Apple Arcade Game Service Faces Multiple Challenges But Also Has Some Positive Aspects

TapTechNews August 1st news, the game media mobilegamer.biz released a blog post on July 30th, reporting that Apple Arcade game service has many problems such as overdue payments, stonewalling studios, and weak technical support.

The media received feedback and complaints from multiple Apple Arcade game developers, and these developers were dissatisfied with Apple's approach in the game field, saying that cooperating with Apple is 'abuse'.

TapTechNews reported based on the blog post and attached several points that game developers were dissatisfied with as follows:

Some game studios need to wait for up to 6 months to get the money, which almost caused an independent development company to go bankrupt.

The Apple Arcade team will reply to routine mails, but the reply time may take weeks or even months.

A developer who meets with Apple frequently said: 'Half of the Apple team doesn't show up, and even if they do, they don't know what happened and can't answer our questions'.

Apple's technical support is also described as'miserable' and 'the worst support I've ever seen'.

Due to the lack of technical support, VisionPro is difficult to run 'complex games', and developing for it is 'like going back 10 years ago'.

Regarding how the hardware or software of VisionPro works, or 'how the necessary middleware works with it', Apple engineers 'can't provide any insights'.

The discoverability of Arcade games is so bad that some game developers call the Arcade service 'a morgue'.

Cooperating with Apple is like an 'abusive relationship'.

Positive aspects

However, there are also some positive factors. Most of the developers we talked to said that Apple pays well, especially in the initial years of Arcade; and some developers said that if it weren't for Apple funding their games, they wouldn't exist today.

A developer said:

We were able to sign a good agreement for our work, which covered our entire development budget. Nowadays, signing an agreement with Apple is a very difficult and long process.

The lack of vision and clear focus on the platform is frustrating, and even if there is any goal, it keeps changing every year or so. In addition, the technical support is also quite bad.

Another developer said:

No matter what others say, the advance payment is great. It's a world of difference compared to the pay we're used to, and you also get royalties.