13 ms·
Apple Arcade – Game subscription service
- ihuman 8y agoCan't see the Apple emoji on any device that's not an Apple device
- sahin-boydas 8y agoAhh. I added Apple in front of it. Thanks
- 4ec0755f5522 8y agoThey didn't announce the price actually. News+ was $9.99
- sahin-boydas 8y agoit leaked actually. but I removed for the title
- 4ec0755f5522 8y agoIt's not launching until Fall. Tech Crunch doesn't know what the pricing for a service launching 6 months from now will be. Or do they?
- joshstrange 8y agoWhat was the price? I assume $9.99 or maybe more but bundled into whatever they call their version of prime/one.
- sahin-boydas 8y agohttps://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/apple-introduces-apple-arcade-the-worlds-first-game-subscription-service-for-mobile-desktop-and-the-living-room/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/apple-introduces-appl...
- sctb 8y agoThanks, we've updated the link from https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/25/apple-arcade-is-apples-new-cross-platform-gaming-subscription/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/25/apple-arcade-is-apples-new....
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- zymhan 8y agoYet another way in which Apple is undercutting developers and preventing them from profiting in a space where Apple wants to make money.
- SalimoS 8y agoNo, as a user having the Xbox game pass (the same service for xbox by Microsoft ) Im now discovering new indie games that I’m 100% sure wouldn’t buy to try them :)
- onlyrealcuzzo 8y agoIf you think about it, game studios and movie producers are two of the only art businesses where something remotely close to the artist is able to make any money off the actual art. Musicians only make money off concerts, not selling music. Writers literally don't make money any more. And I'm not certain if there was ever a time actors or directors made money -- outside of the EXTREMELY successful. With Netflix really commoditizing the movie business, I wouldn't be surprised if the margin on movie production steeply declines in the near future. So, my point is, yes this sucks. At the same time, doesn't it seem like the natural order of things? I hope we can change the natural order of things. But maybe the value really is in the distribution and not production. As a self-described maker, it sucks to think that. But maybe it's the truth.
- jordache 8y agooh great... a bunch of crappy games with touch UI. Finding quality games in the App Store is like needle in a haystack. iOS games are mostly at the calibre of killing time on the bus. Never something you sit down, at home for a dedicated gaming session.
- criddell 8y agoIt's not for you. There are a lot more people killing time on the bus than are carving out an hour of their day to play a video game.
- jordache 8y agothe quality bar for dking around on the bus is sooo low.
- dlivingston 8y agoThere are world-class games on iOS, but the critical problem - I think - is that (i) the interface isn't subtle enough to handle fine movements (unlike the mouse or analog stick), (ii) the devices are cumbersome and tiring to use for extended periods of time, and (iii) critically, there is no tactical feedback for buttons which means that a portion of your brain is always dedicated to making sure that your thumb is 'over the A button', removing you subtly but importantly from the gaming immersion. EDIT: I also want to say that to any lurking iOS game devs - the most critical thing that seems to separate viral games from standard ones is the leveraging of a single (or a handful) or basic multitouch gestures. Angry Birds: drag and release Flappy Bird: tap Homescapes: swipe Super Mario Run: tap et cetra... Artificial buttons and joysticks are a bad idea - they do not translate well to a touch-based platform.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- r00fus 8y agoWith a few adjustments, things like Street Fighter CE work decently. It's not as satisfying as physical but it isn't horrible.
- dbg31415 8y agoApple is great at a lot of things, but qualified to "make gaming even better" they are not. Most games, if they are even released on Mac, run worse on a Mac compared to Windows PC. And a lot of gaming accessories, like Razer mice, don't even work properly on a Mac.
- dhruvrrp 8y agoA subscription service for iOS games. Is the market for polished phone games big enough to support a service like this? Most people I know who still play phone games usually play either really basic puzzle games or the auto-play esque gacha games that don't require much user interaction.
- joshstrange 8y agoI don't have super high hopes but I do hope this leads to a better situation than we have now with "free" games chocked full of IAP.
- iClaudiusX 8y agoIt's curious that they pitched this curated experience by openly admiting their app store experience is terrible and full of scammy games that are "free" w/ ads and egregious microtransactions. Of course they could fix the app store they control rather than silo-ing off the good games into a separate subscription.
