Many companies have launched their own mobile aggregation-come-distribution initiatives in 2011, but operating them seem to be a more tricky proposition.

That's what Glu Mobile found with its gPartners scheme, which was restructured in August, and now it seems that Unity's Union scheme has gone the same way, with key executives let go in what seems to be a restructuring operation.

Brett Seyler, who was Unity's veep of strategy as well as general manage of Union, has left the company, as has director of developer relations Brian Bruning. Both had been due to give talks at GDC Online.

State of the union

As for Union - a process by which Unity supported hardware such as Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play and RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook, although not officially within the Union engine - rumours suggest it will be allowed to wither.

It's assumed that existing contracts will be maintained, however, with the first wave of 30 games for the PlayBook tablet due soon.

Back in August, talking at GDC Europe, Bruning said he hoped to be enabling Unity developers to make at least $20,000 of revenue per platform supported through Union; a prediction that looks unlikely to be fulfilled.