Devs Say Working With Apple Arcade Is Frustrating, ‘Like An Abusive Relationship’

A new report featuring quotes from anonymous developers who have worked with Apple Arcade claims the subscription gaming service has no real goals, barely communicates with studios, and treats teams poorly, making them jump through hoops and wait for months to get paid. One developer even claimed that working with Apple Arcade was like being in “an abusive relationship.”

Apple Arcade launched in 2019 as an ad-free, premium subscription service for exclusive games. Every game in the service is free from in-app purchases or annoying mobile game nonsense. Since launching in 2019, the Apple Arcade’s library has grown quite a bit, adding over 200 games to the service, including some genuinely great stuff like Grindstone, Fantasian, Oregon Trail, Really Bad Chess, and What The Car? But a new report claims that for many of the devs making Apple Arcade titles, working with Apple has been a frustrating and annoying experience.

In a July 30 report from MobileGamer.biz, numerous devs talked to the outlet under the condition of anonymity. They shared their various problems and concerns about Apple Arcade, the tech giant’s lack of vision, and how it poorly treats game studios.

Apple makes devs wait for money and rarely replies

One big problem is that some devs have to spend months chasing Apple down for their money. The way Apple Arcade works is devs get a large amount of money upfront to make the game, and then collect royalties from Apple as more players download and play their titles. In the early days of the service, devs say these payments arrived promptly, but now these royalty payments can take months to arrive. One dev claimed they had to wait for six months to get paid and it nearly killed their studio.

“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,” said a developer speaking to MobileGamer.biz. “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.”

MobileGamer.biz contacted Apple for comment but didn’t hear back.

Another problem is discoverability and promotion on Apple Arcade, with a developer telling the outlet that it feels like their game has been in a “morgue for the last two years.”

“It doesn’t matter what we put in the game, Apple won’t feature us, it’s like we don’t exist,” claimed the dev. “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.”

Apple Arcade is a pain to work with and lacks vision

This same dev described a horrible QA and update process, saying that a single update can take multiple back-and-forth meetings with Apple

“Submitting updates is so painful our developers started trying to avoid it,” they said.

One person who spoke with MobileGamer.biz claimed that one QA and localization process involved submitting 1,000 screenshots all at once to show the game was correctly working on all devices and in all languages. “My team were like: ‘There’s no fucking way we’re going to do that,’” a source told the outlet

Another common complaint from devs was a lack of vision or planning on Apple’s part, with some suggesting the company was just working devs because it was a “necessary evil” as games are so popular on Apple’s devices.

“Given their status as a huge tech company it feels as if they treat developers as a necessary evil,” explained one developer. “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.”

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