Apple Arcade vs. Google Play Pass

[mixel]

I binned it after 6 hours, reason being I didn't wait until the end of the trial is I didn't want to forget and get charged. I tried about 15 titles, none of them felt remotely premium.

What do you consider premium? A full blown capcom metroidvania is premium.

A sequel to one of the Dreamcast’s most beloved puzzle games is premium.

It feels like people are mixing up expectations of portable games with desktop/console ones. If this many games of the standard of Overland etc dropped on a portable launch (say, PSP, DS) it would be considered by far the strongest portable launch in the history of consoles.

It does need some killer apps, for sure, but it’s not lacking premium content, it’s just premium content built around different needs to the AAA home console/game market. Ability to play in small chunks, etc. You don’t have to like these sorts of game, nobody does, but I’m really interested in what games a service like this would have to offer to get people of that mindset to be interested in it?

 

[Piggie]

There is a clear winner here. Google Play Pass is the usual half baked product.
But Apple has to keep pushing on developers to make arcade a premium service.

Well, as we know, the only reasons developers are working like crazy on projects, other than the very few who just work for fun, is to make money, like Apple that is their no.1 prime focus.
All that Apple has to do it to give any developer a lot of money and they will spend the time/money etc to develop amazing high level software.
If they are only promised a potential share of some pot of money, then they are just only going to put minimal effort/staff on the side project to their main business.
It's not rocket science is it?
It's 100% down to Apple.

 

[beanbaguk]

Another one here who has cancelled the free trial before renewal. To be honest, some games are fun, but not worth the £4.99 per month.

I actually quite enjoyed Frogger but would rather just pay £5 or a little more for it. Ocean Horn 2 was also nice to play and I got quite into this, but again I would rather just pay £10 or so for it and be done. This is the sort of game I will play on and off over many months so it offers no value to pay £60 per year for a couple of games that I enjoyed.

The rest are all a bit "meh".

Everything now is a subscription and I've highlighted this in previous posts, they cleverly disguise the true cost of something and dilute our spend into what feels like loan repayments!

Netflix - £10pm
Apple Music - £9.99pm
Spotify - £15pm (family, and yes I have both)
Amazon Prime - £7.99pm
Apple iCloud Storage - £2.99pm
Google Drive - £9.99pm
Adobe Photography 1TB - £14.99pm
Apple Arcade - £4.99pm

They're all small amounts and when you look at them individually they don't look so bad, right?

Tallied up, that's £74.94pm

I can vomit further as that's £911.28 per year on these products!

So Apple Arcade is gone. I think I can live without it. Plus having just looked at the above, I think Apple Music too, which is a shame as it works great in my CarPlay. Plus I'll also look to remove the 1TB plan on my Adobe Lightroom package. Ouch.

Removing these items saves me £29.97pm which doesn't sound like a lot, but over the year that's £359.64.

Funny how nobody looks at yearly costs!

 

[Khedron]

To be absolutely clear I am not accusing anyone here of trolling but if I were a troll I would almost certainly post comments like "I cancelled after 3 days because..." It's free for 1 month! Why would anyone cancel after just a few days when it's free for a month. With 60 games can you expect anyone to seriously believe you took time to evaluate the product and all its offerings and decided it was so unusable that it was worth taking the time to cancel it after only 3 days?

Arcade is not for everyone. It probably isn't really for me. But if I were a gamer I would certainly take more than a few days to evaluate it thoroughly given that it is free for a month. Otherwise I would expect people to accuse me of trolling. Which, to be clear, I am not.

Because once you know you're not interested in paying why not cancel before you forget to? Apple refuses to provide a "cancel at the end of the trial" option.

Troll posts look more like this:

If I have to use an Android phone to get their service, automatic pass.

 

[FlyingDutch]

Well, as we know, the only reasons developers are working like crazy on projects, other than the very few who just work for fun, is to make money, like Apple that is their no.1 prime focus.
All that Apple has to do it to give any developer a lot of money and they will spend the time/money etc to develop amazing high level software.
If they are only promised a potential share of some pot of money, then they are just only going to put minimal effort/staff on the side project to their main business.
It's not rocket science is it?
It's 100% down to Apple.

It’s not rocket science, but a business must be sustainable and profitable for Apple.

 

[Khedron]

Don't forget that more games will be added all the time. I actually appreciate that Apple is leaning more towards the "fun" end of the spectrum and less to the "violent and bloody" end that many successful game franchises employ. The world does not need more violence-induced games, regardless of how much or little they might contribute to the development of young minds. The world needs more fun, laughter, smiles and pure joy.

As for the graphics being childish, that's purely subjective. It's just a different styles that many people will enjoy, and that does not mean they are awful. Just not your style.

And 14 year olds should definitely be living with their parents! I'd be worried if they weren't! 🤣
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Even if you played just 1 game from the selection, it would still be cheaper than most paid and ad-supported games available today. Arcade is great value. Is it sustainable, I wonder?

