Multiple game developers have offered mobilegamer.biz more anonymous insight into what it’s like making games for Apple Arcade, and more recently working with Vision Pro.
And like our last ‘Inside Apple Arcade’ report, many of them are unhappy with how they are treated, though the money is good. Our sources told us:
- Some studios now wait up to six months to get paid, which almost put one indie dev out of business
- The Apple Arcade team do not respond to routine emails for weeks or even months, if they respond at all
- One developer who had semi-regular meetings with the tech giant said that “half the Apple team won’t turn up and when they do they have no idea what’s going on and can’t answer our questions”
- Apple’s tech support was also described as “miserable” and “the worst I have seen anywhere”
- Vision Pro struggles to run “complex games” and developing for it is “like going back in time 10 years” due to the lack of tech support
- Apple engineers are “unable to offer any insights” into how Vision Pro’s hardware or software works, or “how essential middleware is meant to work with it”
- Discoverability on Arcade is so poor that one person said it was like their game “was in a morgue”
- Working with Apple is like being in an “abusive relationship”, said another
There were some positives, though. Most developers we spoke to said Apple paid well, particularly in the first few years of Arcade. Others said they would not exist today were it not for Apple funding its games.
“We were able to sign a good deal for our titles which covered our whole development budget,” said one developer. “Things have changed since the early times, it’s a very difficult and long process to sign a deal with Apple these days. The lack of vision and clear focus of the platform is frustrating and if there is any goal, it keeps changing every year or so. Also technical support is pretty miserable.”
Another said: “Whatever anyone else says, the advances were fantastic. They were off the charts compared to what we’re used to being paid. And you got royalties on top of that.”
The same developer told us that at the beginning of their Arcade deal they would receive prompt monthly payments from the Bonus Pool, Apple’s term for ongoing royalty payments. But there’s now a five month backlog on their payments.
Two other developers we spoke to had similar problems. We were told one indie developer was not paid for six months, and nearly went out of business as a result. Another said they have been chasing payments for two months now, but had been “stonewalled” by Apple reps.
“We can go weeks without hearing from Apple at all and their general response time to emails is three weeks, if they reply at all,” they said. And when Apple does talk to its Arcade contractors, the results are disappointing, they continued.
“We’re supposed to be able to ask product, technical and commercial questions, but often half the Apple team won’t turn up and when they do they have no idea what’s going on and can’t answer our questions, either because they don’t have any knowledge on how to answer it, or are not able to share that info for confidentiality reasons.”
One developer working with Vision Pro was surprised to learn that even Apple’s engineers don’t seem to know how the device works. “The technical support is awful – the worst I have seen anywhere,” they said. “They are unable to offer any insights into how the hardware and the software it runs on works, or how essential middleware is meant to work with it.”
“Developing for Vision Pro is like going back in time 10 years because despite the advertised power – and the cost – it is not a machine built for gaming. Getting any complex games working on the platform is difficult.”
Two other sources told us that they had been approached by Apple to make a Vision Pro game but were offered no compensation to make the title, and no guarantees it would be promoted or marketed in any way. Unlike Meta, which funds a lot of VR development, Apple offers indies no financial incentives at all to develop for Vision Pro – an approach a source described as “utterly baffling”.
Another developer told us of their frustrations with Arcade discoverability, especially once another, similar title arrived on the service. The newer title was promoted much more heavily, and the older game apparently stopped appearing in feature spots, lists and even in search.
“It feels like the game’s been in a morgue for the last two years,” they said. “It doesn’t matter what we put in the game, Apple won’t feature us, it’s like we don’t exist. So as a developer you think, well, they’ve given us this money for exclusivity…I don’t want to give them the money back, but I do want people to play my game. It’s like we’re invisible.”
They also described a grim QA and update process, and a back-and-forth with Apple over a single update that cost their team two months’ work. “Submitting updates is so painful our developers started trying to avoid it,” they said.
One QA and localisation process involves submitting 1,000 screenshots all at once to show you have every device aspect ratio and language covered. “My team were like: there’s no fucking way we’re going to do that,” our source said.
As in our previous report, there were also complaints about the opaque way ongoing payments are calculated, but there was no suggestion that the service may be rebooted or actually be cancelled, as was implied in our last set of anonymous developer interviews.
But just like last time, most developers agreed that Apple sees games and game developers as a ‘necessary evil’, and that Arcade appears to be directionless and lacking in support from the rest of the tech giant.
“Arcade has no clear strategy and feels like a bolt-on to the Apple company ecosystem rather than like it is truly supported inside the company,” said one source. “Apple 100% does not understand gamers – they have little to no info on who plays their games that they can share with developers, or how they interact with games on the platform already.”
One more sympathetic developer countered: “I think Arcade knows who its audience is much more today than at the outset. If that doesn’t turn out to be high concept artful indie games, that’s not Apple’s fault. If they can build a business on family games, good for them and good for the devs who can chase that opportunity.”
But another added: “Honestly, I think Apple doesn’t understand games and gamers. I believe Apple Arcade is a good idea in general, but they need a clear goal for where it should go and what it is for. That’s a question they need to answer and then act accordingly.”
We’ll leave the final word to our most frustrated source, who concluded: “Given their status as a huge tech company it feels as if they treat developers as a necessary evil, and that we will do everything we can to please them for little in return, in the hope that they grace us with another project – and a chance for them to screw us over again.”
“It’s like an abusive relationship where the abused stays in the relationship hoping the other partner will change and become the person you know they could be.”
We have contacted Apple for comment on this article and will update the story if or when it responds.
