Game developers are unhappy with Apple Arcade, Apple's subscription service that provides users with access to many games. They complain about late payments, terrible communication, poor performance of Vision Pro, etc. This is stated in a new report from Mobilegamer.biz.
Representatives of one of the studios said that they have been delayed for five months, although at the beginning they received money steadily every month. Other developers also complain about similar problems and say that they have not been paid anything for six months.
There are many complaints about the support department and communication from the Apple Arcade team. Developers say that at first, communication with the team was good, but now you have to wait weeks or months for a response to an email, and it's a good thing if you get one at all.
“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,” they say in one of the studios.
There are also complaints about the operation of Vision Pro and the difficulties of developing games for the mixed reality headset. One of the developers who works with Vision Pro said that the headset's engineers do not know how their device works. Among other things, there are complaints about the headset's performance and the difficulty of optimizing games for the platform.
There is also dissatisfaction with the way games are promoted to new players. Developers say that if the service has several similar games, the newest game will be promoted, and all older projects will start to lose popularity and be shown to users less often, and eventually these projects will become "invisible."
Dissatisfaction also arose because of the testing team, the behavior of Apple Arcade team members and their competence, and many others. However, despite all these complaints, there are also positive aspects.
Some developers say that if it weren't for Apple Arcade and the company's funding, neither their studios nor their games would exist. Other developers also say that Apple paid well, especially in the early years of Arcade.
“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.”