// transmission.log

Data Feed

> Intercepted signals from across the network — tech, engineering, and dispatches from the void.

1695 transmissions indexed — page 31 of 85

[ 2025 ]

20 entries
601|openai.com

Supporting sellers with enhanced product listings

Mercari leverages GPT-4o mini and GPT-4 to streamline selling, enhance product listings, and boost sales, transforming the online marketplace with features like AI Listing Support and Mercari AI Assistant.

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602|openai.com

OpenAI GPT-4.5 System Card

We’re releasing a research preview of OpenAI GPT‑4.5, our largest and most knowledgeable model yet.

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603|openai.com

Building an autonomous financial analyst with o1 and o3-mini

Endex builds the future of financial analysis, powered by OpenAI’s reasoning models.

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604|openai.com

Deep research System Card

This report outlines the safety work carried out prior to releasing deep research including external red teaming, frontier risk evaluations according to our Preparedness Framework, and an overview of the mitigations we built in to address key risk areas.

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605|openai.com

Estonia and OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to schools nationwide

Estonia and OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to schools nationwide. OpenAI will work with the Estonian Government to provide students and teachers in the secondary school system with access to ChatGPT Edu.

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606|blog.unity.com

Cryptical Path: When developing a roguelike feels like playing one

In this guest post, Old Skull Games share how they lost, learned, and iterated their way to a unique gameplay experience.Game development, much like a roguelike, is about iteration. You push forward, thinking you’ve found the right path – only to hit a wall, fail, and start over, a little wiser than before.Our journey in developing this roguelike dungeon crawler was no different. Our initial focus was on crafting a responsive and rewarding gameplay experience, but we soon realized that strong 3Cs (character, controls, camera) alone weren’t enough. What Cryptical Path lacked was a clear identity – something that truly set it apart. We were struggling to find a unique element that aligned with our original vision.After months of production, we had to make a drastic pivot – all in pursuit of that elusive "one more run" magic. Here’s what we learned along the way.Run #1: The illusion of a good startLike many roguelike adventurers, we began our journey with confidence. The game was born from an internal jam at Old Skull Games, where we created a universe we loved, and paired it with a genre that could attract core gamers. It was at this moment that the concept became a dungeon crawler with tight controls and great game feel.The first few months felt productive. We built a solid foundation, with:A responsive combat systemA cool environmentA basic item systemA complete gameplay loopBut, much like an overconfident first run in Cryptical Path, these preparations weren’t quite enough because of other choices we’d made.Run #2: Searching for a differentiator that wasn’t thereWith Cryptical Path’s core mechanics in place, we were asked: What makes this roguelike different? We needed something original to set the game apart but soon realized the concept lacked a truly new idea.Our first approach was a system of affinities with light and shadow specializations that players could build around. It sounded great on paper, but it was hard to prototype and envision fully without producing an excessive amount of content. Looking at this initial idea more critically, we realized it lacked depth and didn’t really have the game-changing element we were looking for.We sought feedback from publishers and industry peers. Their verdict? “You have a great game feel, but it doesn’t stand out.”That was our first real death. We had built our run around a system that didn’t work. Time to restart.Run #3: Defining a clear visionOne of the biggest mistakes in game development – especially when making a roguelike – is thinking that adding mechanics equals adding depth. We were stacking systems on top of each other without asking ourselves the most important question:"What problem are we solving for players?"To answer this, we organized focused brainstorming sessions and workshops until we generated new ideas. One question that we always kept in mind was, “Would