Dedicated Apple Games app could be revealed during WWDC 2025

AppleInsider

Apple has long been the butt of the joke for gamers, but that won't stop the company from trying, yet again, to be more serious about the industry with a rumored dedicated gaming app.

Apple could introduce a dedicated gaming app

Apple's WWDC 2025 is already going to be packed with potential ecosystem-wide UI redesigns and AI tools, but a new rumor suggests Apple could also begin a different significant push. There have been moves by the company in and around the gaming space for years, but a dedicated gaming app could help promote Apple Silicon'sgaming abilities.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple wants to sell gamers and developers on the idea that it is a leader in the market with an app. The Apple gaming app would debut during WWDC 2025 alongside iOS 19, macOS 16, and the rest.

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Going with Apple's usual naming conventions, we're referring to it as "Apple Games" for now. The rumor arrives just as it was revealed that Apple acquired two-person gaming studio RAC7, which makes Sneaky Sasquatch.

The app apparently goes further than Apple's current, limited, gaming experiences on iOS. Currently, gamers can see Game Center from select menus in supported games, which shows leaderboards and trophies.

Apple Arcade has also been around as a part of Apple's services push. While very few games have stood out as big winners on the service, like What the Golf? or Fantasian, it seems to be a popular option for ad-free games on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro.

The new Apple Games app will act as a mesh between Apple's disparate gaming systems. It is rumored to show editorial content about games, the App Store games page, Apple Arcade, leaderboards, and more.

Mac users may also get an app which would tie to games downloaded outside of the App Store. This particular rumor likely applies to the game launching aspect of the app.

The Apple gaming app has been rumored before, but all the way back in October 2024. It mentioned the app launching and editorialized content, as well as possible integrations with iMessage and FaceTime plus App Clips for demos.

Beyond Game Center

Apple's app doesn't sound that dissimilar to one offered by the controller maker Backbone. That app is an exclusive gaming social network of sorts for those that bought the iPhone controller.

Backbone already offers a well-made game launcher and social network

If Apple truly wants to compete and prove its seriousness in the space, it'll need to go beyond simply offering a game news and app launcher tool. Leaderboards and trophies are nice, but gamers would also gravitate to in-game chat and matchmaking tools.

Apple has a benefit that other app makers do not -- platform control. It could provide an API that lets game developers tie their in-game chat tools and matchmaking to the Apple Games app.

It isn't clear exactly what form a gaming app from Apple will take, but it will hopefully be something more than Game Center. Apple has an opportunity to better cement itself as an entity in gaming in the minds of gamers, even if it already has in their wallets.

Rumor Score: Likely

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kkqd1337

In my opinion…… the vast majority of smart phone games are simply slot machines for children (and adults). All these games with ‘coins’ and such should be age rated 18+. 

If I remember correctly Apple Arcade was focused more on full game experiences without excessive in app purchasing which was a cool idea and I liked it… but I guess the game/gambling industry hated that 

johar

Yet another clueless flyweight gaming effort from Apple, in a world of gaming heavyweight actors. It's beyond pathetic that Apple completely fails to understand what real gamers need and want. And no, that doesn't include grandmothers, who might happily buy "Hot Dog Stand Simulator 2018" as a birthday gift for little Andrew, 7 years old.

Jeez, if Apple wants to be anything of consequence in gaming, they need to do something bold, like buying Steam. That's what an entry ticket looks like. After that, they'd need to dedicate real resources to it long term. Something they've NEVER done with any of their feeble attempts so far.

edited May 27

williamlondon

Interesting article and timing, and here's an article today announcing their buying of a games studio: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/apple-buys-its-first-ever-video-game-studio/

marvin

Johar said:

Yet another clueless flyweight gaming effort from Apple, in a world of gaming heavyweight actors. It's beyond pathetic that Apple completely fails to understand what real gamers need and want. And no, that doesn't include grandmothers, who might happily buy "Hot Dog Stand Simulator 2018" as a birthday gift for little Andrew, 7 years old.

