I would rather own 6 sweet games for $60 instead of rent 100 crappy games for 1 year for $60.
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Apple Canceling Some Apple Arcade Game Contracts to Focus on Hit Games That Will Draw Subscribers
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The problem is Apple created an ecosystem where micro transactions rule supreme. If I were a dev and wanted to make the most profit why would I ever develop for arcade. The real money is in all the cheap thrill slot loot box games. If Apple wants to have Arcade take off, they need to fix this problem first.
Apple Pay’s you for developing for arcade, and you get to negotiate how that works, and it depends on engagement. So make a game people like, and you can make money.
Compete against Sony Playstation, Nintendo, and Microsoft Xbox? What can we lose?
Apple has turned into google, create stuff and see if it works. Lets turn into a film producer, chip designer, credit card issuer, videogame publisher, video streaming service company.
I don't think this is true, Apple have made 0 effort to gain back gaming studios. I am surprised there are any games for the Mac on the opposite side of other platforms which are flourishing with them. Even iOS games was an unexpected result, some publishers made games and sold them on iOS and they became such a cash cow that Apple now made a dedicated section to them on the app store. Its not like Steve Jobs was thinking "Lets make the best portable gaming device out there"... he stated it best at launch "an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator" not gaming console.
Apple has turned into google, create stuff and see if it works. Lets turn into a film producer, chip designer, credit card issuer, videogame publisher, video streaming service company.
I don't think this is true, Apple have made 0 effort to gain back gaming studios. I am surprised there are any games for the Mac on the opposite side of other platforms which are flourishing with them. Even iOS games was an unexpected result, some publishers made games and sold them on iOS and they became such a cash cow that Apple now made a dedicated section to them on the app store. Its not like Steve Jobs was thinking "Lets make the best portable gaming device out there"... he stated it best at launch "an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator" not gaming console.
Apple is trying to become jack of all trades, and gaming isn’t really Apple strength. Some loyal Apple user might be hooked, but it was hard times convincing people who gaming with dedicated device such Console from Sony, XBox, Nintendo, Windows box, etc. Popular third party store such as Steam and Origin is also lack of Apple ecosystem support ( I don’t count game streaming service)
Even Apple had really good ecosystem, I must admit not all Apple offered service would shine. In this case, Apple Arcade is one of them.
Even Apple had really good ecosystem, I must admit not all Apple offered service would shine. In this case, Apple Arcade is one of them.
After investors and Apple realized that the "Peak iPhone" scenario had been reached in terms of profitability, they decided to diversify into services. So far the efforts seem half-hearted but they are learning a lot. Maybe a refocusing of Apple Arcade is precisely what is needed.
The goal of services like Apple Arcade isn't to compete directly with gaming giants like Sony and Nintendo. It exists simply to offer Apple and its investors another stream of revenue to make up for slow growth in the handheld market.
This isn’t really surprising. Apple isn’t really looking to support and back this initiative properly. They aren’t really bringing interesting multi hour single player or multiplayer games. They need to consider a similar formula as Xbox Game Pass. No they don’t have Triple AAA titles, but they can attempt to either bring in games that are pay once into the platform that exist already in the Apple Store for a certain amount of time, or start getting a lot more newly developed games that are longer than 2 or 3 hours. But pushing to get titles that will push tons of replay ability and being addictive won’t be enough to keep people coming back.
So many of the games look the same.
Is there a name for this rendering style?
Default?
I play it every now and then and has some good games, but it offers a fun assortment of new games for my kids to play on their iPads, so I keep it around for them. With the pandemic, my kids are using their iPads more, and I find myself in situations less often where I would pull out my iPhone to play a mobile game while waiting on something else. With the extra time I've been making improvements to my home like setting up a Raspberry Pi 4B for home automation (and soon file server), landscaping, building a raised garden box for my wife, clearing brush in the woods and transforming our deck into a really sweet hang out spot. I'm also finally playing more consoles games, which I'd rather be playing than anything on mobile. With many people still stuck at home, it's not a great year for mobile anything, so I'm not too surprised that Apple Arcade might be having trouble. I think it's a pretty decent value, especially since a lot of the games can be played on Apple TV with an Xbox controller and everything is shared with your family.
My entire Steam library was rendered useless once MacOS dropped 32bit apps. I don’t expect they will bother with ARM Macs either.
