About that Apple Arcade report
Developers are disappointed with Apple Arcade's direction and ambition. They're right: it could be so much more.
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Hopefully you’ve read this Apple Arcade report already; it seemed to cause quite a stir this week, amid all the depressing layoff news.
The fun thing is, I didn’t really need to spend six months gathering anonymous developer comments for that story. Arcade’s current direction is abundantly clear from its recent release slate: it usually adds one original family-friendly licensed game per month, plus a couple of existing, popular premium games or free-to-play titles with the IAPs and ads removed.
But is it enough? As Simon Carless of the excellent GameDiscoverCo newsletter noted earlier this week, Arcade’s flashy launch phase is over, and it is now focused on delivering what works for its audience. And what works is family-friendly licensed games and repurposed App Store titles, clearly.
If that’s the box Apple wants to tick with the service, that’s fine, I suppose. Having a safe space where parents can feel confident their kids will find good games without IAPs and ads is important. (My son is a regular Retro Goal+, Crossword Jam and Sping player.)
But it could be so much more. After launching with a bang in 2019, 2024’s offering feels chronically lacking in ambition.
One well-informed person i’ve been DMing this week estimates that Apple Arcade’s entire annual budget is about $100m. That’s half the amount Apple reportedly spent on box office bomb Argylle.
It’s worth repeating: Apple’s total annual investment in Arcade is estimated to be half the amount it spends on just one film.
Apple needs some developer goodwill right now, for reasons very obvious to regular readers of this newsletter. It continues to cream off astonishing amounts of money from free to play games on the App Store, and yet apparently takes that money and spends it elsewhere. It could be making life easier for developers by improving discoverability, fixing app review, offering adequate tech support or offering marketing help. But it doesn’t.
Arcade could be one way Apple can celebrate and support developers making new, innovative games – and also counter the widespread belief that mobile gaming is an exploitative junkyard.
But Apple would need to actually invest in and market Arcade games properly. Let’s hope that rumoured reboot really is on the way, then.
Thanks for getting all the way to the end, reader. The rest of this week’s stories are below, and remember – you can support my work here:
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