Developing games for Apple platforms has been described as “an abusive relationship,” due to a lack of support or strategy.
In a new report, MobileGamer.biz spoke to several anonymous developers making games for the Apple Arcade mobile platform and the Vision Pro VR headset.
Sources describe a series of problems, suggesting that Apple simply “doesn’t understand gamers” or the industry.
A key issue would be the lack of contact or technical support. “We can go weeks without hearing anything from Apple, and their general response time to emails is three weeks, if they respond at all,” one source said.
“We should be able to ask questions about products, technical questions, and sales questions, but often half the Apple team doesn’t show up, and when they do show up they have no idea what’s going on and can’t answer our questions, either because they don’t know how to answer them or because they can’t share that information for confidentiality reasons.”
This is especially true for developers working on the Vision Pro: one of them described Apple's tech support as “the worst I've ever seen.”
“Developing for the Vision Pro is like going back 10 years because, despite the advertised power and cost, it’s not a machine built for gaming,” they said. “Getting complex games running on the platform is difficult.”
Apple does not offer financial incentives to studios developing for the Vision Pro, unlike its main competitor Meta, which was described as “totally baffling” by one anonymous developer.
Other issues include discoverability on Apple Arcade and the murky QA and update processes. One source said: “It feels like the game has been in a morgue for the last two years… It's like we're invisible.”
Another developer detailed the QA and localization process, which involves sending a thousand screenshots at once for every aspect ratio and language on the device. “My team was like, ‘There’s no way we’re going to do this,’” they said.
On the bright side, sources interviewed said Apple pays well, though times have changed since Arcade's early years. Now, however, there's a five-month backlog in royalty payments: one developer went six months unpaid and nearly went out of business, while another said he was “blocked” by Apple representatives for insisting on payments.
And while developers believe Apple views gaming as a “necessary evil,” Arcade appears to be directionless. One source said it “feels like an addition to Apple's corporate ecosystem” and isn't “truly supported within the company.”
“I honestly think Apple doesn't understand games and gamers,” another source said. “I think Apple Arcade is a good idea overall, but they need a clear goal of where it should go and what it's for. That's a question they need to answer and then act on.”
Another source was particularly unhappy. “Given their status as a major tech company, it seems they treat developers as a necessary evil and that we will do whatever we can to please them for little in return, in the hope that they will grace us with another project – and a chance to screw us again,” they said.
“It's like an abusive relationship where the victim stays in the relationship hoping the other partner will change and become the person you know they could be.”
Eurogamer reached out to Apple for comment, which declined, but referred to an interview with senior Arcade director Alex Rofman in The Guardian. “Arcade is a place for games that might not otherwise exist, and I think that's a really important part of our strategy,” he said, adding “games are more important to Apple now than they've ever been.”
An earlier report from February, also from MobileGamer.biz, claimed that developers were concerned about the future of Apple Arcade and described the “smell of death” hanging over the platform.
It's certainly a tough time for mobile gaming. Capcom's iOS port of Resident Evil 7 has sold fewer than 2,000 units since its launch in early July. Games like Assassin's Creed Mirage, Resident Evil Village, and Death Stranding have fared similarly.