Mobile game developers are now boycotting Unity by switching off its ad products, mobilegamer.biz can reveal.
The group is trying to force Unity into cancelling its proposed Runtime Fee policy.
At the time of publication, 16 different studios have pulled their Unity and IronSource ads: Azur Games, Voodoo, Homa, Century Games, SayGames, CrazyLabs, Original Games, Ducky, Burny Games, Inspired Square, Geisha Tokyo, tatsumaki games, KAYAC, New Story, Playgendary and Supercent.
Collective letter from game development companies: Turning off all IronSource and Unity Ads monetization until new conditions are reviewed
We are the collective voice of the game development industry—developers, game designers, artists, and business minds. Passionate about our craft, we’ve invested years in shaping an industry that touches the lives of millions worldwide. As stakeholders, we cannot remain silent when a decision threatens to destabilize this ecosystem.
Unity has been an instrumental force in this industry. In many ways, it has inspired us to create new immersive worlds and empowered a plethora of dynamic and independent developers to bring their visions to life. We’ve played our part in this journey, moving the industry forward and creating specialists that use Unity as the primary game engine for their projects.
We’ve hosted Unity-centered events, shared our knowledge, and crafted educational content that’s inspired an international community. Thanks to this symbiosis, Unity has evolved into a cornerstone of game development and is now established as an indispensable asset in game creation.
That’s why the September 12 announcement hits us hard. Effective January 1, 2024, Unity plans to introduce installation-dependent fees, a decision that jeopardizes small and large game developers alike, made without any industry consultation. To claim, as Unity has, that this new ‘Runtime Fee’ will impact only 10% of the industry is not just misleading, it’s patently false.
We strongly oppose this move, which disregards the unique challenges and complexities of our industry.
While we’ve always viewed our work as a collaborative effort, this decision blindsided us. With one stroke of the pen, you’ve put hundreds of studios at risk, all without consultation or dialogue.
To put it in relatable terms—what if automakers suddenly decided to charge us for every mile driven on the car that you bought a year ago? The impact on consumers and the industry at large would be seismic.
This comes at a time when the industry is already grappling with tightening profit margins, heightened competition, and escalating costs in both development and marketing. This isn’t just about developers. This impacts artists, designers, marketers, and producers. It’s a cascade that could lead to the shuttering of companies that have given their all to this industry.
Unity, we’ve stood by and celebrated your every innovation. Why, then, were we left out of the conversation on a decision so monumental?
As a course of immediate action, our collective of game development companies is forced to turn off all IronSource and Unity Ads monetization across our projects until these changes are reconsidered.
We urge others who share this stance to do the same. 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.
We entered this industry for the love of game development, but what makes it truly special is the community—a community built on openness, shared expertise, and collective progress.
If you share our sentiment, we call on you to join us. Turn off all IronSource and Unity Ads monetization until a fair and equitable resolution is found.
You can also back the movement by signing our open letter. Check out the link to add your voice to the cause.
Sincerely,
Azur Games, Voodoo, Homa, Century Games, SayGames, CrazyLabs, Original Games, Ducky, Burny Games, Inspired Square, Geisha Tokyo, tatsumaki games, KAYAC, New Story, Playgendary, Supercent
…and all who sign this letter, engage in other forms of protest, or simply stand in solidarity with the gaming industry
They turned off ads? Great. Can that be a standoff that lasts forever?
I bet it'll last less time then the reddit standoff. But I do wish them all of the luck. Fuck Unity and their bullshit fees.
I think this one will work. Most of these games are already "multihomed" on different ad networks and display the one that is most profitable to them at any given time, or a semi-random mixture. The differences in profitably aren't that huge, and it will get even worse if advertisers run away from Unity too. Unity is making an absolute killing from their ads division, and this is now being threatened.
And who are the advertisers? Other game devs. The whole mobile game advertising scene is one gigantic ouroboros with the ad platforms cutting off a huge portion in the middle. If you leave, you're going to both stop showing ads and stop your advertising there.
