I cancelled my subscription just this week due to lack of new decent games. There are some excellent titles on AA, but much like the rest of the App Store there are plenty of fairly average generic games, many sidescrollers or erstwhile free games that exist in essentially the same form elsewhere on the App Store. The quality nor quantity is enough to keep me paying. I'll probably re-sub in a few months if several decent new games are published, play them, then unsubscribe again.
That said, there are a few really good games on Apple Arcade: Sneaky Sasquatch is quite fun, What The Golf is great, Beyond Steel Sky is excellent (if you can cope with the endless bugs and crashing). Oh and Spyder is good too. However, the quantity of quality games isn't enough for me. Not one of the games showcase the iPhone's graphical prowess either, most are silly casual games with typical "phone game" graphics and little replay value. I'm very unimpressed by the graphics on the AA games, which is a shame because the hardware is really powerful and some of the non-AA games look really incredible. Presumably Apple isn't paying devs enough to have the top tier artists and modellers.
Another issue seems to be lack of new content for existing games. Only one game I've played on AA (Sneaky Sasquatch) has had a content update in the last 6 months. Dunno if Apple just stops paying the devs for anything but bug fixes when the game is released or what, but lack of new content certainly doesn't help engagement.
As others have said, Apple needs either to buy a game studio or pay for a big exclusive. I've been playing The Rise of the Tomb Raider again lately through Steam, and it's just a totally different class of game to anything on Apple Arcade. From the story to the physics, the animations, sound, music and graphics. Everything is several orders of magnitude better than anything on AA. If Apple stops treating gaming on their devices as a bit of a hobby, they may end up being serious competition to consoles.
I cancelled my subscription for the same reason.
Totally agree for the Rise of the Tomb Raider. It is one of the great games based on Metal, and it runs in an incredibly low temperature on my MBP 15. Maybe it is not suited to the Arcade model and merits an AppStore distribution on its own. But then this is not Arcade that would make Apple a leader in the gaming world, rather games of the Tomb Raider grade. This not a device capabilities or lack of controls problem. We enjoyed some great iOS games in the past, like Battlefield Bad Company 2 or three of the Microsoft Halo series. Some games such as Shadowgun Legends (and others from the same publisher) have resolved the control issue by introducing auto-firing mode and now there is also support for more controllers. Now that Apple has realized something is wrong with Arcade, we may expect more engaging games in the near future.
For me, the whole point with Apple Arcade is for it to host a platform for high quality alternative games. I have zero interest in Halo, Fortnite and all those normal AAA titles. They thrive on their own, so why should they be part of Apple Arcade? I don't think the point of Apple Arcade is to be just another Steam or whatever. For me, it is a place for thoughtful, heartfelt games. Titles that provide a different dimension of gaming. Titles that make you think, and is letting your mind wander in that way much of when reading a really good book. Much of that is captured in the trailers leading up to the launch of the service. I like many of those titles. I like that Apple is selecting titles to co-produce. But the service is also full of regular boring iPhone games that I don't care much for. Engagement is a dangerous factor to take into account… Engagement might mean kids wanting to have the latest skin or add-on to their character in the game… or wanting to pay their way into having better assets, which is in my opinion leading to a dark place in human behaviour.
However my reason for resigning from the service is that I simply don't play games enough. When I do, I'd rather play Nintendo Switch. I had high hopes for the Apple TV, but I didn't even bother buying a game controller for it, which is required in many (most?) of the cases.
Tim open the petty cash drawer in your desk and buy RockStar/Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., Activision Blizzard, Valve Corporation and Ubisoft and lock them in a room until they come out with 100% Apple Silicon versions of all their top games.
Personally I think they would have done better buying some small to medium sized game companies (since they probably had AA in the pipeline back then) than spending $3bn on Beats.
Especially since the Beats deal made financial sense (almost immediate profitability) but still results in total shit product with muffled sound.
Comments
Totally agree for the Rise of the Tomb Raider. It is one of the great games based on Metal, and it runs in an incredibly low temperature on my MBP 15. Maybe it is not suited to the Arcade model and merits an AppStore distribution on its own. But then this is not Arcade that would make Apple a leader in the gaming world, rather games of the Tomb Raider grade. This not a device capabilities or lack of controls problem. We enjoyed some great iOS games in the past, like Battlefield Bad Company 2 or three of the Microsoft Halo series. Some games such as Shadowgun Legends (and others from the same publisher) have resolved the control issue by introducing auto-firing mode and now there is also support for more controllers. Now that Apple has realized something is wrong with Arcade, we may expect more engaging games in the near future.
However my reason for resigning from the service is that I simply don't play games enough. When I do, I'd rather play Nintendo Switch. I had high hopes for the Apple TV, but I didn't even bother buying a game controller for it, which is required in many (most?) of the cases.