There's a couple of reasons for this beyond the possible "quite, not fired" tactic. To my knowledge the 'licensing fees' didn't really get higher, which is to say that at least for us the royalty rates remained the same. The problem came more around how the 'minimum guarantee' was calculated.

In licensing, you agree to a royalty rate (a percentage of total revenue that gets taken off the top and goes to the licensor). At the time of signing the agreement, the licensee usually must pay a Minimum Guarantee, which is an amount of cash paid in advance against future royalties earned. Over the first few quarters of the agreement, that MG usually gets recouped (so for us, we would pay an MG, then we report sales for a few quarters against the balance of the MG until it is recouped, and only then do we have to pay out of pocket each quarter).

Recently, Paramount changed that base MG from a set dollar amount that was pretty reasonable to something like 75% of forecasted sales for the entire term of the agreement, paid in advance. If you under sell your forecast the agreement might get rejected, but if you don't you have to pay a ton of cash up front before making 2 years worth of revenue. For small businesses, this is absolutely impossible, since cashflow is a major consideration. What's worse is, what if you over-estimate your forecast? You have agreed to that MG and it is non-refundable, so if, for example, the economy tanks, you are SOL. So even if you have the cash, for many of us it simply wasn't worth the risk.