The method to Apple Arcade’s madness? ‘Just bring us an incredible game’

digitaltrends.com:

Whenever Apple rolls out a lofty new idea, it invites as many skeptics as it does fans. Devices like the Vision Pro birthed naysayers from the moment it was announced, but armchair criticism has rarely, if ever, put a dent in the tech giant’s plans. It has a way of committing to its products and initiatives, even when outsiders might think no one is using them.

That’s been the story of Apple Arcade since it launched in 2019. The service came at a time when the biggest tech companies were hungry for a piece of the lucrative video game industry. While Google and Amazon tried to break in with cloud platforms, Apple laid out an entirely different vision: a mobile subscription service full of games that featured no ads or microtransactions. It sounded too good to be true – and some people at that time weren’t convinced. Look back at the comments on its original tweet announcing the service and you’ll find a mess of replies ripping it apart.

The most to the point one: “It will fail,” one user wrote.

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Four-and-a-half years later, Apple Arcade still stands. If anything, Apple has only doubled down since then by expanding the service’s offering to mobile classics and bringing exclusive spatial games to the Vision Pro. Through years of speculation and dire reports about internal business struggles, Apple has kept its head down during that work and stayed tight-lipped about how its service works or what its user base looks like. It’s a black box that keeps pumping out games.

As the platform’s five-year anniversary approaches, Apple is finally loosening up about the project. In an interview with Digital Trends, Alex Rofman, Apple Arcade Senior Director, provided some rare insight into the platform’s inner workings. While Apple is still keeping its