions for games, starting with ads. We support three ad opportunities with your games:

• Pre-roll ads: Ads shown while your game is initially loading
• Interstitial ads: Ads shown during a natural breakpoint within the game, such as level completion
• Rewarded ads: Ads that users opt into viewing in exchange for in-game items or experiences

A subset of users in Playables-eligible regions and platforms see these ad slots.

We'll keep you updated as we continue to enhance and expand ads-based monetization.

Integrate with ads-based monetization

YouTube handles pre-roll ads automatically—no integration work is required on your end.

While YouTube handles pre-roll ads automatically, you can implement interstitial and rewarded ads in about 5 minutes using the Playables SDK ads features.

Tip: Handle errors gracefully: Players will engage with your game across a wide range of devices and network conditions. Always implement fallback logic in your code to handle situations where an ad request fails.

Prerequisites

Before integrating:

• Ensure you have access to the Playables Test Suite to verify your integration.
• If your game uses TypeScript, ensure you have the latest type definitions to make integration easier.
• Check if code samples are available that demonstrate how to integrate with YouTube Playables SDK.

Integrate interstitial ads

Interstitial ads take just a minute to implement. Simply call requestInterstitialAd() at logical pauses in your gameplay, such as between levels, after a "Game Over" screen, or during mid-game loading sequences:

try {
  await ytgame.ads.requestInterstitialAd();
  // Ad request successful
} catch (error) {
  // Handle errors, retry logic, etc.
}

Integrate rewarded ads

Rewarded ads are equally quick to integrate. Call requestRewardedAd(id) whenever a player explicitly requests a rewarded ad.

You must select and pass a unique reward ID. You can hard-code these IDs directly into your game.

When creating your IDs, follow these requirements:

• Do not include any user data.
• Do use a readable string (e.g., "100-coins-reward-12") or a standard UUID (e.g., "21403813-2e22-4316-a8b2-7d4f52a6f6fb").

try {
  const rewardEarned =
    await ytgame.ads.requestRewardedAd('reward-id-123');
  if (rewardEarned) {
    // Handle the earned case.
  } else {
    // Handle the not earned case.
  }
} catch (error) {
  // Handle errors, retry logic, etc.
}

For more information, review the Playables SDK ads features for implementation details and additional examples.

Test ads-based monetization

Once you are ready, you can validate your integration using the Playables Test Suite. To learn how, follow the test suite guide.

Ads are also enabled for development and staging game releases, though they are limited to a subset of Playables-eligible regions and platforms.

Manage ads-based monetization

Once integrated, you can control some of these ad types for your game in the Playables Developer Portal if you need to toggle them off or on for testing or validation. These ad types default to "on".

Next steps

Revenue sharing pilot

We are in the initial phase of Playables monetization. To get early feedback, we are piloting revenue sharing with a select number of Playable creators. We aim to align with the broader YouTube monetization programs over time, enabling us to scale the number of creators who earn from Playables monetization. We will share more information as the program expands.

Join the community

Want to discuss monetization, get help with your integration, or give feedback? Join our Discord community.