Nice word for "circlejerk"...
...but this imagery is disturbing.
Yeah on second thought it's maybe a bit more vivid than intended, but it fits what I think is going to happen. Below the top 1-2% of mobile games, it's one big pile of endlessly recycled advertising money. Spend a million in ads, make $800k in ads and $500k in microtransactions, and the $300k is where you have to pay everything else from. Unity is about to bite into that hard and doesn't care if it leaves behind some wounds.
Hence, ouroboros.
I haven't play games with ads in years, but O remember getting a lot of Christian ads, like Bible verses and such. It was even worse that regular buy shit ads imo.
I wanted to add a scathing remark about "shoving your in our pious face!" but it practically writes itself.
But hey, at least they didn’t give it a set end date; from the very start of their “strike” the reddit mods admitted at the very start that they couldn’t stay away from their unpaid powertrips and leave their octogenerian mothers’ basements for more than 2 days, and instantly folded at a single empty threat to take away the only thing in their lives that gives them purpose and makes them feel like they wield power over others.
Don't shove us all under the same rug. I packed my bags, shred my old comments and posts and went into the Fediverse.
There's dozens of us. DOZENS!
You were the exception not the rule unfortunately
Nope. Content creators, the ones doing all the talking on reddit, definitely left. Check out this graph of posts per day on r/askreddit
From what I've heard, a lot of it is bot posts now. So if you subtract out the bots I wonder if that delta gets even bigger.
Sorry for the triple post, lag got me (I accidentally just posted the same comment 3 times within mere milliseconds of each other)
Hey some of us said we'd go on indefinately and after being told to open decided to maliously comply only. /r/baduibattles a sub I started is now only letting posts be of New reddit or the Reddit app. User involvement has plummeted, there are fewer posts, each with votes and comments. Automod also posts telling people to join us at !bad_ui_battles@programming.dev
eh? do people still use reddit even? last i heard they have employees actively create threads now to try and keep engagement going.
Reddit employees searching TikTok for memes to repost to Reddit be like:
Now it’s down to just the low-effort memes, ”religious people bad”/“reddit good everywhere else bad” circlejerks, unhelpful advice, and edgy 14 year olds who just discovered politics, thinking homophobia and fragile masculinity are “based” and that they’re communist because they hate their home country because something something pronouns, know 2 russian words (both obscenities), have been playing too many WW2-themed games and say comrade every 4 seconds all despite coming from money themselves and supporting a war being waged by a far-right regime.
Don't forget the 4+ "rate me" subs that started hitting the front page every day.
Ah yes, the horny college kids/50-yo divorcees with a camera and way too much free time
Despite usually being one himself
There are some special interest subreddits still running almost like before. Subs with a population of a few thousand, with the active members using names that pertain to the sub
Those haven't moved, at least the non-techie ones haven't
I'm confused about what you want.
Mods literally got replaced by reddit because they refused to capitulate.
I'm not a fan of reddits choices, but if I was deeply involved in a community I'd consider staying to be part of that community still.
Written like someone who wasn’t actually paying attention to the subreddits during that time
That's true. Although, having that limit probably got more of them to participate. So while the impact was short, it was more noticeable.
With the difference there are money on the table this time
And they know precisely what’s at stake, and that in any case continuing to use an engine now run by dangerous morons intent on destroying it for a quick buck will not be an option, as we all know Unity will strive for its stated goal of screwing them over like this, be it suddenly and shamelessly like they’re hoping to do or by slowly boiling the frog over many years. And then those devs would lose everything.
The devs can’t afford to fold. The other forum’s powermods folded because they not only could’ve afforded to, but also because upon realizing just how expendable they were, they didn’t want to risk losing the source of their god complex. That, and given that site’s users’ history of bringing feathers to knife fights their failure to enact the change they wanted was hardly surprising.