my favorite roguelite be better with this feature?”That’s when we had a breakthrough: One of the biggest sources of frustration in roguelikes is the lack of control. Players love the chaos, but they also crave agency.We realized that being at the mercy of RNG and being forced onto a preset path – often receiving unneeded resources and rewards – was a pain point. What if, instead of just reacting to a procedurally generated world, players could shape it themselves?This was the moment we found our true USP: allowing players to place their own rooms and create their own path. This would give them more control while preserving the core challenge of the genre.Run #4: Iterating until it hurtsLike any good roguelike, the real work begins after the first few runs. Now that we had our concept for Cryptical Path, we had to make it actually work.Excited by the idea, we jumped straight into prototyping the flow of a run. Instead of diving into code and refactors, we took a more hands-on approach. Using a poker set, we turned cards into rooms and difficulty levels, chips into currencies, and dice into randomness. And just like that, we brought our vision to life: Crafting a run that wasn’t just fun, but truly unique in every experience. This helped us validate the theoretical idea before committing to implementation – and it worked. Players enjoyed planning their route as much as playing through it.Now came the real challenge: Integrating this concept into our existing platformer mechanics. To do this, we:Started over and revamped all the level design work.Built and discarded over ten different prototypes for room placement.Experimented with different ways to force players to engage with the system instead of bypassing it.At one point, the game was almost unrecognizable from our original vision. And that was a good thing. While we preserved the core game feel we loved, we were able to refine and enhance several other aspects.Run #5: The hardest pivotJust when we thought we had everything figured out, we hit another wall. Our external playtests confirmed what we had begun to suspect and could not ignore anymore:"We love the mechanics… But visually, this game looks like it’s for kids."Another death screen.We had been so focused on gameplay that we neglected the game’s cohesion. A roguelike needs a strong theme that reinforces its mechanics. Our previous art style didn’t sell the fantasy of dungeon-building. It wasn’t just a cosmetic issue, it was an identity crisis. One reason was that the art direction had been set up at a time when the game’s vision was totally different.And so, we rebooted again:We scrapped the old art direction and character designs.We redesigned the entire game’s theme around the idea of The Architect, a figure who constructs their own dungeon.We made sure the board-building mechanic was the heart of every gameplay decision.This was our final boss moment. We had finally found a direction that worked.Run #6: Highway to heavenNow that we had found our way, we were mastering the dungeon. Content creation became faster and more seamless – whether it was items, enemies, levels, or anything else the game needed. With every team member aligned to our now fully realized vision, everyone was able to create more cohesive, meaningful, and relevant work for the game.No longer drifting off course, we were finally rowing together toward a common goal.Five key takeaways for developersLooking back on Cryptical Path’s development, here’s what we wish we had known at the start:A strong USP isn’t just a cool idea – it’s better to think of it as a solution to a common player frustration.Having a clear vision is key, and going full steam ahead before that is a bad idea.Adding mechanics isn’t the same as adding depth. If a feature doesn’t reinforce the game’s core experience, cut it.Cohesion is everything. Gameplay, theme, and visuals must tell the same story.Don’t hesitate to scrap months of work. Keeping unnecessary features will only slow you down.Much like roguelike players, game developers need to embrace failure as part of the process. Every mistake, every bad prototype, and every frustrating pivot brought us closer to the game we were meant to make.We can’t wait for players to take their own first run at Cryptical Path, available now on PC.Check out Cryptical Path and other Made With Unity games on our new Steam Curator page. Explore more inspiring stories from creators on Unity's Resources page.

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607|blog.unity.com

Raph Koster on alternative funding and why Playable Worlds is “kick finishing” Stars Reach

