Apple Arcade to Gain NFL Retro Bowl '25, Monster Train+, and Puzzle Sculpt

[Octavius8]

Less and less interesting games in Arcade… I think I will stop my subscription soon.

 

[macos9rules]

Yes. Bring stuff like OceanHorn or something.

I think when my daughter will be 6 years old I will finally use Apple Arcade after 3 years of having Apple One. Other than that, it's a failure in my book.

Oceanhorn 2 is part of Apple Arcade.

 

[rippley5150]

Is NFL Retro Bowl '25 just an updated version of Tecmo Super Bowl III: Final Edition ?
TSB was fun to play on the PSP.
I'm old lol

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

I would dare to say that a majority of gaming addicts are probably more of „causal gamer“ type than the „hardcore gamer“ type, at least that’s what I see in my environment. Even if that sounds a bit contradictory.

I don't think it's contradictory at all.
Casual/mobile games are often about hooking the audience as fast as possible for as long as possible. The design behind that sort of thing is as fascinating as it is evil.

The point it, it works and mobile game revenue has left console and PCs in the dust (if you can really call those numbers for console and PC "dust", of course )

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

Is NFL Retro Bowl '25 just an updated version of Tecmo Super Bowl III: Final Edition ?
TSB was fun to play on the PSP.
I'm old lol

The PSP... I can still hear the disc drive spinning up in that thing xD
I recently took out the battery because it had started swelling up. Need to find a new one somewhere.

I loved Worms and LocoRoco on the PSP

 

[RedWeasel]

The PSP... I can still hear the disc drive spinning up in that thing xD

I think I even had some feature movie UMDs.

 

[PsykX]

Oceanhorn 2 is part of Apple Arcade.

I know, but it's only one game. They need to replicate this success more than once.

 

[macfacts]

It’s time to take Apple Arcade off life support.

We‘ve had enough puzzle games.
We’ve had enough recycled mobile games.
We’ve had enough crude pixel art games.

Bring higher quality, or shut it down.

All these apple arcade games are like "Adobe Flash" type games, now you know why apple wanted to kill flash, cause they couldn't monitize those games

 

[Unregistered 4U]

People are so harsh on Apple Arcade, I think the games they offer there are fine, with a few gems to make it worthwhile, and a few bits of Pay to Win mobile games with the Pay to Win removed exposing how un-fun the games that rely on FOMO are.

All that said, I would imagine the primary target audience of Apple Arcade is parents who don't want to have to constantly tell their children that no, they can't buy $99 worth of magic crystal gems even if it is "BEST VALUE".

I'm sure people will reply to that with "maybe they should try parenting" - but I'd say giving your child a gaming experience that's not infested with addiction and gamble mechanics - is parenting. Yeah, have your kids do sports and other activities as well, but sometimes parents just need a break when they're at a cafe with their bored kid.

Some people love their microtransaction loot boxes! If there’s a game that isn’t loaded to the hilt with DLC, they’re just not interested. “If all I spend in a month on a game is $6.99, is it REALLY a game?”

 

[Unregistered 4U]

How about bringing Madden series instead.....eh, never mind.

A vote FOR an EA title known for some of the worst microtransactions?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Why doesn’t apple buy a game studio and have a catalogue of AAA titles to offer? Make them release mac ports of every game they develop while they’re at it.

I’m sure it must be cheaper than founding a film production company…

Well, founding a film production company DOES have clear paths to ROI. What’s path to ROI for buying a game studio which creates a catalogue of of AAA titles to offer? A film production company may lead to acclaimed series (Ted Lasso) that becomes a reason for someone to subscribe to their service if only for a month.

There’s not a game on the planet that will make anyone pay $999 for a Mac to play it, they’ll just wait for it to come out for something else. And if it never comes out for something else? Well, then few will buy it (because a lot of gaming is social) and it’ll be a loss. There’s no profit to buying a game studio.

 

[Velli]

It depends when we're talking about. We used to get interesting stuff like Bioshock, Ridge Racer, Soul Calibur, GTA Vice City, Deus Ex, Max Payne, etc on iOS. The trouble is, Apple kept breaking old games with iOS updates, I believe Bioshock lasted about 4 months before it stopped working and the developer didn't bother to fix it.

Perhaps the developers didn’t bother to fix it because noone were actually playing those games. I agree those games were there in the early days, the market reached and a phone is simply not the right hardware for playing those games.

The closest thing to a truly succesful AAA game that is truly designed for mobile, is Pokemon Go. It’s just that People’s idea of what AAA means is not adjusted for mobile.

The trouble with mobile gaming is the race to the bottom that made F2P so prevalent, no-one is willing to pay for games anymore. Aside from the odd developer dipping their toe (like Capcom with their current RE ports) we never seem to get a consistent stream of decent games because anything more expensive than free gets ignored by the majority. I used to game on iOS all the time, but slowly but surely the choices have dwindled to nothing. The Switch and the Steam Deck have pretty much replaced my iOS devices for gaming now.

I agree, but while Apple created the perfect platform for this to happen, it was not Apple doing it, but developers and the market. Apple is actively fighting AGAINST this with Apple Arcade, as the only major player to do so. And doing it by trying to provide no-IAP versions of games designed for mobile is a lot better than trying to port AAA games to a platform where they don’t belong. It was tried, and it failed.

A good example is the game Simon’s Cat. It fulfills exactly the same desires as Candy Crush, but with a much higher quality experience and no IAP junk. This game gets way too little credit.

My own main gripe and pet peeve with Apple Arcade is the lack of a good idle game.

 

[Manzanito]

Well, founding a film production company DOES have clear paths to ROI. What’s path to ROI for buying a game studio which creates a catalogue of of AAA titles to offer? A film production company may lead to acclaimed series (Ted Lasso) that becomes a reason for someone to subscribe to their service if only for a month.

There’s not a game on the planet that will make anyone pay $999 for a Mac to play it, they’ll just wait for it to come out for something else. And if it never comes out for something else? Well, then few will buy it (because a lot of gaming is social) and it’ll be a loss. There’s no profit to buying a game studio.

They can keep selling games for PC and consoles. Like when Microsoft bought Bethesda and kept selling PS5 games.

 

[macos9rules]

I know, but it's only one game. They need to replicate this success more than once.

I agree!