Developers concerned about Apple Arcade future - report

A number of developers have said they are concerned about the future of Apple Arcade, with one person stating there is «the smell of death» around the mobile game subscription service.

A source told mobilegamer.biz that Apple had «cancelled a shitload of projects and pissed off a lot of people» following a 'reboot' of the subscription in 2021. Other sources, meanwhile, said the company had been steadily cutting developer payouts and upfront fees over recent years.

«We're going to see that amount and decrease and decrease and decrease until it's pennies,» one developer told the publication. «At that point putting a game on Arcade starts to become much less viable.» Reportedly, when Apple Arcade launched in 2019, it was a different story, with «very generous» upfront and per-play payments.

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In addition, sources said Apple seems to be eschewing original games in favour of family-friendly games with a big IP attached, but it has not made that direction clear to developers. One studio boss stated they had received positive feedback for one of their games, only for Apple to then withdraw interest citing a change in strategy. When the affected developer asked for more details, Apple reportedly stopped replying.

Others said they had met with Apple to discuss adding their games to the service, but were left unsure of the direction the company was taking. «I got the sense they didn't really know where they were going with it all — almost like they weren't sure if they'd have jobs at the end of it,» one studio boss said.

This communication issue is also reportedly affecting developers asking about declining payments. Mobilegamer.biz said Apple had «been evasive around how its bonus pool payments are calculated».

«They have this opaque metric that they call a qualifying session, and bonus pool payments are made based on that,»