Raph Koster has never been one to shy away from an ambitious vision. With his studio, Playable Worlds, the designer behind iconic games like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies is hard at work on Stars Reach, a sprawling, shardless MMORPG that aspires to be nothing less than a living, breathing world. This week, Playable Worlds is hosting a Kickstarter fundraising event to get this vision to the finish line.We sat down with Raph to talk about Kickstarter, why the studio’s turning to alternative funding, and what he’s learned about doing it right.Why did you decide to do a Kickstarter campaign, rather than turning to more traditional fundraising methods?Raph Koster: Well, as everyone knows, the industry’s going through a pretty tough time right now. There’s layoffs everywhere. Everybody’s watching the news. That also means that investment money is harder to come by. We’ve been backed by investors throughout the five plus years of our existence. In fact, we’ve raised nearly $40 million from investors, which is how we’ve built such a big and ambitious project.But in recent times, it’s harder to come by. We continue to take investment. In fact, we’re in the middle of finalizing some investment right now, but now is the time where in order to go out there, we really need to demonstrate to those investors that there is market validation that people want this game. And so by going out to Kickstarter and essentially pre-selling access to the game, it’s a way for us to start showing that this is something people want. That’s really smart. Do you think that that would work for a smaller studio too?I think the classic big mistake that people make with video game Kickstarters is that they use it to start projects. And what we’re doing is really more – people keep saying it’s more like a “kick finisher,” right?So we all know in video game development, schedules are hard. Finding the funds is hard. It can be difficult to land on time, predict your budget accurately and so on. When people set up Kickstarters for development projects that are just getting started, that can be a pretty high risk. And we’ve seen a lot of them not be successful at delivering because of that.I think this can work for a smaller studio, but I would urge everybody to get most of the game done so that they have much more predictability around what it is that they’re promising and delivering. In our case, what we’re going to do is say, “If you back this Kickstarter, you get in to play the game now,” right, because it is already playable, it’s already in live testing, and we’ll let people in immediately? So I think it’s viable, but you have to have the right promise to the customer.I was wondering about that – what do donors get, exactly? Access to everything in the game?Yeah, that’s right. We are currently doing that via tester signups, and there’s been a queue. We’ve actually had tens of thousands of people in line to get into the test already. So the core of the Kickstarter offerings is that if you back us, you will be able to play, starting immediately, all the way through the testing phase, which means the servers won’t be up all the time, but you’ll have daily contact with the dev team, you’ll be able to give your input as features are developed, just participate because we’re in there all the time talking with our testers. Play through that entire period and also get to play during early access.So we’re going ahead and giving people to the early access period once that opens. And the higher up you go in the packages, it’ll include more than that, of course. There’ll be game time once the game launches, and of course there’s all kinds of fun skins and perks and whatnot that are in the various tiers as well.Have you ever done this kind of Kickstarter before or is this a first for everyone?This is a first for me. We do have folks on the team who’ve done Kickstarters before, but I was an advisor to companies that did Kickstarters, but I’ve never done one myself. So lots of learning. Any learning that you can pass along? I think everyone out there is wondering, “How can I do this? How do you make a game in 2025? How do you fund a game in 2025?”Build up your community in advance I think is a key learning. You want to make sure that before you even start this process, you already have a sizable community that you can speak to. You can’t build one on the fly during the Kickstarter. You have to come to the Kickstarter with one already built, and then you can grow it, right? And typically they do grow during the Kickstarter.So you want to be piling up followers in advance is the key thing. Get them signed up to be notified by the Kickstarter. Planning out your tiers is super important, figuring out what kinds of things you can offer. In our genre, the MMO players are very, very unhappy about pay-to-win kinds of approaches, so it’s very important to try to plan rewards that are focused on cosmetics or don’t provide a real significant advantage to the player in a way that makes the game unfair. So that’s a really important thing for MMOs in particular.And I think probably for any competitive game, you don’t want to be selling advantage. Other than that, you’ve got to be in touch with the community, with your testers, with your players throughout the process. We shared our high-level plans for tiers and rewards with our testers, then went back and adjusted what we were planning based on the feedback they gave us. We’ll be rolling the details to them this weekend in advance, and we’ll be making last-minute edits again based on what they say, because ultimately you’re making this for them. It’s an offering for them, and you want them to be excited about it, and you want it to be something that they’ll want, right? You’re asking them to come along on the journey, so they should have significant input.Check out the Stars Reach Kickstarter campaign to learn more about the game and get a sneak peek at the action.

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608|openai.com

Uber enables outstanding on-demand experiences with AI

A conversation with Jai Malkani, Head of AI and Product, Customer Obsession at Uber.

