The debate over privacy versus targeting advertising.
The debate over privacy versus targeting advertising.
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How Apple’s privacy changes affected mobile game revenues in Q3

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 7 min

Apple’s shift from targeted advertising to privacy earlier this year had a big impact on the financial results for social and gaming apps like in the third quarter, according to a report by Consumer Acquisition.

Apple changed its Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) prompts to query users upfront if they wanted to be tracked for advertising purposes, and most users are saying no. The result is it is a lot harder to do targeted user acquisition advertising.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.