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For a long time, Apple seemed to have a bad relationship with video games. Whenever the words "Apple" and "games" appeared in the same news, the first thing that came to people's mind was often the following meme:

Perhaps in order to reverse the inherent impression of players, Apple has indeed devoted a lot of effort to the gaming field in recent years. Not only have they successfully brought a number of 3A games to the mobile platform, but they have also invited Ubisoft, Capcom, Sega and other veteran game manufacturers to develop games for the iOS platform when promoting their own game subscription service Apple Arcade. It seems that they are determined to get a share of the gaming market.

But after so many years, Apple Arcade is still lukewarm. In a recent survey by foreign media mobilegamer.biz, many developers who make games for Apple Arcade revealed in interviews that they are almost driven crazy by Apple.

The biggest benefit of developing games for Apple is of course money. Most developers interviewed by mobilegamer.biz said that Apple is really generous in paying money, especially in the early years of the Apple Arcade project. Some small teams can even get enough funds to recover the development budget. As long as the game can be made, it is a sure-win business.

However, the embarrassing development of Apple Arcade later made Apple consciously cut its investment in the game project. Some developers complained to mobilegamer.biz that they had not received their due wages from Apple for several months. Some independent developers also tried to ask Apple for wages, but in the end they did not get the results they wanted.

If not getting paid is a problem that can at least be resolved through formal legal channels, then the makeshift level of the Apple team in the field of game development is probably the main reason why developers are even more disappointed.

"We might not hear from Apple for weeks, and their response time for emails is usually three weeks," said one developer. "Half of the Apple team often doesn't show up, and even when they do, they don't know what's going on and can't answer our questions, either because they don't know how to answer the question or can't share the information for confidentiality reasons."

This is particularly evident for developers of the Vision Pro platform, with one developer noting that Apple engineers were unable to provide him with effective technical support. "Developing for Vision Pro is like going back 10 years. It is not a machine designed for gaming, and it is extremely difficult to get any complex game running on this platform."

In addition to the problems mentioned above, "lack of publicity and promotion" is also a major complaint of Apple Arcade developers. Apple's promotion strategy for games of the same type is to "prioritize the promotion of new games." If it is not an old game with outstanding quality, the exposure it receives will decline significantly after there are more similar competing products.

One developer described this phenomenon as: "It's like our game is always lying in the morgue."

Ultimately, Apple Arcade lacks a clear strategy. It is a bit like a byproduct of Apple's ecosystem. It has not received strong internal support and has not gained recognition from players. At the same time, the developers of this platform cannot see the future of Apple Arcade. One developer said: "It's like an abusive relationship. The abused party stays in the relationship, hoping that the other party can change and become the person he could have been."

It is not easy to cross industries and enter the game market. Apple Arcade’s current sluggishness may also usher in a turnaround in the future, but if Apple still wants to get rid of the label of "not related to games", it is time to re-examine Apple Arcade’s target audience and development direction.