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609|blog.unity.com

With Momotaro Dentetsu World, Konami brings a beloved 36-year-old franchise to Unity

Momotaro Dentetsu is an iconic Japanese franchise featuring boardgame-style play where players travel to acquire properties and build wealth. The first game in this beloved series was released in 1988, and more than 20 titles have been added since.Momotaro Dentetsu World, the latest iteration in the franchise, was released a little over a year ago. It was the first Momotaro Dentetsu console game made with Unity, so we sat down with Noriaki Okamura, the senior producer of the franchise for Konami Digital Entertainment. In this Q&A, he explains why they brought their game to Unity to, as he puts it, “pass this franchise on to the creators of the future.”Why did you want to add another development team to this game series?To pass on the Momotaro Dentetsu franchise to the next generation of developers. The first Momotaro Dentetsu game was released in 1988. Since then, we have released more than 20 works in about 35 years. Of course, the fundamentals such as game systems and game balance are well established, and we’ve used these fundamentals to create new titles. It’s the “secret recipe” of the franchise.It was Mr. Sakuma, the original creator, who developed the secret recipe over the years. As the game creator, Mr. Sakuma has spent a huge amount of time creating each game based on a secret recipe of his own making, repeating detailed adjustments each time, and that’s the development style of the classic series.But even if there’s a secret recipe, the same quality can’t necessarily be guaranteed if creators other than Mr. Sakuma imitate this approach. For this reason, we felt we needed to establish a development team that could produce titles in the Momotaro Dentetsu franchise, consisting mainly of young developers who would be the next generation of leaders in the franchise, without being dependent on Mr. Sakuma.The director of Momotaro Dentetsu World is Mr. Shoji Masuda, who worked as assistant supervisor on the classic series for many years. Mr. Masuda is a veteran game creator who said that he took on directing this title to unpack the classic series’ development methods and hand them over to younger creators.In other words, Momotaro Dentetsu World passes on the secret recipe that Mr. Sakuma created over its 35-year history to the next generation of creators, to rebuild the secret recipe in them so that the franchise can continue 30 or 50 years into the future.Momotaro Dentetsu World is the first console game title to be developed using Unity. Why did you decide to use Unity?Looking to the future, I felt that we needed a development environment that would be easy for anyone to create in. I also wanted to create the game in a game engine so that it would be easier to port to a variety of platforms.For example, right now there are no plans to develop a mobile app version of Momotaro Dentetsu World, but since it’s being developed in Unity, it could be released in the future without significant resources. So I think if we were to consider developing the mobile app version, it would also lower the decision barrier for us.Please tell us about any Unity features that you have particularly used or found useful in your production.The first thing I can mention is ScriptableObjects. Adding this feature to the database has made it much easier to manage large numbers of assets, such as stations and cards, and the parameters associated with them.The next one that comes to mind is the C# Job System. The game has a magnifying glass function that allows the player to see detailed information about each station. When the player uses this function, many objects are projected onto the screen, and this caused a high rendering load, which was a concern. So we implemented multi-threaded code for this game using the C# Job System to stabilize the frame rate. We also benefited from the fact that Unity allows detailed animation settings using ST values for material colors and textures, so we were able to express the sea as we imagined it at a low cost.Others that helped us save time were the capability to access the model being previewed, extract the FBX, import it into Maya, and adjust its position and size in Maya, as well as the capability to preview and instantly review the prefab as it was being created.Looking back on the production of this work, what were the advantages of using Unity?I think the advantage of Unity is that it is widely used by many developers. Most of the staff working on this project had experience in Unity development in the past, so it was a great advantage that we could communicate with them very easily.Now that Momotaro Dentetsu can be developed with Unity, you can flexibly develop various publications in the future, right?Yes. This franchise has a long history. As mentioned earlier, the first title in the franchise was released in 1988, so the secret recipe passed down from generation to generation is not even developed in C++, but in C.We have created franchise titles while utilizing and improving upon this secret recipe, and now we have chosen to break down and port it to Unity. The reasons for this and the benefits are as I have explained, but we don't believe that we have yet built a robust system that can be utilized even 50 years from now.

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610|openai.com

Introducing the SWE-Lancer benchmark

Can frontier LLMs earn $1 million from real-world freelance software engineering?