Jeez, if Apple wants to be anything of consequence in gaming, they need to do something bold, like buying Steam. That's what an entry ticket looks like. After that, they'd need to dedicate real resources to it long term. Something they've NEVER done with any of their feeble attempts so far.

Every move like this improves the platform for gaming. Their current achievements and game profile is quite hidden in the App Store:

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2020/08/13/apple-arcade-achievements-game-center-iphone-ipad/

This will give them something more like Steam. They wouldn't have to buy Valve but they could partner with them so that achievements and some purchases sync across games. If someone is playing Resident Evil 2 on iPhone and completes an achievement, it should register in their Steam profile and vice versa, same with save games.

This is really basic syncing, request a sync for a Steam id, verify it in Steam, store a sync token, then sync JSON data for game ids that includes purchases, save games and achievements.

The reason mobile gaming ended up with the casino-like pay-to-win model is that people weren't willing to pay money for lightweight games and that set the expectations for payments on mobile.

It would be good if Apple could find a way to get mobile gaming to be more like the Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck where people are willing to spend $60+ on a single good quality game but it's going to be very difficult to do when the expectations have been set for so long and for so many people. I think they would have more success trying to get people to spend $4.99-9.99 outright for titles similar to how Super Mario Run did it. It's free to download to get the first level and then unlock the rest of the game. This wasn't very successful for Mario but if they kept promoting this model, it would gain traction eventually by managing player expectations.

foregoneconclusion

"Apple has long been the butt of the joke for gamers"

For AAA gamers only. Mobile games lapped the PC/console industry for revenue a long time ago. When Microsoft bought Activision/Blizzard, Candy Crush was the second most lucrative franchise that they acquired. Only Call of Duty was generating more $$. 

edited May 28

apple4thewin

Even a nudge more of a focus into gaming is great because it shows some little effort. Wouldn’t be too surprised if this fall’s update will be more of a gaming/performance boost like the A17 Pro/M3 drop. Even though gaming is still a small market compared to enterprise users, this will bring a social influence to the younger side of Apple’s market by making people more connected.

fastasleep

Marvin said:

Johar said:

Yet another clueless flyweight gaming effort from Apple, in a world of gaming heavyweight actors. It's beyond pathetic that Apple completely fails to understand what real gamers need and want. And no, that doesn't include grandmothers, who might happily buy "Hot Dog Stand Simulator 2018" as a birthday gift for little Andrew, 7 years old.

Jeez, if Apple wants to be anything of consequence in gaming, they need to do something bold, like buying Steam. That's what an entry ticket looks like. After that, they'd need to dedicate real resources to it long term. Something they've NEVER done with any of their feeble attempts so far.

Every move like this improves the platform for gaming. Their current achievements and game profile is quite hidden in the App Store:

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2020/08/13/apple-arcade-achievements-game-center-iphone-ipad/

This will give them something more like Steam. They wouldn't have to buy Valve but they could partner with them so that achievements and some purchases sync across games. If someone is playing Resident Evil 2 on iPhone and completes an achievement, it should register in their Steam profile and vice versa, same with save games.

This is really basic syncing, request a sync for a Steam id, verify it in Steam, store a sync token, then sync JSON data for game ids that includes purchases, save games and achievements.

The reason mobile gaming ended up with the casino-like pay-to-win model is that people weren't willing to pay money for lightweight games and that set the expectations for payments on mobile.

It would be good if Apple could find a way to get mobile gaming to be more like the Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck where people are willing to spend $60+ on a single good quality game but it's going to be very difficult to do when the expectations have been set for so long and for so many people. I think they would have more success trying to get people to spend $4.99-9.99 outright for titles similar to how Super Mario Run did it. It's free to download to get the first level and then unlock the rest of the game. This wasn't very successful for Mario but if they kept promoting this model, it would gain traction eventually by managing player expectations.