Are you joking? I'm trying out Apple Arcade games and the last one I played was about scoring points for causing car crashes.

 

[FlyingDutch]

Because once you know you're not interested in paying why not cancel before you forget to? Apple refuses to provide a "cancel at the end of the trial" option.

Troll posts look more like this:

And what if they will release 2/3 great games in the next couple of weeks?

 

[heov]

That’s how Google rips off, err, does most things

You are aware that Google has been testing Play Pass for months, and it leaked over a year ago that they were working on it, right lol? Seems more like Apple got wind of it of you ask me...

[Update 2: Coming Soon] Google may be launching a subscription service called "Play Pass"

Google Play Pass could be the name for a new subscription service in the Google Play Store that offers paid apps and games for a monthly fee.

www.xda-developers.com

Does it matter who was first? Well if Apple does it, yes. If they don't, no. That's how it works, yeah?

 

[cardfan]

What do you consider premium? A full blown capcom metroidvania is premium.

A sequel to one of the Dreamcast’s most beloved puzzle games is premium.

It feels like people are mixing up expectations of portable games with desktop/console ones. If this many games of the standard of Overland etc dropped on a portable launch (say, PSP, DS) it would be considered by far the strongest portable launch in the history of consoles.

It does need some killer apps, for sure, but it’s not lacking premium content, it’s just premium content built around different needs to the AAA home console/game market. Ability to play in small chunks, etc. You don’t have to like these sorts of game, nobody does, but I’m really interested in what games a service like this would have to offer to get people of that mindset to be interested in it?

I kinda alluded to it. Give some 80/90s retro games, or throw in some decent sports ones and get my 4.99.

From what I saw these are indie type games that have no appeal. I couldn’t even find one that didn’t bore me to tears after 5-10 mins. My 6 year old got bored after 5 mins of Frogger and went back to Minecraft on his iPad. My 13 yr old just shook her head and said no thanks. Arcade is a joke at school dad. They’re too busy playing fortnight. You can’t compete with free games.

Imo this is doomed because of what Apple requires. Exclusive. And how do you measure how to pay devs? That seems to contradict apple’s arguments in the past that devs set the prices.

 

[ipponrg]

So much for Apple Privacy. It’s Terms and Conditions says that it will provide your Apple ID to the game developers if you download games from Apple Arcade.

But that just is Apple Privacy though. It’s selectively choosing what privacy means in a particular situation. In this case, my assumption is that they call this private because it’s just an ID that is not tracked back to other personable identifiable information.

If I was a game developer here, I’d probably google the id and see if it maps to any public personas. If it does, then great! I can create a profile of the user and maybe even infer other interesting details.

In my opinion, that is the very definition of Apple Privacy.

But who knows!

 

[3goldens]

Apple Arcade is a flop. What were these guys thinking? The games are simply pathetic!

 

[Steve121178]

I think it's good Apple Arcade is focused on games only, and the price is right, but I'm disappointed in the sluggishness of the games on even the latest Apple TV 4K (even worse on older Apple TVs). I wish a new Apple TV came out to coincide with this release. That would have been smart.

Imagine 5-10 years from now - Apple Arcade will be VR, and you walk into an actual arcade and play your games there maybe, seeing your friends "in person" walk around and play games with you Paying with virtual currency of course... not VISA. Lots of room for growth.

Sounds horrific. I just want to play decent engrossing one-player games.

 

[alien3dx]

Apple arcade is the winner even the game seem few consider good.Google pass only on usa soil so pretty bad implementation.Last time i wait long time something google music

 

[FoxBJK]

It's free for 1 month! Why would anyone cancel after just a few days when it's free for a month.

As others have said, your credit card gets auto-billed at the end of free trials like this. I've forgotten about things like this and have ended up paying for a month of a service I don't need. Now I cancel stuff when I'm done with it.

Some people set a reminder and cancel the service closer to the end of the trial. Some people don't want to tempt fate and cancel as soon as they know they're done. To each their own.

 

[Mabus51]

On wifi I get around 20ms to the data center in town 30ms-50ms to other continental data centers and around 100ms-150ms to cross-atlantic ones. Apart from that is of course the rendering and compression, that will have to be done on server that must start when my input is received, say 30 ms (equivalent of 30fps, dont know what figure would be actually realistic). And add on to that the decompressing and input lag to the TV, mine is a ****** one with input lag of maybe 60-80ms (I think gaming modes on better TVs is around 20-30ms). So for me an input lag of around 160 ms is to be expected.

Now this is not good for playing competitive FPS or even Dota, but for console titles should be more than enough. Keep in mind that current multiplayer games already have a ”propagation lag”. But instead of console to server -> Rendering -> server to console -> TV’s input lag
you have:
player 1 to server -> server to player 2 -> Rendering -> TV’s input lag.