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611|blog.unity.com

How Boss Fight brought Squid Game: Unleashed to life

The potential for transmedia success with a strong IP feels infinite. Case in point: In December, Boss Fight, a Netflix Games Studio, released the mobile game Squid Game: Unleashed in advance of the second season of the powerhouse series, and it reached the No.1 Top Free Games spot in 107 countries on the App Store.This multiplayer party royale offers dynamic, player-driven challenges where alliances, betrayals, and survival instincts are put to the test in ever-changing, high-stakes games inspired by classic childhood activities. Players are invited to immerse themselves in this world and are kept on edge by having to make strategic decisions with psychological depth and potentially dire consequences.We sat down with Todd Batty, director of game development at Boss Fight, a Netflix Games Studio, to learn how the team took a beloved series known for its tension and excitement and successfully turned it into a thrilling mobile game.Let’s start from the beginning. How did this project come about?As soon as Boss Fight became a part of Netflix, we started ideating around what we wanted to make next. We’re all huge supporters of Squid Game and we heard over and over from fans that they all wanted to see what it would be like to try their hand at the infamous squid games.From that point, there were lots of discussions about how to bring this to life in-game. We were drawn to the party royale genre because it not only allows players to experience Red Light, Green Light, Dalgona, Mingle, and more, but it also gives fans the chance to play with or against their friends as opposed to a single-player narrative game.When you began developing the game, what was the team hoping to achieve?Our goal was to build a game that was representative of the Squid Game universe, but in a way that felt fresh and approachable. While the show has a dark, high-stakes atmosphere, we wanted to create a game that kept that competitive energy but was a bit lighter in nature so that people could feel comfortable being immersed in our world for long periods of time. In short, we wanted to make dying… fun!What were key elements from the television series that had to be included in the game?The most important aspects to retain were the distinct visual style and the core premise of competing in children’s games with life-or-death consequences. It was important that we put the player into the games as a competitor. These elements define Squid Game at the broadest level and had to be an essential part of the experience.What steps did you take to incorporate them?The game was in conceptual development for quite a while before full production began. During that time, we immersed ourselves in the world of Squid Game and spent a lot of time refining both the art direction and gameplay mechanics.The challenge was to create a game that felt exciting and social while avoiding going too deep into the heavier, more sinister elements of the show. We wanted to strike a balance – keeping enough of Squid Game’s tone to feel authentic while making sure the game could be enjoyed regularly by millions of players.At Netflix, since we’re making series, films, and games under the same roof, we were able to collaborate with the Squid Game series team earlier in the process than most adaptations are able to. We got scripts early, visited the creative team and sets in Korea, and even tapped into other expansions of the squid universe, like Squid Game: The Challenge. This all resulted in a more authentic experience that could launch right alongside season two of the series for a better fan experience.Getting deeper into the game’s development, how did the team make the most out of Unity?Boss Fight has been working with Unity for many years and has a long history of shipping products with it. For this game, we used the Universal Render Pipeline (URP), Shader Graph, and the Cinemachine camera system. There was also ProBuilder for environment prototyping, TextMeshPro for fonts, the Input System for gamepad support, and Timeline for cutscenes and visual effects.When it came to animation, we connected Playables in data evaluation trees to create level flyovers, and we worked with NVIDIA PhysX to trigger ragdoll physics.Additionally, using Nested Prefabs and Variants allowed the team to work asynchronously in scenes or other prefabs in our source control. We employed Unity Search for more detailed searches and for finding prefabs that were missing required components or had incorrect tagsFor performance optimization, the Adaptive Performance and Quality settings were essential for us to hit device tiers, FPS, and thermal goals. The Frame Debugger helped us find draw calls, sneaky extra cameras, disabled prefab layout objects, and canvas layout and Particle System issues. The Memory Profiler’s snapshot comparison was also very beneficial for finding excessive string and object allocations.Overall, I highly recommend taking part in a Unity Project Review. It offers further insights and best practices to improve your game.What were some unexpected lessons learned and opportunities granted during development?The inclusion of weapons, which is somewhat new to this particular genre, had a more profound impact on gameplay than I think even we expected. Baseball bats led to snowballs and shields, which led to mystery boxes, and ultimately to the ability to goaltend from the Finish area by killing people still trying to finish the game. This all felt particularly relevant and appropriate for a Squid Game recreation.We were also extremely excited to be able to work in a couple of firsts for Netflix – things that only we can do. We made the game available to everyone for free with no ads or in-app purchases. By removing the need for a Netflix subscription, players were able to invite their friends and express their fandom at the height of the series’ popularity, with or without a membership.Additionally, since Netflix offers series, films, and games on the same service, we were able to automatically give players in-game rewards for every episode of season two they completed. Within hours of the series debut, we saw fans flaunting their exclusive ‘binge watcher’ skin, indicating they had already watched the show and came back to the game to play.Now that the game is out, what should fans of the series expect?We’re all about bringing the high-stakes thrill of Squid Game into a fun, fast-paced, and socially unpredictable experience. Every round should feel intense, forcing players to make split-second decisions in chaotic mini-games.At the same time, it’s super easy to jump into whether you're a casual player or a hardcore competitor. There’s something for everyone. And the social element? Huge. Alliances will form, trust will be tested, and betrayal is always on the table.We’re also in it for the long haul – expect new challenges, events, and surprises to keep things fresh and exciting.Based on the rise of transmedia success, what is your advice for developers looking to turn a television series or movie into a video game?The key to adapting a video game to any type of IP, from a television series to a sporting league to a movie or comic book, is to figure out what the must-have elements are for the biggest fans of that IP. You need to deliver on those as perfectly as possible and then let everything else go so you still have some room for creative license. If you don’t draw that line with intent somewhere, it will inevitably get drawn for you somewhere unintended when you run out of time.Want to learn more about performance optimization? Check out the Optimize your game performance for mobile, XR, and the web in Unity e-book.

