Why do we need to put meta data tag com.google.android.gms.ads.APPLICATION_ID

We are using @Scott_Harrison 's IronSource plugin for ads. We are not using any AdMob mediation at all. So why is it required to put the tag below in the build settings.

[[   <meta-data android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.APPLICATION_I 
          android:value="ca-app-pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx~yyyyyyyyyyy"/>   ]],

From what I know it is only used by AdMob. If I remove either of the two K/V pairs app either crashes or apk fails to parse and install.

Can anyone please give some insight on this?

As far as I know that meta-data should only be needed if you are including Admob as you have suggested.
What happens if you don’t include it? Does the app crash at startup?

Yes, actually I forgot to mention that, added in the post.

Perhaps a silly question, but you’re definitely not including the Admob adapter in build.settings right? And your ironSource console setup doesn’t include Admob?

Yeah, we don’t use AdMob at all and thus don’t have the adapter and console setup for the same.

Will look into this

This should be fixed, please relaunch Solar 2d sim