We see the shiny keynotes, and gaze on in wonder at the drone shots of Apple Park and Apple’s spaceship-like HQ like we are witnessing modern-day science-fiction, but it seems the dream of collaborating with the futuristic entity that is Apple itself is not all it is cracked up to be – at least according to numerous developers who make games for its mobile subscription platform Apple Arcade.
For a fixed monthly fee (and who doesn’t love those), iPhone users get access to a curated list of some of the finest mobile games, free from the pressures of microtransactions and ads for dating sites. It’s a futuristic ecosystem for today’s futuristic pocket computers, at least as far as the consumer (er, that’s you and me) is concerned.
Developers on the other hand have spoken out in a report for Mobilegamer.biz telling a very different story though, one of “miserable” tech support and worse still, that working with Apple is like being in an “abusive relationship.”
“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 unnamed dev, “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.”
Stories abound of late payments and little to no discovery on the platform, with one studio that Apple seemingly paid for exclusivity, complaining of a lack of anybody downloading its game saying, “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. 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.”
Devs speak out
More concerningly there were stories of devs not wishing to push updates to their games, even though they needed them as Apple’s Q&A process could sometimes take months to get an approval.
“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, said another while complaints about being hired to develop for Apple’s VR headset Vision Pro were also rife, “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.”
While all responses were anonymous it is worth pointing out that there were positives around Apple paying well and keeping studios alive – something the industry in general doesn’t seem overly bothered with at the moment.
You can read the full report at Mobilegamer.biz for more insight.