While I agree Steam integration of some sort would be great, it's not like Apple to integrate with a competitor. The better option to buy a game available on both is on Steam, for multiple reasons. Steam is the far better option.

As far as non-Steam stuff, I'm not sure what this is other than rearranging the App Store tab for games to its own thing. And after Game Center and Arcade and everything else they've failed at in gaming, I'm failing to see how this moves the needle — YET. Maybe there's more to the story.

The SMART thing would be to bring back Steam VR and integrate with Apple Vision Pro, even bring back HTC and other headset compatibility. Bring VR gaming to the Mac. We had it, kinda, for a second, in like 2017. That was my biggest disappointment with AVP.

apple4thewin

fastasleep said:

Marvin said:

Johar said:

Yet another clueless flyweight gaming effort from Apple, in a world of gaming heavyweight actors. It's beyond pathetic that Apple completely fails to understand what real gamers need and want. And no, that doesn't include grandmothers, who might happily buy "Hot Dog Stand Simulator 2018" as a birthday gift for little Andrew, 7 years old.

Jeez, if Apple wants to be anything of consequence in gaming, they need to do something bold, like buying Steam. That's what an entry ticket looks like. After that, they'd need to dedicate real resources to it long term. Something they've NEVER done with any of their feeble attempts so far.

Every move like this improves the platform for gaming. Their current achievements and game profile is quite hidden in the App Store:

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2020/08/13/apple-arcade-achievements-game-center-iphone-ipad/

This will give them something more like Steam. They wouldn't have to buy Valve but they could partner with them so that achievements and some purchases sync across games. If someone is playing Resident Evil 2 on iPhone and completes an achievement, it should register in their Steam profile and vice versa, same with save games.

This is really basic syncing, request a sync for a Steam id, verify it in Steam, store a sync token, then sync JSON data for game ids that includes purchases, save games and achievements.

The reason mobile gaming ended up with the casino-like pay-to-win model is that people weren't willing to pay money for lightweight games and that set the expectations for payments on mobile.

It would be good if Apple could find a way to get mobile gaming to be more like the Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck where people are willing to spend $60+ on a single good quality game but it's going to be very difficult to do when the expectations have been set for so long and for so many people. I think they would have more success trying to get people to spend $4.99-9.99 outright for titles similar to how Super Mario Run did it. It's free to download to get the first level and then unlock the rest of the game. This wasn't very successful for Mario but if they kept promoting this model, it would gain traction eventually by managing player expectations.

While I agree Steam integration of some sort would be great, it's not like Apple to integrate with a competitor. The better option to buy a game available on both is on Steam, for multiple reasons. Steam is the far better option.

As far as non-Steam stuff, I'm not sure what this is other than rearranging the App Store tab for games to its own thing. And after Game Center and Arcade and everything else they've failed at in gaming, I'm failing to see how this moves the needle — YET. Maybe there's more to the story.

The SMART thing would be to bring back Steam VR and integrate with Apple Vision Pro, even bring back HTC and other headset compatibility. Bring VR gaming to the Mac. We had it, kinda, for a second, in like 2017. That was my biggest disappointment with AVP.

Better yet, Apple should just outright buy Valve, make a premium version of the porting toolkit that works natively on the Steam launcher, and this will become a better integration than when Apple bought out Beats. That way, Apple has a multiplatform presence, and we get Half-Life 3.

danox

Johar said:

Yet another clueless flyweight gaming effort from Apple, in a world of gaming heavyweight actors. It's beyond pathetic that Apple completely fails to understand what real gamers need and want. And no, that doesn't include grandmothers, who might happily buy "Hot Dog Stand Simulator 2018" as a birthday gift for little Andrew, 7 years old.

Jeez, if Apple wants to be anything of consequence in gaming, they need to do something bold, like buying Steam. That's what an entry ticket looks like. After that, they'd need to dedicate real resources to it long term. Something they've NEVER done with any of their feeble attempts so far.

