Following the hugely controversial changes to the pricing plan to charge developers for each time their games are installed, Unity is reported to have offered users a Runtime Fee waiver if they switch to its LevelPlay platform, an advertisement monetization service.

As reported by MobileGamer, their sources said that Unity has quietly offered game creators a 100% Runtime Fee waiver for using Unity’s own LevelPlay advertisement platform.

UPDATE (25/09/23): Unity has announced changes to the policy.

The LevelPlay suite of tools is Unity’s own advertisement platform that allows users to control their monetization strategy through in-game ads for smartphones and analytics for commercial content.

In our previous report of the new pricing plan, Unity suggested in its blog post that developers could be eligible for credits toward the Unity Runtime Fee through the adoption of services beyond the Editor, which includes the LevelPlay.

UA Consultant Matej Lancaric

In MobileGamer’s report, UA consultant Matej Lancaric described the situation as Unity’s attempts to destroy its competitor AppLovin, which is currently ahead of LevelPlay in terms of ad monetization.

“This puts the whole Runtime Fee announcement in the ‘mediation war’ spotlight,” said Lancaric.

“Unity is saying ‘migrate to LevelPlay or you will need to pay a shit-ton of money’.”

“For those smaller developers, there is no other option but to migrate to LevelPlay mediation to save their companies.”

“The rest are already thinking about Godot or Cocos2D.”

“Of course, Unity had to fight back after what has been a tremendous run for AppLovin this year – they have been killing it and growing market share,” said a senior figure in the mediation business.

“I don’t think Unity did a good job of anticipating client reaction though.”

“It’s been a while since we saw such a unanimous war cry from the industry, not even IDFA deprecation was this mismanaged.”

“The industry is tied into 2-3 large mediation providers who wall off any attempt at competition, move towards bidding despite the hit to CPMs, and then limit their demand to clients using their mediation.”

Unity has yet to release an official comment regarding the report.

The game engine company initially acquired the mediation platform last July when Unity announced a merger with IronSource, the creators behind LevelPlay.