Apple Arcade vs. Google Play Pass

[Brandhouse]

Cancelled Arcade today. Was hyped for it, but I guess the current gen of touch games just don't hold my attention long. Capcom I found had the was the most immersive title though.

Considering that myself, add to that that the customer experience is woeful. It's really confusing trying to work out how:
• to quit a game;
• find a game that I downloaded;
• to know if a game is downloading. I hit the button to 'Get', but I don't see any progress of it downloading so I don't know if it's in a queue, or I didn't actually hit 'get'.

My son's trying it out while he's on school holidays, if he doesn't like it then goodbye to Apple Arcade

 

[Coconut Bean]

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.

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.

Just tested, Steam ingame server ping is between 15-25, this on wifi. I know much bigger data packages in general will have higher latency, yet it's not given it have to be. After all delivering 10 kb or 10Mb on a 200Mb connection is still just a fraction of the capacity.

I agree FPS will be a stretch with 200 ms, fine for Assassin's Creed and Co however. But can they cut it in half it will work even for casual FPS. Of course it's easier said than done and also have to bear in mind that most people don't have a low latency screen nor a good router.

 

[GeneralChang]

Burnout Paradise came out 11 years ago.

Gee thanks, are you trying to make me feel old??

 

[Mabus51]

Just tested, Steam ingame server ping is between 15-25, this on wifi. I know much bigger data packages in general will have higher latency, yet it's not given it have to be. After all delivering 10 kb or 10Mb on a 200Mb connection is still just a fraction of the capacity.

I agree FPS will be a stretch with 200 ms, fine for Assassin's Creed and Co however. But can they cut it in half it will work even for casual FPS. Of course it's easier said than done and also have to bear in mind that most people don't have a low latency screen nor a good router.

I’ll just say this. Try Stadia when it comes out. Goggle may have worked out some kind of physics breaking magic via new codecs an compression. I’ve streamed games before on gigabit fiber with an Ethernet connection and 20 to 25 ping to the server. Unless the game waited for an action before moving on to the response like turn based RPGs. It was a mess no matter which game I tried. Playable... if playing a game while being drunk enough were you don’t really know what’s going on is considered playable, then yeah sure enjoy.

 

[macfacts]

And how do you measure how to pay devs? That seems to contradict apple’s arguments in the past that devs set the prices

Apple tracks you, that's how. Probably part of screen time. The privacy is a lie

 

[Abazigal]

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.

I think this article helps shed some insight.

Apple Arcade is a home for premium games that lost their place on mobile

‘It’s creating a space where you can take risks.’

www.theverge.com

Note the following excerpts.

Apple Arcade — and in particular the funding from Apple — has given mobile developers the freedom to think big without having to worry about how they’re going to make that money back.

Seems like play time isn’t a metric being measured here.

Whatever and however developers are being paid, it appears to be enough to give them the ability to focus on the kinds of games they want to make, rather than the kinds that currently dominate mobile app stores.

Makes it sound like the app developers are more like salaried employees in this regard.

It helps that games don’t have to be exclusive to Apple Arcade. They can’t appear on other mobile platforms or subscription services, but otherwise developers are free to support Arcade and sell their games on console or PC.

And to add insult to injury,

The real loser in this scenario is Android users, who likely won’t see many of the biggest iPhone games ported to their platform of choice. For developers, though, this may not be a huge loss. “If premium games were dying on iOS,” Holowaty says, “they’ve been a rotting corpse on Android.”

 

[Piggie]

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

Yes, in the long term, but I'm sure we all know Apple are going to lose money initially.
the 4.99 movie sub won't repay the cost of the programs they are making.
Nor will any free offers for people who buy hardware.
It will cost Apple Many millions/billions and give only a small fraction in return.

They are simply gambling that, in the long term. If they can get people to subscribe and stay with them for many years, that they will turn a profit eventually.

 

[skaertus]

Well, I decided to ressurrect this thread here, as I finally had the chance to try Google Play Pass.

I have used Apple Arcade since it launched here in Brazil back in September 2019. I was looking forward to it, as I can no longer stand all those PPW games. It was a huge disappointment. Sure, they all have a quality standard and are free of ads. However, I tried dozens of games and none of them was particularly fun to play. No addictive games at all. Grindstone and Sayonara Wild Hearts are barely playable, at least for me.

And then I tried Google Play Pass, which has just launched here in Brazil. What a difference! For me, Google Play Pass is much, much better than Apple Arcade. I found several games which are fun and addictive. In fact, I spent the whole weekend playing Google Play Pass games (instead of doing stuff I was supposed to...).

I much prefer Google's approach here.

Apple's intentions are great, they have exclusive games, they are concerned about the privacy of users, and they curate the games, so they assure their quality. However, it is hard to create hit games in a sort of lab-controlled environment.

Google, on the other hand, has no such concerns. Google Play Pass contains hit games which have been widely available in both iOS and Android (as paid versions). I found that some of these games contain ads, although they do not force you to watch, which is frustrating. And some of these games freeze and others even fail to launch. And I doubt Google cares about the privacy of users. But it was very easy to find very fun and addictive games, and I have only tried a few of them so far.