Apple Arcade offers up a ton of cool mobile games for only 5 bucks a month. The price seems more than fair from the player side, and it helps that these games arenāt packed with microtransactions, since theyāre already funded by the subscription fee. But is that subscription model actually sustainable? And do we want to see other game stores heading in this direction? On this weekās Kotaku Splitscreen, Kirk and I discuss.
First up, we talk about games weāre playing. Kirk and I are both living our best (horrible) goose lives in Untitled Goose Game, and Kirkās also stuck on a hard boss in Gears 5. He then runs down his favorite offerings in Apple Arcade before we break for news (31:04) about the Oculus Quest, discuss the sustainability of Apple Arcade, and read a bunch of listener emails about weird gaming traditions. We close with off-topic discussion (59:54) about Dark Crystal, Hustlers, and Kirkās music pick.
Get the MP3 here, or read an excerpt below.
Kirk: Apple Arcade. The first thing thatās cool about this, I think, is that for the first time since I canāt remember when, it feels like mobile games are something that I have any interest in talking about. Thereās a lot of people talking about this and writing about it. That, to me, feels remarkable. When was the last time anything related to mobile gaming felt vital or important?
Maddy: Or encroached upon the games journalism world of what we talk about. For better or worse, I feel like usually the mobile game conversation is people trying to convince the greater gamer audience: āNo, this oneās really good!ā Every now and then, one will rise above. Monument Valley is a good example. There have been a few other mobile games that encroach into that area.
This is such a huge amount of games that itās undeniable in some way. I see people who Iāve never seen talk or write about mobile games, and their Twitters and articles are now full of, āBut seriously though, this Apple Arcade stuff is really cool!ā That is wild to see.
Kirk: There was this period of time, I think before your time, when we did Kotaku Mobile.
Maddy: [Laughs.] Definitely before my time.
Kirk: It was quite a ways back, I guess. Kotaku Mobile was always this interesting challenge. I think Kotaku Social also existed, and Mike Fahey was sort of shepherding both. He did a ton of work; he played all of these games and wrote about them. But it was really tricky to get people to care, because even then, there was always this feeling that mobile games are all kind of trash. They all have these built-in microtransactions.
There were so many headlines that were, āThis oneās different!ā Which, like you said, often that would be the case. Thereād be really cool games that would be on mobile. Like Reigns, I remember when I first played Reigns. This game is so cool, works perfectly on a phone. Itās a really brilliant game. You want to say to people, āAh, this oneās different,ā but then they hear that so many times. The whole thing is a cesspool. As the years went on, I just stopped thinking about it or caring really. I have all these games on my phone; some of them are really good, and I canāt play them anywhere else. But I just donāt care.
Itās remarkable that Apple put all of this stuff together and dropped this meteor on everyone in order to make everybody pay attention again. And it really worked, because the games are all really good, and it gives you this alternate reality where mobile gaming didnāt just become this bummer cesspool of knockoffs and IP stealing and free-to-play psychology games. Instead itās just a bunch of the best kinds of mobile games. I think thatās the remarkable thing about this. I donāt know who at Apple was in charge of this; Apple is super opaque.
Maddy: Yeah, weāll probably never know.
Kirk: Maybe not. At least if they talk a little more about the process of thisābecause no one else is really positioned to do something like this. And it feels different. It feels like something Iāve never quite seen in video games before.
Maddy: The big ābutā there is the fact that you still havenāt paid for any of the games that youāve gotten on the service yet. And that is the question that everyone has about this, which is, how is this a sustainable model? And is it a sustainable model? Itās not why I havenāt gotten it, but itās definitely a question thatās lurking in the back of my mind. We touched on it a little bit last week. I have guilt about these kinds of services and our new subscription-flavored future. I donāt think I can do anything about it, but I donāt love it.
Kirk: Your guilt is related to what exactly?
Maddy: I feel like I actually have started to devalue a lot of pieces of media in ways that I didnāt do when I was growing up in the ā90s. I used to go to Blockbuster and spend a couple of bucks on renting a movie. But nowadays, I donāt want to spend 5 dollars on ārentingā a movie from iTunes. I just donāt. Iād rather watch a different movie on a subscription service that I pay for than pay not that much more money to rent a movie. Why is that? Thatās interesting. Thatās clearly a mental change in me that Iāve observed.
I feel similarly about games. Like Jason was saying before, mobile games in particular have just been framed as ephemeral and valueless for so long that itās taking a lot for me to get over that mental hurdle and be like, they actually are a thing I should be paying for! And I actually probably always should have been paying five dollars for each of these games, if that were ever possible. But that wasnāt. It was not something that those games could do, because they knew I wouldnāt pay for them, so they structured themselves in such a way that I didnāt have to.
Iāve gotten hours of enjoyment out of the Harry Potter game [for mobile] and Iāve not spent a dime on it, so my enjoyment is basically something that Iām having at expense of the whales out there who are funding this game. Thatās not a great feeling for me to have about the creation of that game, putting aside any other concerns I might have about that game and its location services. I have other ethical concerns about that game and how itās funded. So then Iām like, OK, cool, in theory Apple Arcade is the answer to my problems. Itās a subscription service. Mentally, Iāve already accepted that subscription services are a thing Iām willing to pay for. But am I paying enough for them? Thatās not a problem I can solve individually. Itās just something Iām thinking about.
For much more, listen to the entire episode. As always, you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts and Google Play to get every episode as it happens. Leave us a review if you like what you hear, and reach us at [emailĀ protected] with any and all questions, requests, and suggestions.