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612|openai.com

OpenAI and Guardian Media Group launch content partnership

OpenAI and Guardian Media Group announce content partnership to bring Guardian news content to ChatGPT.

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613|openai.com

Fanatics Betting and Gaming uses AI to focus on the big picture

A conversation with Andrea Ellis, Chief Financial Officer of Fanatics Betting and Gaming.

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614|openai.com

Wayfair is shaping the future of retail with AI

A conversation with Fiona Tan, Chief Technology Officer of Wayfair.

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615|openai.com

Using OpenAI o1 for financial analysis

Rogo scales AI-driven financial research with OpenAI o1

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616|blog.unity.com

Rewarded ad systems: Are they right for your game and how to implement them

It’s not a secret that as mobile games have become increasingly hybridized, both in terms of their monetization and gameplay, retention has become the new golden KPI. In order to effectively monetize in this new hybrid ecosystem, publishers and studios need players who will stay and play for longer. And so, creating a positive user ad experience for players has become increasingly urgent.One approach that has gained traction is the implementation of rewarded ads.WTF are rewarded adsRewarded ads offer players the option to engage in exchange for in-game rewards. These ad units have proven to be a powerful tool for revenue generation and player engagement, offering developers and players a win-win scenario. Developers are able to monetize their games with ads and players are given an opt-in ad experience that doesn’t disturb gameplay.Most players want to engage with rewarded ads. According to the 2023 Unity Gaming Report, while only 3% of players convert to paying for in-app purchases (IAP)* in successful free to play mobile titles, over 60% are interested in engaging with rewarded ad placements**. These two groups are also non-exclusive, as an IAP purchasing player may also engage with rewarded ads too.Are rewarded ads right for your game?While there’s clear benefits to rewarded ad units, before jumping into implementation it’s important to consider if a game can support a rewarded ad system.Some important questions to ask include:Does the game have a form of in-app currency and economy?Does the game offer power-ups, boosters, or consumables that players would want to access?Does the game have an in-game store where players can spend their earned in-game currency for boosters or cosmetics?If the answer to all three of these questions is yes, then your game can support rewarded ad units.What you need to implement rewarded ads1. The right ad partners and infrastructure:A lot of the success of your rewarded ad strategy will depend on finding the right ad partners and infrastructure for your game that offer both scalability and ease of integration. Partners like Unity Ads and mediation solutions like Unity LevelPlay can provide the flexibility of supporting both ads and IAPs to maximize revenue potential.2. Strategic placements to ensure optimal player engagement:Properly placing ads is crucial for maintaining player engagement. Utilize data insights, like engagement rates by placement location (for example, such as after or between levels), to determine the most effective spots. Timing is also key; rewarded ad placements should be when players are most incentivized to engage, like when a player has run out of in-game currency or retries and is otherwise unable to continue playing.Source: Unity Mobile Growth Monetization Report 2024, Chart 3.43. Clear communication of the value proposition:Players need to understand what they gain by watching a rewarded ad. Clear signposting and messaging should be used to effectively convey the benefits to the player, increasing the likelihood of player engagement. For example, if a rewarded ad is offering a player a boost or a retry in exchange for watching an ad, the player needs to understand that this will help them extend their game session or or speed up their progression.Source: Unity Mobile Growth Monetization Report 2024, Chart 3.6How to measure your rewarded ads’ performanceAfter implementing rewarded ad units, monitor the performance of them using A/B testing tools like Unity Analytics. You should be looking