Following news of AppLovin attempting to undercut the Unity/Ironsource merger and acquire competitor Unity, industry experts from a range of companies have provided their thoughts on the deals – which one makes most sense and what would either mean for the industry? Here’s what the industry is saying so far…
James Draper, founder and CEO of in-game advertising business Bidstack, believes that the deal will make the new combined entity an attractive prospect for both developers and shareholders.
“This is a fascinating move – not least because it puts a question mark against Unity’s acquisition of ironSource. If the Unity and Applovin deal goes ahead, it will supercharge the UnityAds business and revenue potential for game developers, while creating an immensely powerful combined company that will be appealing to shareholders,” said Draper. “AppLovin has acquired-in content (game studios/games), which drove up its gross margins as the external pay-aways were eradicated and targeted advertising content to its consumers, the gamers, became easier to control as it owned the gamers’ data, as both studio and adtech provider.”
“This deal also provides greater momentum to in-gameplay advertising as a category, where ad placements will be combined with existing ad formats and create even greater always-on revenue for game creators and publishers. With AppLovin, Unity becomes an even more attractive engine to build out on for game developers large and small, with such easy access to monetisation and revenues. We’re interested to see how this all plays out.”
Arkadiy Kuznetsov, CMO of developer and publisher Gismart, was more hesitant to call the deal a wise move.
“It appears as if AppLovin is attempting to build an “all-in-one” ecosystem, having recently acquired Adjust and now looking to acquire Unity. In my opinion, it all leads to establishing some kind of monopoly within the market, which might potentially negatively affect traffic acquisition and monetization in the long run,” said Kuznetsov. “The monopolised market will also obviously have its pros, yet it’s always best to have a healthy competition, driving the industry forward”.
We will continue to provide more commentary on this developing story as we receive the opinions of industry insiders…
N.B. We listed both AppLovin and IronSource among our top game makers last year. We’ll be unveiling our list for 2022 in the coming month during Gamescom.
