Football Manager 2023 Touch Coming to Apple Arcade

[Marbles1]

If only apple had a strategy for gaming. Resident Evil Village gets released with lots of hushed 'apple worked with the developers to get this out on m1' 'watch this space' ' the time for apple gaming has arrived'. But sure as clockwork more b-grade throwaway trash appears on Apple Arcade.

Apple knows how to make a splash if it wants to. It's spending millions on Apple TV+ because it wants it to succeed and is serious about shows and movies.

Nothing it's done in gaming says it's serious. The golden age of iPhone games is over, Apple Arcade gives you some throwaway digital toys, and once every few years when apple can be bothered it tries to get a 'major' game on the platform so they can have something to demo. That's it. Until apple actually launches a gaming strategy that's what we've got.

 

[elrojo69]

Apple Arcade feels like a miss. The games are pretty lackluster. There's plenty of free games on the app store

 

[Graham Caracas]

Soccer is a third world game, all you need is a vacant lot and something to kick around. Then again, real football is just another daytime tv game show squeezed in between massive blocks of ads. I don't think either is compelling enough for a video game.

 

[Sleepy Dog 27]

Tbh, this addition does make me consider getting Apple Arcade.

 

[sfkeepay]

Does it help manage chronic traumatic encephalopathy? That would be cutting edge…

 

[ackmondual]

I think I’m going to move forward with cancelling Apple One Premium.

This month, Apple Arcade brings another weak lineup. A sports game, an 8 year old RPG, yet another solitaire game, yet another indie storybook game. Where are the premium titles? It’s been the same disappointment every month for several years now.

TV+ doesn’t have anything coming up that I’m excited to watch.

Fitness+ I use for the occasional yoga class that I could get for free on YouTube

Music is a form of cultural junk food, like watching the VMAs on repeat.

News+….featuring magazines no one has read in 20 years and mainstream news sources that no one on the left or right has trusted in 5-10 years.

In short, I’m feeling my time would be better spent reading a book, calling a friend, writing a song or going for a walk than consuming any of the mind numbing content that Apple is serving up to its paid service subscribers. Not to mention the recent price hike.

No mention of iCloud+. Is it safe to say you're keeping that but a la carte, or hocking that too?

For Fitness+, do you not use the metrics provided by an A-Watch? I hear that's the big advantage there. In the past, I scoffed at Fitness+ b/c I had no interest in buying an Apple Watch, which by extension also requires an iPhone (of which I also had no interest in buying). I'm told you can use Fitness+ with any device on ios16.1 (so for me, my 9th gen iPad), but even then, yeah, YouTube really :|

The only music service I could get on board is Sirius XM, mostly in my car. Satellite radio is nice for cases where internet cuts out. Otherwise, the main draw is it's only $100 per year. No way am I paying the regular $330 or something per year! I also have YouTube Music for being on a family plan. I'll play with it from time to time, but TBH, I'm used to just using (regular) YouTube for that.

News+ is take it or leave it. I hear they have ads on there, which would be a turn off for me.
I really enjoyed my free trials of AA and ATV+. However, I've found enough non-AA games to keep my occupied (on both the Ipad and my Android phone). ATV+, I'll resub when new seasons of shows come out AND I've rotated through my current crop of streaming services (I got HBO Max 40% off for a year).

 

[compwiz1202]

I'll probably sign up for month to have a go at Football Manager. Great game when I played it about 20 years ago!

LOL yea it's been about that long for me, and it was some baseballl manager one then

 

[ackmondual]

Apple Arcade feels like a miss. The games are pretty lackluster. There's plenty of free games on the app store

I'm more wary of free games since they tend to be grindy, with loot boxes/chests, and/or filled with MTX for consumable items and quicker time meter cooldowns. However, there are plenty of premium games to be had without breaking the bank (although don't get me wrong, some of the ones that cost $10 to $25 upfront are spectacular values). $1 for a game got me a solid week's of gaming. A $5 got me 2 weeks worth. I have a few digital board games in the $5 to $10 range that are worth it since I've been firing up a game every now and then, for the past few years.

Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls was the game that was enough to make AA worth it alone. Even that got grindy as well. I would've written it off were it not for some loopholes to fast track some of that. As much as I wish AA had more games like that, the solution really is to just buy them directly on other platforms, at higher prices. For example, $20 for an indie game is far better than typical AA fare (and that's before discounts!). However, I'd be remiss to say there weren't other good games on AA (e.g. SP!NG, Cat Quest II).

