[esskay]

Arcade is comically poor value. I can't tell if Apple doesn't care, or they're just so deluded due to their insular nature and crap attitude towards gaming that they genuinely think its a good service to offer mediocre mobile games for a premium.

[diegof79]

I agree that Arcade is poor.

However, I’ve been subscribed to it since its inception because it is the best way to have games that my kid can play without shady ads or engagement practices.

I know that is not going to last, as my kid is now a pre-teen and likes other types of games (like Hollow Knight) that are not available on Apple Arcade.

But the current state of the gaming industry is terrible, especially on mobile. Indy companies producing games like Dead Cells, Hollow Knight, and Stray are good, and there is the extremely rare case of Larian. But other than that, the market is full of dark-UX patterns to promote app purchases. Mobile apps are a minefield of gacha games that should be forbidden for kids.

[chocochunks]

Just forget that mobile gaming exists? I think one of the cheapo Linux retro handhelds offer a better portable gaming experience than 99% of mobile games, ads or no.

[boredChimp]

Any specific models you’ve used and can recommend?

[chocochunks]

I rather like the Anbernic RG35XXSP for the form factor. It is missing analog sticks, which does cut down on playable games a little but it's cute and tiny and is decently powerful for the price and has good community support. The rest of the RGYYXX line(where YY is the screen size) uses the same hardware but have different form factors so you can pick what you like best.

[akdev1l]

I like Apple Arcade because it has non-shittified versions of classic games

Like Angry Birds, the official version is fucked up to the gills with ads

[esskay]

Sure, but in another time you'd have paid ~$2.99 for the ad-free version one-time, and carried on using it. They intentionally deleted that version of the game, screwing over everyone who did so, then quietly launched the same game again, removing the ad-free one time purchase option.

[akdev1l]

I mean yeah, fuck Rovio or whatever

[crummy]

Agreed. "Free mobile game" almost certainly means "malicious gambling app" at this point.

[eek2121]

Taste is subjective. I get it. There are Triple A games on Arcade. Things like Civilization 7, for example. I don't know what the current standalone price is because we use Apple One Family, however, it used to cost $5/mo.

Apple one is a steal IMO. Apple TV, Fitness+, 2TB, Arcade, and other smaller perks like News+ make it an easy sell. Compared to something like Netflix? Netflix is $25/mo for their top tier streaming alone. Apple TV consistently has higher quality content. So does Apple Arcade and Apple Fitness...then you get 2TB of storage to back your crap up to.

Ask Google or Samsung what they are doing for the cost of an Apple One subscription.

Not a fanboy or anything. I'm basically critical of all tech companies, however, Apple is doing something that is working well for them.

[latexr]

> I don't know what the current standalone price is because we use Apple One Family, however, it used to cost $5/mo.

They raised it a while back to $7/month.

[mghackerlady]

Have you thought of getting your kid a nintendo console of some kind? A jailbroken 3DS seems like it'd be great for avoiding that kind of slop since the 3DSs app store died a few years ago

[SSLy]

note to others: any 3DS can be very easily jailbroken, doesn't require any soldering or sth. https://3ds.hacks.guide/

[pbronez]

I thought the same until my kids started playing iPad games. Apple Arcade is way better than the baseline of aggressive ads and micro transactions.

[hed]

Exactly. It's a way to get games that aren't going to immediately ask for other games to be bought or make you watch ridiculous ads to keep playing.

[bigyabai]

The App Store really ought to just be a better platform in the first place. Apple is the one that let it accumulate slop, and now they're profiting off it's reputation for gambleslop apps.

[dwaite]

If you can figure out a good way for Apple to eliminate the revenue model used for the most profitable games on the platform without getting slapped by regulators, I'm sure they would love to hear it.

[bigyabai]

They don't have to eliminate it, that wasn't my complaint. They need a competitive ecosystem with real-world stakeholders (a-la Epic) and third-party community support like emulators.

iOS is so far behind in this regard that even uttering it in the same sentence as "gaming" almost exclusively implicates gachapon titles or microtransaction slop. Other platforms don't suffer as much.

[lotsofpulp]

Arcade is amazing for my kids, it’s the one thing that pushes the value of Apple One bundle high enough for me to pay it. I assume all games not in Arcade have gambling mechanics.

[mbreese]

The lack of microtransaction/loot box/forced ads/etc driven gameplay is why I keep it. If I can get versions of newer games without all of that cruft, I’m happy. I’m also happy that the game developer gets paid for it.