Show Interstitial ads on a natural breaking point in game

Question

I'm having trouble showing interstitial adds on a natural breaking point in my game. For now I'm able to load and show these interstitial adds, even when I'm changing activities.

My main problem is that I can't decide myself when these adds will show.

I use OpenGl ES and use the badlogic framework. Therefore the mainactivity is called each time over and over when I switch screens.

This is what I created now, by using my shared preferences and a little helper class I'm able to trace in which stage the add is.

  public abstract class GLGame extends Activity implements Game, Renderer {
  enum GLGameState {
    ....  
}
   GLSurfaceView glView;    
   GLGraphics glGraphics;
   ....       
  public InterstitialAd interstitial;

  private static final String AD_UNIT_ID = "****";


@Override 
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    ...

    glView = new GLSurfaceView(this);
    glView.setRenderer(this);

    setContentView(glView);

    glGraphics = new GLGraphics(glView);

   .... 

// my shared pref is set to 0 when add is not loaded
       if (addcheck.showadd(getApplicationContext())==0){
       interstitial = new InterstitialAd(getApplicationContext());
    interstitial.setAdUnitId(AD_UNIT_ID);

       // Create ad request.
       AdRequest adRequest = new AdRequest.Builder()
       .addTestDevice(AdRequest.DEVICE_ID_EMULATOR)
           .addTestDevice("****")
       .build();

    // Begin loading your interstitial.
    // I set my shared pref to 1 to tell the add is loaded, for later use in the game
         interstitial.loadAd(adRequest);
     interstitial.setAdListener(new AdListener(){
          public void onAdLoaded(){
              addcheck.setadd(1,getApplicationContext());
                          }});
    }


 // Somewhere in my game I set the pref to 2, where I want to show the add. 
     if (addcheck.showadd(getApplicationContext())==2&interstitial.isLoaded()){
        displayInterstitial();
 // after showing the add, I put my pref back to 1, so I it wont show later      
        addcheck.setadd(1,getApplicationContext());
            }

}
public void displayInterstitial() {
      if (interstitial.isLoaded()) {
        interstitial.show();
      }
    }

In my case, I will call displayInterstitial from out the same mainactivity, however this mainactivity is re-loaded a few more times. I think the interstitial is not valid anymore cause I'm getting nullpointer error on interstitial.isLoaded()

Here is some logcat output, which is not my main problem.

07-13 21:49:53.009: E/AndroidRuntime(29230): FATAL EXCEPTION: main
07-13 21:49:53.009: E/AndroidRuntime(29230): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.badlogic.androidgames.glbasics/com.glbasics.MainScreen}: java.lang.NullPointerException
07-13 21:49:53.009: E/AndroidRuntime(29230):    at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:1956)
07-13 21:49:53.009: E/AndroidRuntime(29230):    at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:1981)

Someone knows how to show these loaded adds when I want to? The preferences was just an idea I was playing with.

Answer 1

First, to solve the NPE, you must reconstruct the interstitial when the ad is closed or fails to load. You do this onAdClosed() and onAdFailed() callbacks:

  public abstract class GLGame extends Activity implements Game, Renderer{
  public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
       interstitial = new InterstitialAd(GLGame.this);
        interstitial.setAdUnitId("*****");
         reloadInterstitials();
        // Create ad request
        AdRequest adRequest = new AdRequest.Builder().build();

        // Begin loading your interstitial
        interstitial.loadAd(adRequest);
  }

private void reloadInterstitials(){
        interstitial.setAdListener(new AdListener() {
            @Override
            public void onAdLoaded() {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                super.onAdLoaded();
            }
            @Override
            public void onAdFailedToLoad(int errorCode) {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                super.onAdFailedToLoad(errorCode);
                 interstitial = new InterstitialAd(GLGame.this);
                    interstitial.setAdUnitId("*****");
                    // Begin loading your interstitial
                    interstitial.loadAd(new AdRequest.Builder().build());
                    loadInterCallBacks();
            }

            @Override
            public void onAdOpened() {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                super.onAdOpened();
            }

            @Override
            public void onAdClosed() {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                super.onAdClosed();
                interstitial = new InterstitialAd(GLGame.this);
                interstitial.setAdUnitId("****");
                loadInterCallBacks();
                // Begin loading your interstitial
                interstitial.loadAd(new AdRequest.Builder().build());
            }

            @Override
            public void onAdLeftApplication() {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                super.onAdLeftApplication();
            }
        });

    }

//method to display interstitial

public void displayInterstitial(){
        if(interstitial.isLoaded())
            interstitial.show();
    }

}

To answer the main question, you can use a listener to show the loaded ads when you want to.

Step 1: Define an Interface

public interface MyInterstitialListener {

    public void showInterstitial();
}

Step 2: Let the GLGame implement the interface:

public abstract class GLGame extends Activity implements Game, Renderer, MyInterstitialListener{    
public void showInterstitial() {
     runOnUiThread(new Runnable(){
        @Override
        public void run() {
            // TODO Auto-generated method stub
            displayInterstitial();
        } });
}

}

Then finally in any of the Screen classes, show the ad:

public class LevelOneScreen extends GLScreen {
MyInterstitialListener mL;

public LevelOnecreen(Game game) {
        super(game);
    mL = (MyInterstitialListener)game;
    mL.showInterstitial();
}
}

You can call MyInterstitialListener#showInterstitial() on a natural breaking point in game. In situations where you'd like to call it in the game loop, use a boolean flag to call it once:

public void update(float deltaTime) {  //game loop.
     if(!adCalled){ 
     mL.showInterstitial();
     adCalled = true;
     }
}

Answer 2

Please refer to below code.

private void displayAdmobInterstitialAd(InterstitialAd pAd){
    if(pAd.isLoaded()){
        pAd.show();
    }
}

public void popAdmobInterstitialAd(){
    final InterstitialAd adMobInterstitialAd = new InterstitialAd(ResourcesManager.getInstance().activity);
    adMobInterstitialAd.setAdUnitId("Your AD unit ID");
    final AdRequest adRequest = new AdRequest.Builder().build();
    ResourcesManager.getInstance().getActivity().runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {

        @Override
        public void run() {
            adMobInterstitialAd.loadAd(adRequest);
        }
    });

    adMobInterstitialAd.setAdListener(new AdListener() {
        public void onAdLoaded(){
            displayAdmobInterstitialAd(adMobInterstitialAd);
        }
    });
}

I use this method on sceneManager class of my andengine project. just execute loadAd on runOnUiThread... that's all.

my android app