App Store VP Talks Apple Arcade in Interview

Apple’s Vice President of the App Store, Matt Fischer, recently talked about Apple Arcade in an exclusive interview with CNET.

Launched in 2019, Apple Arcade is a gaming subscription service with a large catalogue of titles across many categories, special in-app events, and perhaps best of all, no in-game microtransactions whatsoever. An Apple Arcade subscription costs $5.99/month or $59.99/year.

Fischer told the publication about the central idea behind Apple Arcade. “We were defining a new category with the first gaming subscription service for mobile, desktop and living room, and challenged ourselves to launch with 100 brand new titles that would capture the quality and fun that we wanted the service to represent,” he said.

Fischer believes Apple Arcade had more new games at launch than other gaming services did when they entered the space, including the likes of Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, EA Play, and Nintendo Switch Online.

Apple Arcade has more than doubled its game library since launch, with plenty of new titles and content updates being added regularly.

In addition to striking a good balance between free and paid games (and eliminating microtransactions altogether), Apple Arcade also helps highlight diverse, indie developers and showcase their creations.

“There are billions of players in the world looking for different types of entertainment experiences,” Fischer said.

“Apple Arcade appeals to a wide range of players of all ages and backgrounds, and so should the teams that make the games. We want to ensure we’re bringing the best content and gaming experiences to our subscribers from developers that also uphold our values of innovation, creativity, diversity, and inclusion.”

According to CNET, Apple has quite a few improvements coming to Arcade in 2023. Subscribers could potentially be treated to another big platform refresh along the lines of what happened in April 2021, when Apple released 32 games altogether and improved library organization.

Moving forward, Apple will also keep adding more graphics-intensive, console-style games like NBA 2K23 to Arcade as it hones the gaming capabilities of iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

Check out Fischer’s full interview over on CNET.