Adam Kos Apple Arcade is part of the App Store, but its focus is different. Compared to paid or free content with microtransactions, you pay one subscription and get the entire catalog of 200 games. But do its best titles stand up to the competition available outside of this service offered directly by Apple?
Although Apple tries to conceive of its Apple Arcade platform as one that you can use on iPhones, iPads, Mac computers and Apple TV, the reality is a little different. The vast majority of users will probably only play the included games on iPhones and iPads, because there are other, more advanced titles available for Mac, which the content of the platform simply cannot match. The same is true of the tvOS platform in Apple TV, where Apple Arcade simply does not reach the ankles of other consoles.
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If you also visit the site Apple, even here the platform itself is already described as "the best collection of mobile games". You have one month of the platform for free as a trial, after that you have to pay CZK 139 per month, however, as part of family sharing, up to 5 other members can play for this price. As part of Apple One, you get Apple Arcade bundled with Apple Music, Apple TV+ and iCloud storage for a lower monthly price. There is an individual tariff with 50GB iCloud from CZK 285 per month, a family tariff with 200GB iCloud from CZK 389 per month. Apple Arcade is then free for 3 months with the purchase of an Apple device.
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Vratislav Holub AAA or Triple-A games
The definition of AAA or Triple-A games is that they are titles typically from a medium or large distributor that provided a significant budget for the development itself. It is therefore similar to the label blockbuster for films usually produced by Hollywood, into which hundreds of millions of dollars are poured and several times the sales are expected from them.
Mobile games are their own market, where you can find real gems, whether they are from the aforementioned production or indie titles from independent developers. But only the Triple-A titles are usually the ones that are heard about the most and are also seen because they have the proper promotion. And whether we like it or not, Apple Arcade just doesn't offer much. It is clearly visible here that mobile games and other undemanding titles predominate here, rather than games elaborated to the last detail.
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There are few truly great games in the Arcade. It can be considered as the first such title Oceanhorn 2, which was already introduced during the presentation of the service itself. But there haven't been many similar titles since then. We can consider them NBA 2K22 Arcade Edition, The Pathless and of course Fantasian. In addition, this title is so important to the platform that Apple has dared to mark it as the title of the year in Arcade. He simply doesn't have much else to bait.
And then we have those games that are available in both the App Store and the Arcade. This is the case for those titles that have the epithet "plus" and are included in collections A timeless classic or Legends of the App Store. They simply didn't sell as part of the App Store sale itself, so the developers provided them for the Arcade as well. Such Monument Valley cannot be considered a AAA title, nor can BADLAND or Reigns. The only one here is practically only Monster Hunter Stories+.
If you would like to play this epic RPG from developer CAPCOM without Apple Arcade, you will pay 499 CZK for it. On the other hand, it is evident here that due to its complexity it will take you some time and you won't get through it in a month or even two. So the question is whether a one-time investment is more worthwhile.
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What about the App Store?
It's clear that it's more profitable for developers to provide games outside of the Arcade and make money from their sales or rather the included microtransactions. Considering that this is a mobile platform, we can find a real number of really good titles here, be it FPS, RPG, racing, or whatever.
A title that can be considered a truly mature AAA game will be released on December 16th. Sure, it's a port of the one originally intended for computers and consoles, but with its demands it can test not only the device, but also the player. It is about Alien: Isolation by Feral Interactive. This title is an FPS stealth horror survival game that has extreme demands on at least the device's storage, where it can demand up to 22 GB of free space.
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379 CZK, how much the title will cost, is not at all low, on the other hand, of course, there are also more expensive titles. However, if such an act were to come to Arcade, I would not hesitate for a second to order a subscription. Maybe I'll play the game and then cancel it, but even so, Apple would have a heart for subscribers. Similar Arcade games are simply missing, and for a simple reason. Apple blames it on original content, which Isolation simply isn't, because Android users will also be able to play it. And this is why Arcade in this form cannot be a successful concept. Developers need to sell, not cash in on a platform that doesn't really know what it wants to be. And thus it is obvious that better, better quality and more sophisticated titles are simply only in the App Store, not Apple Arcade.
