Mythical Games has released Nitro Nation World Tour, a Web3 mobile racing game that is available on the app stores.
Mobile developers boycott Unity ads in pricing change protest
15.09.2023 - 17:35 / polygon.com
Mobile game developers and publishers, with hundreds of games and millions of installs, are protesting Unity’s new controversial install-based pricing model by turning off ad monetization services for their games. In an open letter published on Azur Games’ and other company’s blogs, the companies are turning off all ironSource and Unity Ads features, two services Unity offers to developers to monetize their games. They’ll turn these services back on when Unity reviews and reverses its new policy, which has developers across the entire industry upset.
“We urge others who share this stance to do the same,” a representative of the studios wrote. “The rules have changed, and the stakes are simply too high. The Runtime Fee is an unacceptable shift in our partnership with Unity that needs to be immediately canceled.”
Unity, the company behind the cross-platform game engine of the same name, announced the new pay structure earlier this week, tying a new runtime fee to game installs. The initial rollout was immediately met with anger and confusion from developers and studios who said the fees would be a major financial burden to their companies. (Game developers already pay subscription fees tied to several different tiers for use of the engine.) Game developers have expressed several concerns: How are installs tracked? How can studios ensure privacy conditions are met? How can you simply change your terms of service? To put it bluntly, it’s been a mess; Unity ended up closing its offices in San Francisco and Austin, Texas over an alleged threat to the company.
More than 18 studios have signed on to the letter since it was published on Friday morning: Azur Games, Voodoo, Homa, Century Games, SayGames, CrazyLabs, Original Games, Ducky, Burny Games, Inspired Square, Geisha Tokyo, tatsumaki games, New Story, Playgendary, Supercent, KAYAC, TapNation, Matchingham Games, and Moonee. Polygon has reached out to some of these developers to confirm their signature; several companies have published the letter on their own websites.
Unity reportedly responded to the removal of ad monetization by pausing access to one company’s user acquisition features, which help market the mobile games that use it, according to an email obtained by Polygon. In the email, a Unity ironSource representative recognized that the ad monetization pause may have been connected to the Unity pricing change before notifying the developer that user acquisition features were turned off on their end. GIMZ Agency founder Nikita Guk, representing the group of developers around the letter, said the move from Unity has the potential to threaten growth for impacted businesses.
“In the world of mobile games, advertising is the key driver to get your game
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