The only things that’s going to help Apple in this so-called gaming war is a more powerful Apple gaming engine and with more powerful GPU’s on a iPad, Mac laptop, Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Studio computers, Apple Silicon is still two generations away however, but that shouldn’t stop Apple getting the back of house software ready which they have been doing but it’s of no use until Apple reaches parity at the hardware GPU level and then some, because most of the native Apple displays are beyond 4K and I don’t think Apple is going backwards to 4k not with Thunderbolt 5 being deployed. (TB 5 for Apple means single connection displays at higher resolutions).

edited May 29

danox

apple4thewin said:

fastasleep said:

Marvin said:

Johar said:

Yet another clueless flyweight gaming effort from Apple, in a world of gaming heavyweight actors. It's beyond pathetic that Apple completely fails to understand what real gamers need and want. And no, that doesn't include grandmothers, who might happily buy "Hot Dog Stand Simulator 2018" as a birthday gift for little Andrew, 7 years old.

Jeez, if Apple wants to be anything of consequence in gaming, they need to do something bold, like buying Steam. That's what an entry ticket looks like. After that, they'd need to dedicate real resources to it long term. Something they've NEVER done with any of their feeble attempts so far.

Every move like this improves the platform for gaming. Their current achievements and game profile is quite hidden in the App Store:

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2020/08/13/apple-arcade-achievements-game-center-iphone-ipad/

This will give them something more like Steam. They wouldn't have to buy Valve but they could partner with them so that achievements and some purchases sync across games. If someone is playing Resident Evil 2 on iPhone and completes an achievement, it should register in their Steam profile and vice versa, same with save games.

This is really basic syncing, request a sync for a Steam id, verify it in Steam, store a sync token, then sync JSON data for game ids that includes purchases, save games and achievements.

The reason mobile gaming ended up with the casino-like pay-to-win model is that people weren't willing to pay money for lightweight games and that set the expectations for payments on mobile.

It would be good if Apple could find a way to get mobile gaming to be more like the Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck where people are willing to spend $60+ on a single good quality game but it's going to be very difficult to do when the expectations have been set for so long and for so many people. I think they would have more success trying to get people to spend $4.99-9.99 outright for titles similar to how Super Mario Run did it. It's free to download to get the first level and then unlock the rest of the game. This wasn't very successful for Mario but if they kept promoting this model, it would gain traction eventually by managing player expectations.

While I agree Steam integration of some sort would be great, it's not like Apple to integrate with a competitor. The better option to buy a game available on both is on Steam, for multiple reasons. Steam is the far better option.

As far as non-Steam stuff, I'm not sure what this is other than rearranging the App Store tab for games to its own thing. And after Game Center and Arcade and everything else they've failed at in gaming, I'm failing to see how this moves the needle — YET. Maybe there's more to the story.

The SMART thing would be to bring back Steam VR and integrate with Apple Vision Pro, even bring back HTC and other headset compatibility. Bring VR gaming to the Mac. We had it, kinda, for a second, in like 2017. That was my biggest disappointment with AVP.

Better yet, Apple should just outright buy Valve, make a premium version of the porting toolkit that works natively on the Steam launcher, and this will become a better integration than when Apple bought out Beats. That way, Apple has a multiplatform presence, and we get Half-Life 3.

Why? Microsoft bought Blizzard for $72.5 billion dollars which was a waste, when you buy a gaming company or a movie studio all you are getting is a empty shell the people the real talent don’t work for the company they’re usually hired on an as you need them basis like an actor or an actress, once the project’s over you have nothing concrete.

Apple‘s largest acquisition In their history to date is only $3 billion dollars, Apple usually let Microsoft, Google, Meta and others waste billions and I don’t think that’s gonna change anytime soon so what if it takes a couple of years or more in the end if you build up from the ground up you have control of your own destiny which leads to maximum profit and disruption of your competition.