Questions about using ads (admob) in a point and click game

GDevelop general
1

Hi everyone, I have some questions about using ads in games.
I have been making some “point and click” escape room games that I want to publish soon. I was thinking to sell them for around €3. Platforms that I had in mind to possibly sell on are itch.io , Steam, Google play store and the Microsoft store. I plan on starting on itch.io and see from there what platform to go to next.

Recently I started to question if a free version with ads is also an option. That is where I need your advice.

I saw that you can use admob to add adverts into your game I have some questions about that:

  1. Am I correct in understanding that admob only works with games that are published in the Google play store and the Apple store? So not on itch.io for instance?
  2. My games are in landscape mode with the dimensions 1920 x 1080. Will banner ads work with that? As in will the ads appear on the left and right side or will it appear on the top and bottom.
  3. Do the banner ads cover part of your game screen or do they appear on the outside?
  4. Does the use of the admob conditions and actions have consequences for when I also want to publish the game on platforms where ads are not possible?
  5. Is it useful to use admob ads in a “point and click” escape room game? Reward videos will not be useful because I don’t use any form of in game currency. The only place where reward videos to be applied would be for hints, but I was planning to put the hint on my website. I don’t think I will be able to put much interstitials in the game without it being an annoying hinderance, which would mean that banners are the main ad possibility.
  6. For those of you who have used admob in your games, what is your experience with it?
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did you already try gdvelop template for admob?

is it working ?

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Q1. Admob can only run if you’re running on a mobile device environment and also through an APK file.
Q4. You can pack your game with admob on Steam and you won’t run into any issue, because it won’t work anyway. It only works as an Apk.
Q5. That depends entirely on your strategy. Make reward ads to provide hints. No one will access your website with their phone while playing your game on their phone. Also, don’t need to tell people there’s hint on your website.
Q6. Be sneaky and have a good strategy so the player has to watch your ads. The popular strategy in most casual mobile games is making certain stages extremely hard, so the player wants to keep hitting the hint button.