Clicked on the ad for Grindstone. Nope. But Apple does have a point. There is an iOS game that I have played for 4 years. Two others that I played for 2 years each. I could see myself dropping $5 a month if there were 2-3 games I played regularly. Bonus if others in the household found things they like. The main thing I am looking for is some bundle discounts with other things I subscribe to from Apple. Give me a few permutations. Music+TV+Games+Storage would be my combo.
Yeah, what's interesting is that not only Apple doesn't understand gaming but that can be said about a lot of the users posting here.
High end gaming simply isn't associated with Apple and it won't be associated with Apple because the problems start with the hardware. ARM won't help with this because the Nr. 1 most important thing when it comes to high end gaming is: the GPU. And who's the biggest name in GPU? Nvidia obviously.
Apple simply isn't willing to create a "box" that would offer better price/performance ratio or at least be competitive vs Windows PCs and it can't compete with the consoles because it lacks the blockbuster exclusives that make Xbox and PlayStation desirable.
Mobile gaming is what I would call, low end gaming, in general low budget apps that cost a few dollars to own and even if this will improve in the future as mobile phone hardware will get faster it won't fundamentally change because the big budget studios are going to continue to primarily target the platforms they target now: PC, Xbox and Playstation.
So yeah, Apple perusing low end gaming is something that doesn't sound interesting to me.
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The problem I personally have with services like these is that I want to play a few games that interest me, preferably on one platform. Oceanhorn 2 seems nice, but I'm not going to take a subscription for one game. Breath of the Wild looks nice, but I'm not going to bu a switch for just one game. So what I do, and what I've always done, is play games on Bootcamp + Windows. The broadest selection of games on one platform.
I don't think that's the problem with Apple Arcade. With most of the games, I get a sense that the people on the Apple side were looking for emotional marketing-oriented pitches full of virtue signaling and the like, and that they really thought very little about whether it would actually be a good game. There are a couple of exceptions but not many.
For those who are skeptical of Grindstone but haven’t played it, try it! It’s a full premium experience notwithstanding the match 3 genre and art style. I also thought Assemble with care, mini motorways, Neocab and a handful of others were lots of fun with the subscription. As someone who owns the switch, ps4, and gaming pc for my hardcore gaming, I think the Arcade is going after a different market and serves a different purpose than the other big players in gaming and they can both coexist.
Apple seems to want to recreate the market for premium mobile games it used to have, which thrived in the first few years of the AppStore before the race to the bottom (99 cent games) and, ultimately, freemium games killed them off. I have fond memories of Rolando, Zombieville USA, Fieldrunners, and others during the first few years of the AppStore, which were 5-10 dollars each. These days those prices are largely reserved for remakes or niche games. Apple definitely could push the arcade into a more premium direction, but as it stands now, it seems like the Arcade was intended to undercut the dominant freemium market in mobile and help restore some legitimacy to the AppStore with “premium casual” experiences that don’t have IAPs.
Apple seems to want to recreate the market for premium mobile games it used to have, which thrived in the first few years of the AppStore before the race to the bottom (99 cent games) and, ultimately, freemium games killed them off. I have fond memories of Rolando, Zombieville USA, Fieldrunners, and others during the first few years of the AppStore, which were 5-10 dollars each. These days those prices are largely reserved for remakes or niche games. Apple definitely could push the arcade into a more premium direction, but as it stands now, it seems like the Arcade was intended to undercut the dominant freemium market in mobile and help restore some legitimacy to the AppStore with “premium casual” experiences that don’t have IAPs.
After reading this, i just stopped . "So far, no Apple Arcade games have become major hits"
i'm done
The problem with Apple Arcade is, it doesn’t offer Raid:Shadow Legends.
Has more puzzle elements, especially when you get to the boss fights and moving platform levels.
I agree many games on PSN and Xbox Game Pass aren't comparable to what's on Apple Arcade, but you also can't run those on mobile platforms like phones and tablets. I think that Apple's approach letting the games be played on all their devices is a nice idea, but of course it means they also have to be adjusted to the weaker hardware of those platforms. At the same time strong graphics performance is and has been relatively scarce among Apple computers – if that were to change with Apple's upcoming ARM Macs – and if eGPU support continues to improve – I think Apple could eventually be part of the game.
I also think it'd be nice to see some bigger so called AAA games like there is on Xbox Game Pass. Maybe also follow their model which lets also lets you buy individual games that are one the service.
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Apple needs to do this right and get the big publishers involved - Bethesda, EA Sports, Capcom - some real games. They are going about this all wrong as usual with gaming.