Apple Arcade After Four Months

Back in March of last year at their services event, Apple announced a new service that was focused on games. This service is Apple Arcade. At the time Apple announced that Apple Arcade would be available "in the fall". Ultimately, this ended up being mid September with the release of iOS 13. One of the selling points was the ability for it to be on all of Apple's platforms, iOS, macOS, and tvOS. This part in particular intrigued me, since I prefer playing games on my TV with a controller, which is also possible with iOS 13, tvOS13, and macOS Catalina, as opposed to touch gestures using my iPhone or iPad.

When Apple Arcade became available I immediately signed up and played a few games. The ones I played included "What The Golf?", "Word Laces", "Frogger in Toy Town", "Mini Motorways", and "Skate City". I intended to play some other games, like "Overland" and "Over the Alps". These last two would probably be ideal for a bigger screen.

I played a lot of two of these games, a little of a couple, and a moderate amount of one. The games I played only a little included Skate City and Frogger. I played Frogger to see how it would be in a modern game and Skate City reminded me of Tony Hawk, expect in 2D. I played Word Laces a bit, maybe 100 puzzles, but ended up stopping because it got to be a bit too repetitive.

The two games that I played the most were What the Golf and Mini Motorways. I beat almost all of the What the Golf levels but there was one that I could not beat and eventually gave up.

Last week I cancelled my subscription to Apple Arcade. I did this for a few reasons. The first is that I realized I did not play any games from Apple Arcade games for over a month and keeping the subscription was a waste of money. The second reason is that the games I enjoy playing on my iPhone and iPad are ones that can be done quickly. The last reason is that as much as I enjoyed playing Mini Motorways, which is my favorite out of all of them, I realized that I prefer to own my games and not rent them. The same can be said for my console gaming. I do not have a subscription to those games either, I purchased my console games.

The final reason I opted to cancel my Apple Arcade subscription is the fact that I am not one who plays a whole bunch of different mobile games. Instead, I tend to stick with playing the same games over time. For instance, I play three games every day, Dissembler, Solitaire, and Word Search. These all have daily puzzles which keeps me coming back to the game. I have been playing these, particularly Solitaire, for a very long time; in fact since at least November 1st, 2014 when they introduced their daily challenges. I had intended on playing games on my Apple TV, but never ended up doing so.

Cancelling Apple Arcade was the right decision for me and in no way is a reflection on my thoughts of the service overall. I think Apple Arcade is a great service which allows you, and the entire family, to play a ton of games for a very reasonable amount of $4.99 per month, and even less if you pay annually. If I feel as though I want to go back and play some of the games, or if a must-play title comes out, I can always resubscribe to Apple Arcade.