If only apple had a strategy for gaming. Resident Evil Village gets released with lots of hushed 'apple worked with the developers to get this out on m1' 'watch this space' ' the time for apple gaming has arrived'. But sure as clockwork more b-grade throwaway trash appears on Apple Arcade.

Apple knows how to make a splash if it wants to. It's spending millions on Apple TV+ because it wants it to succeed and is serious about shows and movies.

Nothing it's done in gaming says it's serious. The golden age of iPhone games is over, Apple Arcade gives you some throwaway digital toys, and once every few years when apple can be bothered it tries to get a 'major' game on the platform so they can have something to demo. That's it. Until apple actually launches a gaming strategy that's what we've got.

FWIW, ATV+ is easier for them to deal with b/c IIRC, they have at least some ownership with the studios and companies that make produce the content? ATV+ has the advantage that it's easier to get into than video games (my observation is that market is more saturated), and that you can use that service even without Apple hardware (most was I had to use my iPad to redeem my free trial. Then again, I only got that free trial in the first place b/c I bought the ipad).

The fact that ATV+ got a price hike (directly, as part of A1, and if you buy the sub through Costco) shows that it's been the better investment. AA is still only $45 per year through Costco, but I feel it needs to go down to $35 per year for me to really want back in.

 

[DrRadon]

To me touch is the best version of the game. More of an old school version of deep gaming rather than the immense deep experience of the main game. Happy to see they brought it back, sad that it seems to be only on a subscription model.

 

[Jeaz]

Thanks.

I'm actually preferring the Touch version on the Mac, too... the regular one became just too bloated years ago.

I have the FM 2021 Touch for Mac, but will "upgrade" to 2023 Touch, if I can buy that with a (fairly) reasonable one time payment and NOT subscribe to AA for $4.95 (NOK 59) per month.

Yeah, I agree. And the cross-save functionality is another strong reason why I prefer Touch over full version.

 

[Paulyboy]

This is one of the strangest and most unexpected developments I've ever seen. Not long ago Sports Interactive announced in a blog post they were not going to do a "Touch” version of Football Manager anymore which really ticked off a lot of people. Like a few in this forum have already mentioned that is actually the preferred version of the game for many players because the full version is so bloated and intimidating. The Touch version is still pretty sophisticated but it's the perfect balance between functionality and enjoyment.

The only workaround Sports Interactive mentioned in this not so long ago a blog post was to subscribe to the Xbox cloud gaming service to play the Xbox version which was the only "Touch” version they were going to continue to produce. That's obviously not the best solution whether you're a Mac user or PC user but it was going to be the only way to play that version anymore on computers. I think I even recall them saying they were discontinuing the mobile version as well. They wanted to focus all of their attention on the full version for various platforms because it was just too much for them to produce all these different versions for all these different platforms.

I don't follow their blog posts religiously like the really hard core fans so maybe my information is outdated but this was pretty recent. I had went out of my way to find out what was going on when there was no "Touch" version of Football Manager 22. I was very disappointed and I wasn't alone.

Then I just happened to be browsing the Mac App Store today and checked the "Arcade" section and to my surprise under the "New Release" section there was Football Manager Touch 2023. I couldn't believe it. Some quick googling and I discovered they also released a mobile version. This is truly stunning. I don't know what made them change their minds so quickly.

On top of that I just read a comment on the Steam Forum for Football Manager 2023 from a Sports Interactive rep the "Touch" version on Apple Arcade is Apple Silicon native while Football Manager 2023 for the Mac on Steam is not. It runs through Rosetta. You can even play the Apple Arcade version on an Apple TV while I'm assuming the mobile versions are for the iPhone and iPad. Boy I bet PC users are going to be really thrilled when they hear about this news.

The only downside is I would rather just buy the "Touch" version straight out but at least now it actually exists again when nobody thought it ever would again and it's on the Mac. I haven't subscribed to Apple Arcade yet but despite its distractors I always thought it was a pretty good deal and there's a bunch of games on there I actually would play. Now I have an even better reason to do so. Maybe when I get my first Apple Silicon Mac, which is going to be soon, it will still come with that free three month trial and I will give it a whirl.

What a surprise.

 

[Sleepy Dog 27]

Tbh, this addition does make me consider getting Apple Arcade.

I just had to come back to this thread to say that I got Apple Arcade and now am addicted to FM23.