Complaints build from Apple Arcade game developers

• News

Frustrated game developers continue to vent about working on Apple Arcade titles, in a new report citing anonymous sources. In the story, a follow-up to one from earlier this year that noted “the smell of death around the service,” devs complain about poor communication with Apple, slow payouts, and big problems working on Vision Pro games.

The opinions expressed in the new story aren’t entirely negative, but they paint a pretty ugly portrait of Apple Arcade from some developers’ perspectives.

Some game developers find a lot to dislike in working with Apple Arcade

Neil Long first wrote of devs’ frustrations with Apple Arcade for mobilegamer.biz back in February. He referred to “a glut of cancelled projects and ever-declining developer payouts,” and described Apple Arcade as “directionless.” Cult of Mac covered it, noting Apple Arcade’s emphasis on big franchises’ family-friendly titles seemed to leave indie devs increasingly frustrated. Long published a follow-up story Tuesday with a laundry list of developer complaints. As with the first article, it also includes a few positive notes.

First, although payouts are said to have declined, many developers describe the pay as great, even if payments take longer than they once did.

“Whatever anyone else says, the advances were fantastic,” one dev said. “They were off the charts compared to what we’re used to being paid. And you got royalties on top of that.”

But over time, some devs have found deals harder to make with Apple. Other problems include slow payments, poor communication, lack of vision and “miserable” tech support.

“We were able to sign a good deal for our titles which covered our whole development budget,” said one developer, who noted early royalty payments were prompt, but now there’s a five-month delay. “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.”

Apple Arcade game developers complain: Slow pay, bad support, poor communication and more

Other statements trashed Apple’s support team and claimed its engineers are particularly unhelpful regarding Vision Pro games. Here’s Long’s rundown of new complaints:

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.

Long said mobilegamer.biz asked Apple for comment for both reports, but the company did not respond.