- carlob 8y agoWell, given the recent spat with Spotify I'm under the impression that they have more than enough curators to clean up the app store from scammy apps. I just think they make enough money from microtransaction "whales" not to care
- makecheck 8y agoThe part that worries the hell out of me is the “hand picked”. Screw that: if the game exists anywhere on the store, and people want to play it, LET THEM and find a way to pay the developer (e.g. based on time played, or some other measure). [Edit: If they want to introduce new rules like “no ads”, fine but any game meeting the requirements should be allowed, not “hand picked”.] Otherwise, I can tell you right now what will happen: most developers will be (further) screwed by Apple’s Latest Arbitrary Hidden Process. And of course, big important devs will continue to be quietly given special treatment. I have no faith in their “curation” either. Half the time they feature games that people would easily find anyway, e.g. the latest Angry Birds or Candy Crush or Lego game.
- rubyn00bie 8y agoApple needs to put a hardware effort behind this to really make it worth anything... if Apple wants developers to push games to their platforms, the platforms need to have a stronger focus on games. A huge part of that, IMHO, would be making the Mac* not a pile of shit for games. That involves two things (and likely a third): 1. Complete compatibility layer with DirectX12, fuck everything else. No one is gonna rewrite their games in Metal to start at this point. 2. Writing drivers for a few hundred existing graphics cards. (And the likely) 3. Partner with AMD or NVIDIA to create an intensely powerful per dollar line of proprietary graphics cards that obliterate the competition. Apple seems to like an adaptive experience with certain tasks being best accomplished on certain devices, progressively upgrading features, as the devices support more complex user input. They generally execute this near perfectly everywhere _except_ gaming. I think this is a neat announcement, but will likely fizzle. I really, really, wish Apple would take gaming seriously. At this point their platforms are primarily for content consumption, not creation, ignoring gaming comes off as sort of pompous (though maybe I'm the pompous one, ha). Maybe with the upcoming modular Mac Pro this will be fixed, but I'm not gonna hold my breath. * Apple TV is currently garbage too because the standard outta the box input device (remote) is horrible gaming. They need to ship a system with a sanctioned controller, or make an enclosure for iOS devices.
- dwighttk 8y agoThis service is for iOS
- tashoecraft 8y ago
- djhworld 8y agoIt would be interesting to know what % of their users play these 'premium experience' titles, in comparison to Candy Crush and Clash Royale where ads, microtransactions and data harvesting are incredibly popular
- svachalek 8y agoThose are the only evolutionary survivors of the App Store economy. Pay up front won’t fly anymore, so we need a new model if we want to see games that are actually fun rather than just addictive. I’d like to see this succeed, fingers crossed.
- geddy 8y agoLet's just hope this "gaming as a service" stays on mobile devices where it belongs. Personally I think it's a decent move by Apple to change the perception of the App Store in regards to gaming. I waited in line for the original iPhone and watched the App Store go from quality $2-10 games to the dumpster fire it is today. The F2P games are all clones of each other and no one will spend a dime on anything else. A premium service that collects the quality games, respects user privacy, doesn't run ads, or have IAP is a nice idea to be honest. I'm a handheld gamer through and through and always have one or two handheld consoles on me, so this is isn't a service that interests me. But I hope it can make those paid games more accessible. Also concerned that the (rumored?) $9.99/month price tag is even remotely close enough to get these developers paid. Nothing easier about releasing on a mobile device - the games they showed off look like massive titles.
- endorphone 8y agoLet's just hope this "gaming as a service" stays on mobile devices where it belongs. Microsoft has Game Pass. EA has Origin. Subscribe to both and they're both fantastic.
- geddy 8y agoI typed my response hastily - I'm not against them existing, what I meant was I hope they never replace consoles. I have no desire to pay a monthly fee to play hundreds of games. The game list could be virtually unlimited, but there's always a real, tough limit - my free time. I can still only play 1-2 games per month and I'd rather own a copy of it. Having access to hundreds, to me, means I'll essentially play a game for 5 minutes, then the next one, then the next one... until I've had an hour of no real experiences. In this backlog culture, it'll be a miracle if anyone ever finishes a game again.
- bitwize 8y agoThis is it, folks. Apple's much-anticipated transition into becoming a serious player in the gaming space. Nintendo had better watch its back.
- save_ferris 8y agoI'll believe it when I see it. Their gaming experience to date has been pretty poor, which they openly admitted in their presentation. Their offerings have been swamped surface-level, micro-transaction driven games. And despite the gaming-friendly Apple TV that dropped a few years ago, they still weren't able to get serious contention. And still, gamers looking for high-quality AAA titles like Breath of the Wild probably aren't ever going to be satisfied with this more casual type of gaming.
