Apple Arcade?

Diary of an Indie Game Developer: Chapter 54

Like lots of people, I didn’t really know what to make of Apple Arcade when it was announced in March. So many unanswered questions: How much does a subscription cost? How are the developers of Apple Arcade games going to be compensated? Apparently, Apple is funding the development of some of these games, and supposedly developers will get revenue based on how much time users spend playing their games, but how much revenue are we talking about?

That said, in spite of all of the unanswered questions, I see lots of potential. First and foremost, I think there’s a very real possibility that Apple Arcade might help raise the bar on mobile games. Right now, the vast majority of mobile games are free to play. There just aren’t a lot of premium mobile games, because consumers have gotten accustomed to not having to pay for them. If Apple can get people to subscribe to Apple Arcade though, premium mobile games might be able to really thrive there.

I’ve always intended for my game to be a premium experience. That said, I’ve had to remain open to the possibility that I might eventually have to go the free to play route, because it’s so terribly hard to get people to pay for a mobile game.

I’ve also come to realize that I’m almost certainly going to need to work with a publisher when I finish my game. I simply don’t have the experience or the financial resources necessary to properly market a game.

So, that’s got me wondering if Apple Arcade might turn out to be a good way for me to publish my game. Of course, I won’t know for sure until Apple Arcade has launched and we see how it all works out. Apple would also have to like my game of course, which is faaaaaaaaaaaaaar from guaranteed.

Nevertheless, if Apple Arcade might be a fit for my game when I finish it, I should probably be thinking about what, if anything, I might need to change about how I’m developing it.

Which brings us to what I’m working on this week.

Up until now, I’ve been focusing almost all my efforts on optimizing my game for high end mobile phones. I’ve always intended to do an iPad version of my game as well, but primarily, I’ve been focused on phone form factors. If I might want to publish my game on Apple Arcade though, I’d have to produce a Mac build as well as an Apple TV version because it sounds like Apple Arcade games must be playable on all of Apple’s platforms with the exception of Apple Watch.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the implications of the larger screen sizes of the Mac and the Apple TV. So far, I’ve been pretty conservative with the polygon budgets for my game assets. Mostly that’s because I’m developing for mobile and you just can’t push as many polys on mobile as you can on Consoles or PCs. The other reason I’ve been so conservative though, is because of screen size: On small mobile phone screens, you just don’t need as many polygons to define the silhouettes of your game assets. On the other hand, if those assets might need to look good on big TV screens as well, I would want as many polys for them as I can afford.

So, this week I’m running lots of tests to see how many polygons I can push without killing performance. So far, I’m cautiously optimistic that I can significantly increase the polygon budget from where I am now. Either way, I’ll let you know how it all turns out…

Also, I’ll be traveling for a few weeks starting next week, so no posts until I get back.

See you soon…