288: Rise of the Runtime Fee

The 8-bit Adventures Podcast

The 8bA Podcast is a podcast bringing you the latest and greatest geeky news of the past week.

NEWS ITEMS

Gearbox Entertainment. Reuters reports that Embracer is exploring options to sell the Borderlands developer, and has a few interested parties. The Verge and Polygon add that the deal is likely to help Embracer stabilize after overspending on studios and licensing and then losing out on a $2B investment deal - reportedly from Saudi government-funded Savvy Games Group.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Polygon reports that in an interview with Famitsu, Eiji Anouma has stated that there are no plans for any new content for the game. He also stated that the team is looking forward to the “next fun experience” to work on.

Lorcana. IGN reports that Rise of the Floodborn was revealed as the next set, along with spoilers of several cards. Properties showcased in this set will include Winnie the Pooh, The Princess and the Frog, The Jungle Book, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Great Mouse Detective, Pinocchio, Zootopia, and Raya and the Last Dragon. The set will introduce a new mechanic called Resist, and the story hints that Triton’s trident and Ursula have something to do with the Floodborn.

Nintendo. Nintendo will be showcasing a Direct focusing on winter releases on 9/14 at 10AM EDT.

PlayStation. Sony will be showcasing a State of Play focusing on 3rd party and indie titles on 9/14 at 5PM EDT.

The Sims 5. IGN reports that The Sims 5 will be “free to download,” according to EA. The game will apparently coexist with The Sims 4 and include both free updates and DLC packs. The title is still in early development.

Unity Runtime Fee. Reported by IGN and Polygon, the game development engine revealed a new pricing structure dubbed the Unity Runtime Fee. Unity’s original fee structure was to charge developers a flat fee every time a respective game is installed after reaching a certain threshold, as opposed to a rev-share model used by Unreal Engine. They have since walked back several points of the fee structure amid widespread complaints from the development community, particularly independent devs.

The lowest tier, Unity Personal/Unity Plus, would require a $0.20 fee for every install after reaching $200k in revenue over the past 12 months and 200k life-to-date installs. Unity confirmed in an interview with Axios that deleting and reinstalling a title counts as a separate install.

LINKS

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