- terandle 8y agoI dunno, not until Apple releases a first party controller. Otherwise Nintendo will continue to keep its current market at least.
- sneakernets 8y agoApple would also need to release something near the Switch's price point. That's not happening anytime soon.
- __david__ 8y agoAn "Apple TV Game Edition" that comes with a bundled controller would be right in that console price range.
- beenBoutIT 8y agoThe best Apple or anyone else can do in terms of a controller is make an exact copy of Sony's DS4.
- __david__ 8y agoNot only do they need to release a controller, they need to allows games to only support the controller. Forcing touch controls into games that want to be on the store filters out too many good games.
- oh_hello 8y agoI worry a bit about the App Store screenshot with the arcade tab. Apple Music is a permanent part of the Music app UI even when you aren't a subscriber. It is a bit of an annoyance. Now it appears Arcade will be there to bug me for a subscription in the App Store. I'm realizing now the News and TV apps will do the same thing. These are small annoyances, but it seems like a turn in the wrong direction overall. For years the Apple ecosystem gave me the feeling that I was paying a premium, but I got great hardware, great UX, and increasing more software for free. iOS, Pages, Numbers, iMovie, etc all became free over time. Yes, it all locked me into their world, but it was a great world largely free of ads an annoyances. Now that they are adding paid services to so many products they are eroding that feeling.
- wincy 8y agoActually you can remove Apple Music from the music UI. I did this a year or two ago and it has persisted between phone upgrades and restores. https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/turn-off-apple-music-ios/ https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/turn-off-apple-music-ios/
- shakermaker83 8y agoYou can turn off the Apple Music tab in Music. Go to Settings > Music > Show Apple Music and turn it off :-)
- kdot 8y agoWith Show Apple Music Off. Play a song in iTunes, tap the name of the currently playing song, click go to artist, now you're back in Apple Music.
- kruuuder 8y agoApple's poor support for serious gaming in the past makes me doubt that they understand gamer's needs (casual and serious). They failed over and over to offer proper "gaming" 3D graphics in Mac OS, they failed to grow GameCenter into something useful, they failed offering good gaming support for Apple TV. Too many broken promises. It's the same thing with music: Apple claim for years they have "Music in their DNA", but neither understand anything about classical music nor are able to build a good version of iTunes. I bet that this Gaming service will fail, as did Ping and Apple Musics "Connect".
- miohtama 8y agoThe ad, sounds like it is geared towards indie game developers, not players. They do not want to do current mainstream games, but capture some niche market outside them. My guess is they are throwing a lot of money on this, to get exclusive launch titles. It would be nice to know from the early vendors what are the attached strings.
- fsloth 8y agoCasual gamers and kids. My kids enjoy tremendously Minecraft, Roblox and the Lego franchise games. None of those require top-end graphics, yet offer engaging gameplay for a large audience.
- bsamuels 8y agoParent commenter is likely referring to MacOS's trash fire opengl support and zero Vulcan support. It's not about getting spectacular graphics on MacOS, it's about even getting your renderer to work.
- cwyers 8y agoThis is really fighting the last war, though. Metal exists, and any game that is running on iOS (which it has to, to be in this) targets Metal. Who cares about anything else?
- 8y ago
- jatsign 8y agoMan I hope most app games become part of this. I hate the amount of BS in the games my kids play on their iPads. Ads, in game purchases, etc.
- sneakernets 8y agoApple went from supporting games on the Apple ][ line, to discouraging games on the Mac, to supporting games again with Pippin, to not really supporting them on the Mac but still claiming there were games on their platforms (idTech Rage demo, yaaaay?), to... supporting games again. Is anyone buying this? Is this thing on? I realize companies shift, but Apple has done a lot of shifting when it comes to gaming.
- pram 8y agoSteam has a lot of games for OSX. It certainly wasn’t a priority of Apple, but Mac gaming is a “thing”
- smogcutter 8y agoI think a lot of folks looking at this from the point of view of an adult gamer are missing the point: the audience for this is parents. For 10 bucks (or whatever) a month you can load the ipad up with games and not worry about microtransactions or scummy ads targeting your kids. "Curated" is a signal that can trust age recommendations and not worry about inappropriate content.
- dustindiamond 8y agoCurated like Youtube Kids?
