In response to the company’s adjustments to engine licencing fees, some game makers have banded together to boycott Unity Technologies’ ad network. Their initiative is one of the most concentrated examples of developer community organising against the Unity engine’s new pricing scheme to date.
The uproar originates from a September 12 announcement by Unity that it will soon begin charging developers who exceed an arbitrary success threshold for the usage of its engine on a per-install basis, in addition to the annual licencing fees that they are already paying. The move even caused Discord to mock Unity’s unprecedented plans to charge for downloads by jokingly demanding “20 buckaroos” for every chat its users had ever written.
With Unity’s attempts to clarify its contentious new pricing scheme failing to appease critics, some developers have banded together to boycott the company’s ad platform, as well as that of its partner ironSource.
They will continue to do so as long as the game engine does not review the contentious runtime cost and the “unacceptable shift” in its approach to developer relationships that has resulted from that change, according to an open letter signed by over 20 companies.
While the majority of the studios who have so far joined the boycott work in the mobile arena, which is the primary market targeted by Unity’s ad framework, this may not be the only reason they chose this particular method of protest. According to MobileGamer.biz, Unity has already offered to waive its incoming runtime fees for studios that join its advertising network, citing unnamed developers who have received similar bids.
The company’s ambition to suffocate its ad competition, AppLovin, is believed to have been at the heart of those offers, with some studios allegedly promised that switching to the Unity-made LevelPlay monetization platform will “unlock” a runtime charge waiver of at least 80%. Suspending participation in the engine maker’s advertising network when the firm is aggressively pushing to expand it would be a very symbolic form of protest, however it is unknown whether the reported waiver plans were incorporated into the just initiated boycott.
Also Read:
- COUNTER-STRIKE 2 GETS A NEW TRAILER DETAILING THE NEW RANKING SYSTEM
- FINAL FANTASY 16 WILL REPORTEDLY BE GETTING TWO PAID DLCS SOON
