Apple Arcade: axed games, declining payouts, disillusioned studios
mobilegamer.biz
mobilegamer.biz
They should just keep their easy cut of the genshin et. al. on the app store and let whoever else is interested in hosting premium games do their job. If they get their way they are getting a cut of alternate stores anyway.
They talk a big game about how things will change, but it’s empty promises.
The latest is Resident Evil games on iOS that ran like garbage and Apple Arcade that is mostly shovelware.
What's frustrating is that it's not mostly shovelware. There have been plenty of good titles on the service that retail for $10, $15, $20, and above on other platforms (or iOS itself after the come off of Apple Arcade). And the "+" versions where they take an older game, pull out all of the ads and microtransactions, and let you just play the damn things: I think those are great. Too many older games that I really liked, are pretty much unplayable because they've turned cancerous with ads.
But you're right—every few years, they care (or pretend to) about games for a little while, and then go back to ignoring them. Apple Arcade as a service isn't bad—and as a piece of their total subscription package, it's pretty good. But it needs constant attention, to keep the games coming. Not diminishing returns for the developers, because that's a death spiral for the service.
There's some oddness also, slay the spire+ is available on iPhone, where I don't want it but not on Apple TV where I do.
That is weird. I wonder if it comes from Apple or the developers? If the developers, why would Apple allow it?