- swiftcoder 8y agoSpecifically not like YouTube Kids. Apple makes a big deal about "human recommendations" as a jab to Google's (questionable) attempts to handle kids recommendations/filtering with machine learning.
- elsewhen 8y agoA library of game titles is much easier to monitor than an open video site.
- 8ytecoder 8y agoIt shouldn't be marketed to kids in that case. If YouTube Kids was simply YouTube, most parents wouldn't expose their kids to it. Calling it YouTube Kids and then not monitoring it for malicious content is wrong.
- BubRoss 8y agoI don't think he was giving YouTube a pass, I think he was saying Apple has a much better shot at curating a game store.
- HenryBemis 8y ago
- MBCook 8y agoI hope they give the developers good terms. I hate not being able to find non-scam games for my phone. I don’t mind paying for games but I have fewer and fewer options on iOS as time goes on. I’ll support this.
- Corrado 8y agoThis might be a good thing for my wife and her habit of playing the latest "grinding game of the month" (ie. CandyCrush, WordSoup, etc.) If we can pay $10/month so that she can play whatever she want's without having Ads shoved in her face, sign me up!
- xhruso00 8y agoI am pessimistic cause the only way Apple can pay game developers is by use (played time). This forces developer studios to produce games that one can't finish.
- jedberg 8y agoThis is an interesting point if they are paying by play time, but why do you think that is the only way? Netflix doesn't pay based on play time -- they pay an upfront fee to license a title for set period of time, regardless of number of plays. Maybe they'll do the same here.
- arrrg 8y agoIf they take this seriously then taking the time to “invest” differently in different kinds of games would certainly be wise. Different games have different metrics for success from the perspective of someone offering this service. Obviously in the end it always comes down to profit generated per game but with a subscription service that can be hard or even impossible to measure. Metrics for success can be playtime, number of times the game was completed, but also more diffuse things like whether critics like it or whether the press is writing about it. So one would hope Apple picks a differentiated approach – but such an approach can be much harder to implement.
- jeffchien 8y agoThat's what a previous article from Bloomberg [1] claimed: "The company would collect these monthly fees, then divide up the revenue between developers based on how much time users spend playing their games, one of the people said. Apple is likely considering popular paid titles on the App Store and would exclude titles that are free to download but generate revenue via in-app purchases." This seems like the definition of a perverse incentive, but if Apple is having a hand in making some of these games, maybe they can keep it under control. Or, maybe having users spend more time in Apple Arcade is their plan all along. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-23/apple-s-reinvention-as-a-services-company-starts-for-real-monday https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-23/apple-s-r...
- 8y ago
- NicoJuicy 8y agoAll that Apple is launching, honestly, seems like a desperate move for stockholders by upping more recurring price services. But honestly, I pay less than 10€ / 5 months through humble bundle and my game library contains 100's of games. Apple is trying so hard to make up for the decline of iPhone sales on the back of other people. Only the big names will get a Payday at the beginning. Sure, it can work on the beginning. But after a while, your gonna realize that you spent 120€/year on games. And it's the games you wanted to play on the PC where you would give > 50€/piece for. Not some arcade gaming/TV you don't own. You want to read the NY Times or something else, that hasn't partnered with apple. For the TV, it's a good idea, but as the big names ( Netflix, Disney) didn't partner up. What are you going to pick? Netflix works everywhere ( Chromecast is nr 1, Android, Xbox, ...). I just think that it won't help them gain enough subscribers. And in the end, if they want to keep their 15-30%, their partners will back out. Because they don't earn enough or you'll cancel your subscription because there is not enough content. What they announced the last days, is all about upping a % here or there for revenue of "services". While I haven't seen anything spectacular about hardware in the last 5 years. Just look at the specs of the MacBook "pro". They forgot who made Apple big. The top post of Apple today on HN is that they released a credit card in cooperation with Goldman Sachs... Seriously? What about your privacy there. It reminds me of iAd. We all know how that went. Edit: ofc here come the downvotes. Please mention why you don't agree
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ksec 8y agoA lot of discussions are around the business side and not the technical. Having the game works across iOS and macOS is something I thought not going to happen before. That is like saying your Xbox Games works across on your PC. How will the control works? Are they all based on some Middleware engine? Unity or Unreal? Are Apple having a hands in those development ( Finally! )? What kind of support are Apple giving to Game Developers where Apple has for the past 20 years completely neglect them. New Metal API?