Six Months Later, Apple Arcade Hasn't Transcended its Splashy Launch

There's a moment every month that I remember I’m subscribed to Apple Arcade, and it’s when the company sends my bill. That day was [checks notes] today. Given that means I’m stuck with it for another month, I’ll check to see what I’ve been missing, download a couple of games, and inevitably go back to ignoring the service until another $5 is taken out of my account. The cycle repeats itself.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y3mn5m/six-months-later-apple-arcade-hasnt-transcended-its-splashy-launch

I don’t own any apple devices so I cannot use the service, but I was hopeful that it would take longer than six months to become a subscription drain for the people who really liked it. It seemed to strike the apple balance of a new walled garden that players could invest in, almost emotionally. Just saying “here is a place free from the trash we know drives you away from using the app store.”
What I wonder is if there was anything apple could do to keep patrick more invested. Or, I wonder if this was just always meant just to be a way to get $5 a month out of two million people with minimal effort.

The google version of this wasn’t worth the free trial period.

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jfc the Google Play version is absolute trash. Apple Arcade actually has be tempted to get an ipad mini (the first apple device in my entire household) so this is disheartening.

I gave up on Apple Arcade back in like December when I was playing NeoCab on my phone and found I really couldn’t get into it. No matter how good the game is, it’s still on a phone. The phone has a million other distractions so I don’t really want to play a deliberately-paced narrative game. (And let’s be real, I don’t want a serious narrative or deep experience when I’m on the toilet.)

I just want to play something mindless, filler, and which I can easily jump in and out of, like What the Golf. And once I was done with What the Golf, I found myself just playing Piano Tiles for the billionth time on my phone again instead of the thing I was paying $5 for a month, and quit.

I play one phone game Line’s Disney Tsum Tsum game. That’s it. I try all the Nintendo games and I’ve tried some others. Hate them.
I guess for me the gaming I do on my phone is taken up by language apps.