Start your week right, with our quick take on the stories that are impacting the mobile industry right now.
To help get you primed and ready for another week in mobile gaming, we’ve curated the biggest stories you need to know from the last seven days. Unsurprisingly, the past week was once again dominated by Unity’s…decision.
1) Unity’s biggest games: The big names who’ll pay the biggest bucks
Unity has gone from much-loved development enabler to PR pariah thanks to its proposed introduction of the Unity Runtime Fee, charging per install for the first time and potentially costing devs both big and small millions in lost revenue.
The games that will be hit the hardest include much-beloved titles like Monopoly Go, Royal Match and Pokémon Go, with many more set to suffer alongside them.
2) Unity back down: “I am sorry”… But the Runtime Fee stays
In response to the recent backlash, Unity has in fact altered its fee restructuring plan. However, the controversial Runtime Fee remains.
Unity gave an apology, but is going ahead with the decision regardless. There is something of a plan to put things right.
3) The United Game Dev’s collective protest letter to Unity has 1052 sign-ups
Since a collective of game developers rapidly banded to together to produce a joint agreement and an open letter to Unity showing the level of their upset, the number of devs joining in has only continued to grow.
Right now, 1052 developers and counting are removing ads payments to Unity until the Runtime Fee Farrago is ironed out, effectively closing off a source of revenue for Unity in an act of protest.
4) No love lost: AppLovin helpfully releases tool to switch from Unity to Godot or Unreal
AppLovin waded into the Unity fiasco last week following its failed attempts to acquire the company. Now looking to have the last laugh, the company has helpfully announced a free tool which uses ChatGPT to migrate Unity projects to the Godot or Unreal engine instead. Just on the off chance anyone would want to do such a thing right about now.
5) miHoYo co-authors science paper outlining bold AI intentions
The only entry on this week’s list that doesn’t relate to the Unity shockwave is news from miHoYo; the mobile paragon has co-authored a science paper outlining ambitious AI intentions, with the technology being a potential tool in the future development belt for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail.
It appears miHoYo believes that its games can reach even greater heights, despite Genshin Impact already being one of the biggest open-world mobile games of all time.