Bandwidth might be an issue yes, especially as more heavily compressed material will in general generate more latency (in the rendering and decompressing part) although they will likely have some dope hardware acceleration in place. I’d love to see some CNN-based upsampling like Nvidia’s, but that will likely take some more time.

Your ping to the data centers while nice isn’t relevant to your ping to the stadia servers. The only games I’ve seen that work well with streaming are RPGs that wait for an action, like old school Final Fantasy. Anything like platforming, FPS, 3rd person, fighting, sports, or stealth games that require multiple button presses in rapid fashion don’t work well. They barely work on local lan networks, so a remote connection to a server is even worse. If Stadia allows you to download and cache a game you’re playing that would be better. But it doesn’t seem to work that way. Input lag of any sort is bad, just play Bloodstaind on anything, then play it on the Switch. It’s a horrible experience and it’s why these services have all failed.

I’m still curious to see what Google thinks they have that magically fixes the problems of streaming games. But I have zero expectations of it working well in the real world. Their gimmicks of demoing it on stage while the server is behind the curtain makes it look nice, but try it at home even with gigabit fiber it’s a poor experience.

 

[GeneralChang]

There is a clear winner here. Google Play Pass is the usual half baked product.
But Apple has to keep pushing on developers to make arcade a premium service.

I think the real secret here is they have to keep funding developers. If they do that, the service will probably continue to be quality.

 

[Khedron]

Apple News+ flopped within a month of launching
Apple TV+ flopped before launch and is now being given away
Apple Arcade will be finished by Christmas

 

[GeneralChang]

Are you joking? I'm trying out Apple Arcade games and the last one I played was about scoring points for causing car crashes.

You just described Burnout, a classic console game that is still spawning lookalikes and sequels on Xbox One. The latest entry in the franchise is Paradise, I believe?

 

[Cold_Beaver]

Are you kidding? Apple Arcade!

are you kidding? The games are terrible. It sure why anyone would pay for this junk

 

[GeneralChang]

are you kidding? The games are terrible. It sure why anyone would pay for this junk

You know, I wonder the same thing about all the people buying CoD, Battlefield, and EA or 2K sports games every year. There really is just no accounting for taste.

 

[jgdeschamps]

Downloaded that "Hot Lava" game for Apple TV 4th gen... the graphics optimize HORRIBLY for this device.
I'm gonna try Oceanhorn 2 next, since the original one runs like butter.
I'm also interested in Spidersaurus since it reminds me of Contra games.
So far, the only annoyance is that games download extremely s-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-w, I'm guessing due to the novelty and demand on their servers.
BTW, the service is a tad cheaper here in Mexico (US$3.50 per month.)

 

[DevNull0]

Nah Google Stadia is DOA. Didn’t work for OnLive, Genki, PlayStation. It won’t work for Google or Microsoft either. Major problem is input lag and download caps from ISPs. Streaming games over the internet takes way to long for button inputs to register. It sorta works on local lan. But even then it’s only passable at best.

My ping is normally around 15ms and my TV input lag is 30ms. Stadia is hardly going to multiply the input lag. Where I am (Canada), download caps are unheard of except on the slowest cheapest plans. Streaming is completely viable.

That said, I have zero interest in installing any google spyware on my system, so Stadia is DOA as far as I'm concerned just because it's a google product, and I don't trust google at all.

I prefer running my software locally anyway (and have a gaming rig that can easily handle modern AAA games), but I'd be interested in a service that let me play moderatley new AAA titles for $10/month as Stadia seems to offer...just not from google.

 

[digthewell]

I never really got into gaming on touch screens, but I'd sure be up for simple games.

 

[mixel]

I kinda alluded to it. Give some 80/90s retro games, or throw in some decent sports ones and get my 4.99.

From what I saw these are indie type games that have no appeal. I couldn’t even find one that didn’t bore me to tears after 5-10 mins. My 6 year old got bored after 5 mins of Frogger and went back to Minecraft on his iPad. My 13 yr old just shook her head and said no thanks. Arcade is a joke at school dad. They’re too busy playing fortnight. You can’t compete with free games.

Imo this is doomed because of what Apple requires. Exclusive. And how do you measure how to pay devs? That seems to contradict apple’s arguments in the past that devs set the prices.

Your kids might not be interested in playing new games. My 11y/o daughter has played a lot of them so far - What The Golf most frequently, which I’ve also sunk a good while into.

Apple don’t demand full exclusivity, many of these games are out on pc too.

“1) These games cannot appear on Android, iOS’s biggest rival
2) They cannot be a part of some other subscription service, such as Xbox Game Pass or something”
That’s all. I’m also interested in how the devs are paid, I guess we’ll find out in due course.

And we have a million different ways of playing those retro classics, they would at this stage look like filler when the rest of the service is new content. 🤷🏻‍♀️

 

[mrkite77]

You just described Burnout, a classic console game that is still spawning lookalikes and sequels on Xbox One. The latest entry in the franchise is Paradise, I believe?

Burnout Paradise came out 11 years ago.