Apple Offering Up to 3 Free Months of Apple Arcade With Holiday Gift Card Purchase

[MacRumors]

Apple is offering U.S. customers who purchase and redeem an Apple Gift Card three months of free access to Apple Arcade. Holiday gift card purchases made before January 6, 2026 are eligible for the Apple Arcade trial, as long as the card is redeemed by January 13, 2026.

The offer is available to new or qualified returning Apple Arcade subscribers, but it is not an option for existing Apple Arcade subscribers. New subscribers can try Apple Arcade for three months, while returning subscribers get two months of access.

There is no minimum denomination required for the gift card purchase, and the gift card can be acquired from the Apple retail store or Apple online store. Apple gift cards from third-party retailers or new value added to an Apple Account balance are not eligible for the Apple Arcade trial. Only one trial per Apple Account is available.

Apple will provide the bonus code immediately after gift card redemption to an Apple Account balance. An Apple Account with a payment method on file is required, and the plan will automatically renew at $6.99 per month unless it is canceled.

Apple Arcade is Apple's subscription gaming service, offering over 200 games with no in-app fees or ads. Up to six family members can access Apple Arcade with a single subscription.

Article Link: Apple Offering Up to 3 Free Months of Apple Arcade With Holiday Gift Card Purchase

 

[Apple247]

Everyone remain calm! There's enough 3 Free Months of Apple Arcade for everybody.

 

[t0rqx]

Today I learned there is such a service.

 

[Donkey Man]

Just give it up, Apple - seriously. Bury that corpse already.

 

[DribbleCastle]

Great service if you have kids with devices. I've purchased it on/off but mostly have lived off free trials and promos like this.

Looks like the lowest denomination you can buy is $10. So effectively, you can get $14+tax or $21+tax worth of value for free. Then, if you already have Apple subscriptions (ie, iCloud), you can just use the $10 credit for that easily if you don't continue with Apple Arcade.

 

[eclipse01]

Great service if you have kids with devices. I've purchased it on/off but mostly have lived off free trials and promos like this.

Yup this, I only have this for my toddler, there has never been anything worth while for me to play? I get more excitement out of the Netflix games releases

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Lose the three months of Apple Arcade and you got yourself a deal.

 

[coolfactor]

Just give it up, Apple - seriously. Bury that corpse already.

Apple Arcade provides supportive compensation for fledging game developers.

It's not trying to be the Xbox and Playstation platforms of the world. Quality over Quantity is the emphasis.

Isn't it much more pleasant to play games without intrusive ads, and pressure to buy stuff after every gameplay? That, alone, is a huge market.

 

[kenta_]

Apple Arcade provides supportive compensation for fledging game developers.

It's not trying to be the Xbox and Playstation platforms of the world. Quality over Quantity is the emphasis.

Isn't it much more pleasant to play games without intrusive ads, and pressure to buy stuff after every gameplay? That, alone, is a huge market.

Or the fledgling game developers could just sell their games for a one-time price with no IAP, no subscriptions, etc! I’d gladly support them if that were the case. What a novel concept.

 

[Plutonius]

It seems to be a good deal if you were planning on getting Apple Arcade.

Otherwise, it's doubtful to me that many people would buy a Apple gift card just to get Apple Arcade for free for three months.

 

[applefan8254]

Get Set Games / Mega Run should be part of it. If that means we can't play it without arcade, then I would take back what I just said. I just feel that mega run is a quality title that should be seen by more and promoted by apple arcade. The sprites, the gameplay, the early 2010s aura, I think it's a good thing overall. And while it has been re-released on iOS, I think it's a good enough title to be promoted on Apple arcade as well. I would hope that along with that, the game could have a resurgence and even hopefully have more levels, worlds and features added on in the future. Another thing it reminds me of is the tommy sparks "next level fun" iPod touch ad. Miss that early 2010s marketing style as Nintendo Wii /iPod touch were coming of age.

 

[GraXXoR]

1 month, 3 months, even a year is pointless... it's the actual monthly price and perks / rights that make a service worth it.

That's why I've never signed up for Adobe for $29 / month knowing that their real price is $70.
why invest in learning or using a service that you can't justify/afford at full price?

one year of token discount is completely meaningless unless you plan to die within the next year or two.

 

[Justin Cymbal]

Looks like the lowest denomination you can buy is $10. So effectively, you can get $14+tax or $21+tax worth of value for free. Then, if you already have Apple subscriptions (ie, iCloud), you can just use the $10 credit for that easily if you don't continue with Apple Arcade

Thanks for clarifying the minimum required amount needed to get the 3 month free trial

This seems like a great deal I just wish that Apple would make this promo easier for us who AREN’T actually gifting that $10 - by allowing us to simply ADD $10 (or whatever amount) to our Apple🆔 balance DIRECTLY (from within the settings app) thereby negating this extra/unnecessary step of having to copy & paste the $10 gift card number (and pin) from the provided email

Even if Apple were to require a higher amount for a potential reload option (say $100 via Apple🆔reload) while STILL providing customers with a $10 physical or emailed card option, I STILL would have preferred just reloading my balance considering the latter method take 2 seconds, doesn’t deplete additional gift card/pin number infrastructure (from Apple’s gc database) and doesn’t incur the unnecessary additional time involved in copy/pasting/deleting codes from the emails

Maybe they only offer the $10 method under the presumption that it COULD possibly stand a (minute) chance of perhaps being added to the existing $27 billion pool of unclaimed gift card balances (which these companies could very well track down & notify rightfully owned monies (via original order email/phone# used to pay) on file, but don’t:

Industry lingo for ‘breakage’ revenue as Starbucks refers to it as 🙃 essentially making SBUX the (would be) 545 largest US bank 🏦 by AUM if the currency were instead is USD:

MSN

https://medium.com/the-springboard/starbucks-is-bank-not-a-coffee-shop-2e8dcc3085f2

How Top Brands Use Financial Strategies to Retain Customers Like Banks Do

Why Starbucks Is One of the World’s Largest ‘Banks’ – And It’s Not Alone

www.gonuclei.com

But yes, this is def a great deal considering it’s basically free 😎 I haven’t played around with Apple Arcade since my last free trial so…..free is good👌

 

[Jensend]

1 month, 3 months, even a year is pointless... it's the actual monthly price and perks / rights that make a service worth it.

