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News Inside Apple Arcade: axed games, declining payouts, and an uncertain future

Krvavi Abadas

Krvavi Abadas

Mr. Archivist
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Multiple mobilegamer.biz sources have voiced their concern for Apple Arcade’s future, citing a glut of cancelled projects and ever-declining developer payouts.

One developer said there was the “the smell of death” around the service – though others suggested there are now whispers of (another) reboot for the service.

Payouts for titles on Apple Arcade have been falling for years, our sources said, and following a shift in strategy very few original games are being greenlit unless they are attached to a big family-friendly IP.

Several developers we spoke to noted that payments from Apple Arcade’s per-play ‘bonus pool’ started to decline around October 2020, and have continued to do so since. Then, as part of a reboot in spring 2021, Apple “cancelled a shitload of projects and pissed off a lot of people,” according to one source.
One studio boss told us that after months of glowing feedback on one particular game, the Arcade team suddenly withdrew its interest in the title, citing a change in strategy. When the developer asked for feedback and offered to reduce the budget and re-tool the game to better fit Apple’s needs, the Arcade team simply stopped responding to their emails.

The service is now laser-focused on family-friendly games with big IP attached, supplemented by one or two new ‘App Store Greats’ per month, which are repurposed free to play games with ads and IAPs removed.
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I’d recommend viewing the full article for further details, but my main concern is the fact Apple is endangering a solid chunk of games out of existence if they ever decided to kill it entirely.

they’ve already had a noted history of poor preservation on all of their devices (dropping 32-bit support and fully switching to ARM processors within the span of a few months, filing a C&D on a archived respiratory of old prototype iOS applications solely because they bought the company that created the testing program the apps were designed for.)
and cases of games being lost thanks to Apple losing the publishing rights have happened before over the past several months.
 
Silver lining is that this probably encourages Sega to more heavily consider/prioritize putting Sonic Dream Team on consoles/PC instead of leaving it trapped on an unpopular mobile service.
 
Behon said:
Silver lining is that this probably encourages Sega to more heavily consider/prioritize putting Sonic Dream Team on consoles/PC instead of leaving it trapped on an unpopular mobile service.
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I'm still waiting for Sega to port ChuChu Rocket Universe which I think was already delisted from the service.

And Fantastian since that SteamDB listing was found last year.
 
Lugia667 said:
Sega putting dream team on that was sooo short-sighted. I don't know what they were thinking
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They were thinking "that's a mighty handsome check right there, Mr Tim Apple, Sir!!"

I always assumed those games had a negotiated "exclusivity period" and this eventually the best of them would be ported to PC/Switch at the least.

Thanks for the thread OP, interesting development ☕

One request, along with the link could you also note the source name? Ie mobilegamer.biz in this case.

(Just for the sake of attribution)
 
Watch it, next major Update they make a new Facelift of the Appstore and hide Arcade somewhere away. Then they act as if the Service dosen‘t exist, but will also not really kill it, just don‘t care.
 
uncleoptimus said:
They were thinking "that's a mighty handsome check right there, Mr Tim Apple, Sir!!"

I always assumed those games had a negotiated "exclusivity period" and this eventually the best of them would be ported to PC/Switch at the least.

Thanks for the thread OP, interesting development ☕

One request, along with the link could you also note the source name? Ie mobilegamer.biz in this case.

(Just for the sake of attribution)
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sadly ChuChu rocket died....
 
These games will not be lost. All the single player games in AA can be cracked on Mac and are available on Mac prirated sites.

Since macOS is open you can download these games even after AA shuts down.
 
Not really surprised. Apple Arcade never really seemed to properly take off and the only reason I'm subscribed to it is because it's in a bundle. Last time I actually looked it was in December to download Puzzle & Dragons. That was 3 months ago.

Yamanoi said:
I hope they get more Sega exclusives like another Sonic game.
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You might be in luck

www.resetera.com

Rumor: New Sonic mobile games in development including Chao game, Fall Guys-esque game, and sports title

I don't know how reliable @MbKKssTBhz5 is so take this rumor with a grain of salt, but from what I understand they've accurately leaked Persona/Atlus related info in the past so it could be legit. Supposedly the Chao game would be a Netflix game, the sports game would be for Apple Arcade, and...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com
 
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