Ever since Apple launched their gaming subscription service Apple Arcade in September of last year, I’ve often wondered how the service is actually performing. There was tremendous buzz on launch from both critics and users alike, which is something I wasn’t quite expecting given the typically negative reaction towards the idea of subscription gaming from the traditional gamer audience. However, given that the App Store is overrun with free to play games that are often exploitative or lacking in any real substance, paying five bucks a month to have access to dozens of games that you know won’t feature a single advertisement or in-app purchase actually looked to be a pretty darn good deal to many people.
With how big of a bang Apple Arcade launched with though, it certainly feels like it’s been whimpering along ever since. We’ve often talked on our podcast about how Apple’s approach to launching Apple Arcade didn’t make much sense. They heavily front-loaded the launch lineup with 50+ of the highest profile games, and although they’ve been trickling out new titles on a near-weekly basis since then and boast more than 120 titles total in the service thus far, there’s been very few head-turners and there definitely hasn’t been any killer, “system seller" type tiles yet. Coupled with the free one month trial period and I feel like most people who were excited about Apple Arcade in the beginning were able to ...