Several developers have said they are worried about the future of Apple Arcade, with one person claiming there is a “smell of death” surrounding the mobile game subscription service.
A source said mobilegamer.biz that Apple had “cancelled a bunch of projects and pissed off a lot of people” following a subscription “reboot” in 2021. Meanwhile, other sources said the company had been steadily cutting payments to developers and upfront fees in the last years.
“We're going to look at that number and go down and down and down until it's pennies,” one developer told the publication. “At that point, putting a game on Arcade starts to become a lot less viable.” When Apple Arcade launched in 2019, it was reportedly a different story, with “very generous” upfront and per-play payouts.
Manage cookie settings
Additionally, sources said Apple appears to be eschewing original games in favor of family-friendly games with big IP attached, but hasn't made that direction clear to developers. The head of a studio claimed that he had received positive feedback on one of his games, only for Apple to withdraw interest citing a change in strategy. When the affected developer asked for more details, Apple reportedly stopped responding.
Others said they had met with Apple to discuss adding their games to the service, but were unsure of the direction the company was taking. “I got the feeling that they didn't really know where they were going with all of this, almost like they weren't sure if they would have a job in the end,” said one studio head.
This communication issue also reportedly affects developers who ask about declining payments. Mobilegamer.biz said Apple had “been evasive about how its bonus pool payouts are calculated.”
“They have this opaque metric they call a qualifying session, and bonus pool payments are made based on that,” one source said. “But no one knows what a qualifying session actually is: it has something to do with whether the game was released, how long the player played, and how often they come back. But it's really a black box.”
Another studio head told the publication that he believes Apple needs leadership to fix Arcade's problems, but that there is no “passion and respect” for gaming. “It all depends on how much buy-in there is from those guys at the top, and I don't think they really value Arcade or invest in it the same way you see them invest in music or television,” they said.
Despite this, other sources seem more optimistic that Apple can turn things around, suggesting that the impact Netflix has had on the subscription gaming space has led the company to consider another Arcade reboot.
“I really hope Netflix continues doing what it's doing because it requires Apple to continue trying to be relevant and competitive,” a source told the publication. “Google also needs to come into the space with something compelling: Google Play Pass is pretty good for developers, but it's marketed terribly.”
However, it is not all doom and gloom. A source said that “despite its imperfections”, they were “very, very happy that Arcade exists”. “It has made premium games viable on mobile devices,” they said.
Elsewhere in Apple Arcade-related news, What the Hell? Developer Triband brings its absurd racing game What the Car? coming to Steam later this year, after a period of time as an Arcade exclusive.
