Amongst yesterday’s underwhelming Apple announcements, and parade of celebrities, comes a ray of light. Because mobile gaming, on anything but the Nintendo Switch, is often a disaster. In fact, I’ve largely given up on iOS gaming – for both myself and my daughter. As oh-so-many games are riddled with disruptive advertisements and continual upsells. Enter: Apple Arcade
While we don’t yet know launch timing (beyond “Fall”) or pricing, we do know Apple Arcade will be a subscription service that includes access to complete and ad-free games. Further, it effectively obviates the need for the long-requested free trial (as offered within Google’s competing app store). Again, without knowing how much this is going to run, it’s difficult to call the service “generous” – yet that’s the direction I’m leaning, given access for up to six family members (assuming they’ve got games suitable for very small children). Apple also emphasizes the option for completely offline access (which obviously doesn’t apply to mutiplayer combat or collaboration), distinguishing itself from Google’s incoming cloud-based gaming service, Stadia.