out for KPIs like Average Revenue Per Daily Active User (ARPDAU) from IAP, the retention rate, and the engagement rate. It’s important to establish a control group to allow for accurate comparison against a baseline. If players enjoy the new feature, you should see an increase in engagement first, followed by an increase in playtime and retention, and ultimately a boost in player LTV.A win-winRewarded ads offer a balanced approach that respects player choice while improving revenue generation, creating a cycle that benefits both developers and players. As the mobile gaming industry evolves, rewarded ads will likely play a pivotal role in creating both engaging and profitable gaming experiences in the near and long term.*Source: Unity IAP Plug-in, Games that made over $10k USD in 2023, players that installed in 2023**Source: Unity Gaming Report 2023, chart 4.4

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617|openai.com

OpenAI partners with Schibsted Media Group

OpenAI and Schibsted Media Group announce content partnership to bring Guardian news and archive content to ChatGPT.

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618|openai.com

Introducing the Intelligence Age

We aired our first-ever television ad during the Super Bowl to pique people’s curiosity and help us all realize how AI can open up new possibilities for us, create more fulfillment in our lives, and make us more productive, just as all the tools that came before AI did for those who came before us.

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619|blog.unity.com

The power of Q1: how to unlock maximum scale with on-device advertising in 2025

When it comes to maximizing your app’s performance, there is no better time than the present. In the first quarter of 2024, users spent $15.5 billion in app, a 19.4% rise year over year (Sensor Tower). Momentum in the app market is growing, and the best time to take advantage of it is the very beginning of the year: Q1.Let’s explore why Q1 is a prime time for growth and how you can leverage on-device advertising during this pivotal time to position your app for maximum success.Major spikes in phone purchasesFresh off the holiday gifting season, there is already an influx of new phones in the market - but that’s not the only spike of new devices. This quarter, major flagship launches like Samsung’s long-anticipated Galaxy S25 will drive even more demand. These launches offer a chance to reach high-quality, intentional users - early adopters actively seeking apps and content. But the window to engage them is very small: 95% of users download 60%+ of their apps within 48 hours of activation.With Aura from Unity’s Out of the Box Experience, your app becomes a native part of the device experience as soon as users activate their phones. As a result, from the moment these users start adding apps to their phone, your app is suggested - maximizing your visibility and scale.Premier sports eventsQ1 offers more than just a chance to capitalize on new devices—it’s also prime time for major sports events, like the Super Bowl and March Madness, which drive significant spikes in app downloads. During the 2024 Super Bowl, food delivery apps saw a 29% increase in activity (Adjust), with sports, travel, and music apps also seeing notable growth.These events create a prime opportunity to leverage the surge in activity and capture user attention at peak moments. With Aura, you can use pop-ups to suggest your sports or entertainment app right before the biggest events of the season, maximizing visibility when it matters most. Widespread OS updatesThe first quarter is not only known for new devices and sports events, but also major Android updates. With Aura from Unity, every update is a unique window of opportunity to re-introduce your app to users.With the Out of the Box Experience, you can remind users about your app in the most natural moments of the device lifecycle - like OS updates. This way users can get continual reminders that there is untapped potential just a click away. By aligning your app with key moments in the device lifecycle - whether it’s a new phone activation, a major sporting event, or an OS update - you can optimize for maximum exposure when users are most engaged. Discover how Aura can seamlessly integrate your app into these high-impact moments, ensuring you reach engaged users right when they’re ready to download. And reach out to the Aura team directly here.

