Samuel Axson
Apple recently announced that it will be adding new games to Apple Arcade, its game subscription service for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Vision Pro headsets. The headline titles are: Vampire Survivorwas an indie hit that combined bullet-hell shooter gameplay with the addictive feel of click games, and was a huge hit two years ago. Temple Run: LegendsThis is the latest version of the popular 2011 game.
Vampire Survivor It was already available on the App Store, but it was ad-supported and had the option to purchase additional content within the app. Vampire Survivors+is similar to the ad-free PC and Xbox versions, and both paid extensions are included at no extra cost.
meanwhile, Temple Run: Legends It’s a completely new game (not a remake of the original) Temple Run) eschews the “endless runner” genre label by dividing gameplay into individual levels, but also offers an optional endless mode.
If you haven’t played yet Vampire Survivor It’s worth giving it a try early, as both titles are available on August 1st.
Arcades need fresher, riskier options
These new additions are the latest in a long line of Apple Arcade titles curated with a risk-averse, proven-only ethos, more or less ensuring that the subscription service won’t get any surprise blockbusters that draw people in.
When Apple Arcade launched, its initial lineup was a compelling mix of casual and indie titles, some of which would go on to become popular on other platforms after their Arcade exclusivity period ended. However, early reports suggested that Arcade was not garnering the traction Apple had hoped for, and the company quickly reversed course, adopting sustained engagement as the primary metric for judging success and favoring games as a service over standalone or narrative experiences. It began to release mostly games based on established intellectual properties like Hello Kitty and Star Wars, as well as re-releases of games that had already proven successful elsewhere on the App Store.
Many of these re-releases were more than a decade old, harkening back to the App Store’s early days, when premium titles dominated and free-to-play games-as-a-service were not as prevalent.
This week Apple released a new Games-as-a-Service offering on a 2011 mobile IP that waned in popularity and became a hit indie game a few months later. That’s not to say that no one is interested or playing it. Vampire Survivor That may seem true now, but imagine how fascinated iPhone users would have been with Arcade if it had existed when it first came out.
It didn’t take long for Apple to shift from its original strategy of reaching out to creative new developers showing interesting work at events like IndieCade to relying solely on experienced developers with games that had proven success, IP that had already proven popular, or people who already had buzz on the App Store. Perhaps Apple didn’t give that strategy enough of a chance.
What we have now is a secure subscription service that essentially curates the best of what others have already discovered, and (thankfully) strips it of ads and microtransactions. It’s a perfectly good value proposition, especially for the price. But we’re unlikely to see any big hits on Arcade that will garner buzz among players, influencers, or media, because for the most part, Apple is following headlines with this service, rather than leading them.
This limits Arcade’s market positioning somewhat and its growth potential. That doesn’t mean Arcade isn’t valuable to the right player, but those who want the next best thing to play are likely looking elsewhere, and by the time something comes to Arcade, they may have moved on to the next trend. Whether that works out for you will depend on who you ask, but with increasing competition from other mobile game subscription services, Apple may need to cater to a wider variety of players. A better balance of proven hits and more experimental or ambitious titles that release at the same time as other platforms could help them hit both buckets.
