Journal
Rewarded video and the short session
A five-minute session that contains a rewarded revive is not the same five minutes as a session that never asked for an ad. Live-ops rooms still average them, then wonder why a “good” length sits next to a weak second-day return.
In one Penang title, players who watched the revive stayed in the session and then left the title for the week. The ad was a polite exit, not a reason to return. The shop-open event after the ad made the economy look busy.
When we map this, we split sessions with a revive from sessions without, before anyone talks about “health.” If the split is ugly, that is the finding. Padding the average does not make the loop kinder.
This is not a lecture against ads. It is a request that the sentence you send to a publisher names the revive.