In March 2019, Apple announced a new service coming to the App Store. The service’s mission was to deliver new, exclusive, original games directly to Apple users for a single monthly price, no matter what device you owned- Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, or Mac- and those games would be ad-free, micro-transaction free, and ad tracking free.

That service was Apple Arcade.

It launched later that year alongside the public launch of iOS 13, iPadOS 13, and tvOS 13 with a large handful of games for subscribers to download and play at their leisure. It was refreshing to play a game on your iPhone that didn’t require a new account to be set up or a social media account to be linked or an annoying ad popping up every few minutes followed by another ad trying to get you to spend a couple of dollars on some in-game currency. You just downloaded the game and played it. It was a console-level experience on whatever Apple device you owned. The least seamless part of the whole service was some games that required a controller to play on Apple TV, but even with that hassle, I think many subscribers were willing to tolerate it as the alternative was playing with the original first-generation Siri Remote.

All of this for $5 per month made Apple Arcade an attractive service for mobile gamers and families with children.

Apple Arcade’s fall from grace occurred on April 2, 2021, when Apple published a Newsroom release titled “Apple Arcade launches its biggest expansion yet, growing its award-winning catalog to more than 180 games”.

The Newsroom release detailed a massive (and rapid) expansion of titles to the Apple Arcade library. It did so by establishing three categories of games under the Apple Arcade branding.
First was Arcade Originals- these titles included all previously release Apple Arcade titles that were playable on all Apple devices and were usually original titles that couldn’t be found elsewhere. The other two categories were Timeless Classics and App Store Greats. Both of these categories were iPhone or iPad only and were simple re-releases of existing games you could already find in the App Store. The Timeless Classics label was applied to games that had their origins in a classic card, dice, or board games. Chess for example. The App Store Greats label was applied to games that had their origins as being originally released on the App Store. Fruit Ninja is probably the most recognizable example.

Suddenly, the Apple Arcade brand shifted from ad-free, micro-transaction-free, original titles playable on any Apple device, to a mix of games that were all ad and micro-transaction free, but some could only be played on certain devices and free or superior versions could be readily found in the same place you were already looking at Apple Arcade titles.
From April 2021 to the present day, the vast majority of new releases on Apple Arcade are under the Timeless Classics or App Store Greats label. This has led to a massive increase in iPhone and iPad only titles being added to the service that are of lower quality than the Arcade Originals that got people to sign up in the first place. What used to be considered a steal at $5 per month, now feels worthless at the same price because the average quality has so significantly declined.

What made me realize this was one of the latest releases- Clue. This digital release of the classic board game is an App Store Great- it has a free version already on the App Store- and it has many issues being played on both my iPad Pro and iPhone 14 Pro. On my iPad Pro, the game can only be played in portrait mode. On my iPhone 14 Pro, many of the issues are related to the game’s lack of optimization for dealing with Dynamic Island. The game overrides any Live Activity from appearing in Dynamic Island (which I honestly was not aware was possible by any app) and many UI elements overlap with it as well. As a free app on the App Store, these issues are somewhat annoying, but not dealbreakers. But as part of the Apple Arcade game lineup, with Apple’s backing, it becomes a lot more disappointing and more of a deal breaker.

And this isn’t a one-off thing either. Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector on Apple Arcade removes the Apple Watch integration that existed in the original free version of the App. The game also hasn’t been updated to remove the large black bars at the top and bottom of the app because it was released with the screen design of the iPhone 8 and earlier in mind. Hearts also has an outdated menu design and doesn’t take advantage of GameCenter at all for online play.

These releases are, put simply, lazy. And I’m not necessarily blaming the developers of these games for these issues. They absolutely should update their apps to at least display correctly on all devices, whether they are part of Apple Arcade or not. But the majority of the blame is on Apple for not enforcing any kinds of standards for the titles they purchase the rights to for their service.

Until these issues are addressed, Apple Arcade will continue to be that one Apple service that for a period of time was high quality and certainly worthwhile, but in a bid to rapidly increase the bottom line and pull in a few more subscribers, rapidly did the opposite and went downhill.