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620|blog.unity.com

How AI enables the creation of high-quality ads

In the world of mobile app advertising, your ability to convert users is as strong as the ads you produce. And creating high-quality ads requires winning creatives. But producing quality creatives at scale can be a huge challenge. This is where AI comes into play.Let’s break down how AI has improved Unity’s ad design studio’s efficiency at every stage of the creative process, resulting in impactful, high-quality ads.Developing quality creative concepts with easeEven from the ideation stage, AI has been a game changer for our creative studio. By instructing AI to “create creative concepts based on X,” we can quickly generate a list of ideas far wider and more unique than we could have developed ourselves. This not only helps to widen our imagination, but also provides more options for concept testing.In fact, if we want to make some tweaks on a concept, we can simply ask AI to make a few changes and get new concepts in seconds. With endless creative possibilities, we can make sure every concept fits our vision. Building creatives from concepts in no timeOnce we determine our creative concept, AI helps us bring it to life. Let’s say the winner of one of our concept tests is an image of a basketball. Then a designer decides the best way to showcase it. Animated creatives are most engaging, but usually require hours of work - but not with AI.Instead of searching through endless stock videos, we can use AI to bring any creative to life. Within minutes, AI will generate new frames, turning a static image of a basketball into a basketball GIF/video jumping through the waves. Next, all we’d need to do is request any tweaks, and we’ve made our very own high-quality creative in record time.It’s important to note: though AI is a very practical tool, it cannot magically solve every design problem. As a creative studio, we still need to focus on the big picture: curating each creative and ensuring each asset aligns with our business goals. But knowing which situations we can use AI in helps maximize efficiency, streamline production, and produce top creatives.Quickly updating creative elementsAI doesn’t just help us create new concepts and creatives - we can use it to optimize the creatives we already have. Here’s a common example: Halloween is approaching and a studio would like to add some spooky elements to their creatives.Modifying design elements is a manageable project for any designer, but developing and adding the spooky graphics might take a few days. With AI, you can see a new creative in minutes and make as many iterations as you need to develop the most eye-catching Halloween creative possible. And, of course, you can repeat this for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any other festive occasion.Not to mention, the valuable time your team can save with AI gives your designer time to work on other essential projects, like developing new creatives, or working on more complex, time-consuming projects. It’s a win-win situation - your studio gets a greater creative output and more options to test, which in turn allows you to find the highest quality creative options.Elevating ads beyond visuals elementsFinally, AI allows us to expand beyond the abilities of traditional creative studios. Imagine a studio manager wants to add musical elements or a voiceover to a creative asset. Assuming there’s no sound designer on the team, the studio would typically need to search a stock music website to find something similar to their desired result. The same goes for voice overs - to get quality voice overs for their creatives, studios often need to pay external actors. This means the studio’s creatives are limited by options or budget, and in many cases both.With AI, creative studios can quickly solve both of these problems. All we need to do is describe the music/voiceover we’d like to pair with a creative, and we’ll quickly get a high-quality result. Even if it takes a few iterations to achieve our vision, we can quickly and easily boost our creatives’ quality at no extra cost.Ultimately, time is money, so maximizing what you can do with your time will optimize your creative production. And with better ads comes boosted conversions - increasing your UA budget and fueling a continual cycle of UA growth.Unity’s Ad Design Studio is a one-stop-shop for developing top-tier creatives, with complementary services for Unity clients.

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