In May of 2018, NerdBacon was the first gaming outlet in the world to begin documenting the coming shift in the gaming industry that was peaking out over the horizon due to the pending arrival of the “titans” of technology: Google, Apple, and Amazon.

Google unveiled their streaming service, Google Stadia, last week, and rumors have all but confirmed that Amazon is planning a similar move into providing a gaming platform.

On Monday the second titan laid their claim to the gaming throne; Apple officially announced their renewed entry into the entertainment industry’s must lucrative sector with Apple Arcade – a new subscription-based service that will launch later in 2019.

Apple Arcade will offer robust selection of titles from a wide-array of prolific creators from around the world.

Bucking the trend of attempting to provide triple-A experiences through a cloud streaming platform set by Google and Microsoft, Apple Arcade does not rely on streaming – instead opting for good old fashioned downloadable content that can be played at any time, even offline.

Furthermore, Apple Arcade will not feature any of the “freemium” titles that currently clutter up a good portion of the current iOS App Store.

Images from a number of Apple Arcade titles were shown during Monday’s marathon press event. Glimpses of smaller indie titles were interspersed with a flash of a new title featuring Sonic the Hedgehog. The renowned father of the Final Fantasy series, Hironobu Sakaguchi was featured in Apple’s world class intro video confirming his latest title: Fantasian.

Apple also touted a number of development partners who will bring content to Apple Arcade, including: Sega, Platinum Games, Way Forward, and Konami.

Titles from Apple Arcade will be available across all iOS devices through a single subscription. Players will also have the ability to play a game on one device, such as their iPhone, and then pick up their play right where they left off on a desktop or other device when they get home. One detail of the service that’s not currently clear whether games with heftier graphic requirements will be scaled down should they be accessed on a mobile device like an iPhone. This detail could be a key aspect of Apple Arcade’s future success, as the company began introducing much more visually capable devices like the iPad Pro, which can produce imagery on-par with Microsoft’s Xbox One S.

Apple says that Apple Arcade will launch with over 100 titles, and subscribers will have immediate access to as many titles as they can play on day one.

While many in the gaming community were quick to dismiss Apple’s prospects for success following their announcement, the impact that the company could have on how the industry operates nothing short of cataclysmic.

As Apple’s CEO Tim Cook pointed out in his intro, iOS makes up the “largest gaming platform in the world“, with a loyal install base that dwarfs that of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo combined. As the momentum of Epic’s store over the past few months since its launch has proven, developers will go where they can make money: and in order to make money, you have to have an audience.

For developers though, success on this new platform isn’t guaranteed, as Apple will be moving to a compensation system that is unfamiliar to most game developers. Instead of traditional economic models that allow platform holders to take an up-front percentage fee of every game sold, the all-inclusive subscription nature of Apple Arcade means that developers will now be compensated based on the amount of time their title is played each month. Apple is not alone in this shift. Google will likely do the same for its Stadia streaming service.

Should the move to time-compensation become successful and be adopted by other platform holders, it could have a dramatic effect on how the industry operates.

While Apple today is showcasing smaller developers as part of the Apple Arcade debut, what happens when a game akin to Fortnite ends up on the service? The time played for that title is going to be dramatically different from the time played on the little indie game developed by a studio of one, and there is a danger that this imbalance could lead to less independent developers producing games in the future.

Little thread of potential horror:

I am getting very, very worried about the future of Netflix-like subscription models. In the last 6 months, I have been contact by over a dozen different services, who all want to put No More Robots games on their upcoming platforms.

— Mike Rose is at PAX then Rezzed (@RaveofRavendale) February 6, 2019

Another huge question for Apple is how they will integrate their ecosystem into the Apple Arcade experience. Will users be able to take advantage of other apps within Apple’s ecosystem, or will the game service act as its own platform – walled off from the rest of the company’s world?

But those are questions for another time. The important point is that Apple and Google are now in this industry in a big way.

The final console war to end all console wars has begun.

You can take a look at the Apple Arcade announcement for yourself right here. Footage begins at around the 40 minute mark.

Written by The Watchman

The Watchman is a journeyman gamer who has seen and played a good chunk of gaming history.
He’s also an actor, a reporter, a pro wrestling connoisseur, and some say he’s a cat whisperer.
If you have any questions or just want to drop me a line, hit me up at thewatchman@nerdbacon.com
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