Today's News:
* According to reports, Beamdog studio and Crystal Dynamics were recently hit with a wave of layoffs as part of Embracer's current restructuring following the collapse of their planned Saudi investment deal. In regards to Beamdog, around 26 people were laid off while in regards to Crystal Dynamics, around 10 people were laid off. Besides the layoffs at those two studios, others affected by Embracer's serious financial issues in recent week included Volition being shut down and Gearbox being put up for sale.
Link:
https://www.destructoid.com/embracer...ring-industry/ ,
https://www.destructoid.com/crystal-...offs-continue/
* EA recently announced that they have shifted over Criterion Games to a new role as a support studio for DICE's Battlefield series. This shift is part of EA's decision to move the studio under their EA Entertainment division. In regards to the future of the Need For Speed series and others games developed by Criterion, EA announced that the majority of Criterion's staff will now be solely dedicated to working on the Battlefield series.
Link:
https://www.ea.com/news/criterion-ga...-entertainment ,
https://www.destructoid.com/criterio...n-battlefield/
* In a recent open letter, Unity Technologies announced that they have officially backtracked on parts of their new upcoming and controversial fees system for games developed on their Unity Engine.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Destructoid
In an open letter to its community, Unity has revealed its reworked free structure and controversial runtime fee changes. Under the new structure, the Unity Personal edition will remain free and incur no runtime fee. The new cap before the fee starts has been increased from $100,000 to $200,000, and no game with under $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will be subject to the fee. Interestingly, the new Runtime Fee will only apply to the next version of Unity that is shipping in 2024. Already shipped and current in-development projects will not be subject to the fee unless they upgrade to the 2024 version of Unity. In the post, Marc Whitten, leader of the Unity Create team apologized for what has transpired in recent weeks.
"I want to start with this: I am sorry.
We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy. Our goal with this policy is to ensure we can continue to support you today and tomorrow, and keep deeply investing in our game engine.
You are what makes Unity great, and we know we need to listen, and work hard to earn your trust. We have heard your concerns, and we are making changes in the policy we announced to address them.
Marc Whitten, Unity Create Lead"
Developers using Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise that are subject to the runtime fee will also have the option of opting for a revenue share instead. Under that plan, a 2.5% revenue share or a “calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with your game each month” would apply. Whichever amount is less will be the amount that is billed.
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Link:
https://blog.unity.com/news/open-letter-on-runtime-fee ,
https://www.destructoid.com/unity-wa...l-runtime-fee/