I’m running out of reasons to keep Apple Arcade

Perhaps last month’s announcement of Fantasian: Neo Dimension wasn’t a terribly big moment for you — we all have different tastes and it’s totally normal for people to dislike good games, I guess. For me, it was both great news about a neat game finally escaping the limbo of Apple Arcade exclusivity, but also a moment where I finally asked myself a Big Question I had been avoiding: Why do I even bother with Apple Arcade in the first place?

Like most buzzy new services, Apple Arcade launched in 2019 with a wave of exciting titles that made the subscription games plan feel worth it. Five years later, only a few of those games have had real staying power, like Grindstone, which still gets regular updates (including a huge one this very week!). Apple Arcade games get rotated out, Netflix-style, and fewer and fewer brand-new games have cropped up to replace them, as a strong initial investment from Apple in mobile games has reportedly petered out.

There are still bright spots: This month’s Outlanders 2, for example, is the rare high-profile mobile game debuting on the service. That’s the exception, though. The best Apple Arcade additions in recent years have been subscriber versions of premium mobile games, like Return to Monkey Island, Retro Bowl, or Disney Dreamlight Valley.

In addition to being available for purchase on the App Store, many of these games are available on other platforms, which often offer a better experience. And there’s the rub with Apple Arcade: Not necessarily in its lack of exclusives, but in how Apple has shored up its lack of original titles with ports of games I’d mostly rather play elsewhere. It is not, as that launch library of games was, full of interesting mobile-first games. Exclusivity has its use as a subscription incentive, but the stronger case would be a roster of games uniquely suited to the platform they’re on.

Hence my joy about Fantasian’s port: it’s simply weird to keep such an aesthetically unique role-playing game exclusive not just to Apple devices, but to Apple’s gaming subscription service with no option to buy it outright anywhere else. Without a regular cadence of other titles joining it in Apple Arcade exclusivity, the arrangement doesn’t even make sense as a business strategy. It just looks like someone forgot something.

There are certainly people for whom an Apple Arcade subscription still makes sense. If you are an avid mobile gamer who appreciates the variety on offer — and Apple Arcade is pretty great at maintaining a catalog that includes games of all types — then cool, what’s $6.99 a month? Doubly so for anyone fully invested in Apple’s entire ecosystem; iPhone users are nudged in multiple ways to subscribe to the six-in-one Apple One package for $19.95 a month. But the appeal doesn’t stretch far beyond that.

For the past few years, curiosity was what kept me subscribed to Apple Arcade. I wanted to open it up, not just to find something new to play, but to find something suited for playing on my phone, something I might not find anywhere else. But for a while now, I’ve just been finding things I’d rather play elsewhere. Or worse: things I already have.