That's why I've never signed up for Adobe for $29 / month knowing that their real price is $70.
why invest in learning or using a service that you can't justify/afford at full price?

one year of token discount is completely meaningless unless you plan to die within the next year or two.

Apple Arcade is an entertainment service. I have many other ways to entertain myself once that 3 months is up.

Adobe Creative Cloud is a tool that I would probably need on an ongoing basis if I need it at all.

I don't see how those are equivalent.

 

[apparatchik]

Apple Arcade provides supportive compensation for fledging game developers.

It's not trying to be the Xbox and Playstation platforms of the world. Quality over Quantity is the emphasis.

Isn't it much more pleasant to play games without intrusive ads, and pressure to buy stuff after every gameplay? That, alone, is a huge market.

Yep, some people don't get this isn't meant to be Apple's answer to Xbox Game Pass or Geforce Now, it's a different thing altogether, an inexpensive subscription for quality, mostly casual (not AAA) gaming against the IAP and freemium games that plague most app stores.

 

[Ultramove69]

Apple, stop trying to make Apple Arcade happen. Either make the ATV a gaming system with all the iPhone,iPad,MacOS trimmings with some real titles (vs just ad free mobile games for the most part) or just stop doing this completely. It feels so forced and sad for what Apple Arcade is right now.

 

[dominiongamma]

Apple Arcade provides supportive compensation for fledging game developers.

It's not trying to be the Xbox and Playstation platforms of the world. Quality over Quantity is the emphasis.

Isn't it much more pleasant to play games without intrusive ads, and pressure to buy stuff after every gameplay? That, alone, is a huge market.

Na give me AAA real games

 

[turbineseaplane]

Yep, some people don't get this isn't meant to be Apple's answer to Xbox Game Pass or Geforce Now, it's a different thing altogether, an inexpensive subscription for quality, mostly casual (not AAA) gaming against the IAP and freemium games that plague most app stores.

Apple fully controls their App Store.
They could simply not allow IAP freemium games at all.

 

[Donkey Man]

Apple Arcade provides supportive compensation for fledging game developers.

It's not trying to be the Xbox and Playstation platforms of the world. Quality over Quantity is the emphasis.

Isn't it much more pleasant to play games without intrusive ads, and pressure to buy stuff after every gameplay? That, alone, is a huge market.

You gotta be kidding me. Go check the App Store RIGHT NOW and tell me which “fledging” developers are on the first page as opposed to IAP scum such as Candy Crush. If Apple were really about supporting them, you wouldn’t see the same monetizing crap and “recommended” games every single day.

And quality over quantity? Even Netflix FREE games are a thousand times better than anything on AA, without IAPs or ads.

 

[madrigal77]

It's part of my Apple One package, but I never play anything on it. It's 90% garbage.

 

[Donkey Man]

Apple fully controls their App Store.
They could simply not allow IAP freemium games at all.

It’s worse than this - basically a decade on and you can’t even search for non-IAP games. Most of the kids’ games I play with my son are riddled with unavoidable AND misleading 30-sec Unity ads for which even tapping on the X to close them is a challenge, all with Apple’s blessing.

And not a single one of those YouTuber sycophants dares ask such basic questions to the likes of Eduardo Cue or other execs.

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

Apple Music is probably Apple's best service and that is a dumpster fire. They should give it up they are terrible at services

 

[Justin Cymbal]

An Apple Account with a payment method on file is required, and the plan will automatically renew at $6.99 per month unless it is canceled

One unorthodox approach that Apple employs (that is very much lauded by customers) aside from making their subscriptions (by-far) the easiest to cancel (in the monthly-billed subscriptions industry) is the fact that they ALWAYS send you not one, but MULTIPLE renewal notifications (via email) at both the 30 & 7 day marks PRIOR to renewal charges being accessed, thereby giving customers an ample amount of time to then go in to their settings app to (again very easily) cancel any unwanted subscription(s) (and in a very much customer-centric way) absent from the standard & typical anti-consumer ‘dark patterns’ as they are known in the web-design industry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern

I think a lot of people, especially new to Apple are honestly pleasantly surprised (and very much taken aback) by how un-effortful, quick & straightforward Apple goes about implementing a concept - that continues to devolve & many of us have unfortunately & unwittingly become accustomed too (in the lack of any form of stringent government regulated standards overseeing consumer internet & privacy rights) something as basic as canceling a monthly subscription to ANYTHING

Definitely leading by example on this one AAPL 😎

 

[kenta_]

You gotta be kidding me. Go check the App Store RIGHT NOW and tell me which “fledging” developers are on the first page as opposed to IAP scum such as Candy Crush. If Apple were really about supporting them, you wouldn’t see the same monetizing crap and “recommended” games every single day.

And quality over quantity? Even Netflix FREE games are a thousand times better than anything on AA, without IAPs or ads.

Agreed. Apple games the App Store so that fledgling quality apps never appear on first page or searches. They only promote the mega IAP apps, ie. those put the most $$ in the coffers.

 

[sublunar]

Coincidentally I am in the UK and just applied a gift card to my account - got offered a 1 month AppleTV sub (have had free ones before but was currently unsubscribed). Would have dabbled with Apple Arcade but AppleTV sub is fine by me.