I wouldn't say it's to enter the games industry. It seems to just integrate into Apple the flagship game of their existing Apple Arcade distribution service and guarantee the indie devs some stability.

Silly Apple, Macs aren't for games.

Many great games have been created by 2-person studios

Yes but how many iPhone users are gamers Vs Xbox/Playstation users?

Apple has spent decades convincing its users that macs aren't for gaming so they could justify paying gaming PC prices for computers without dedicated graphics cards.

They been trying to convince players that apple silicon macs are for gaming, but they don’t have enough games to convince gamers, so studios aren’t convinced, so gamers aren’t convinced…

Sony has sold approximately 150 million PS4/5. Assuming they’re ALL being played, and that Microsoft sold roughly the same number, that means that if roughly one in every five iPhone owners play games, there are equal numbers.

But A lot of it, I’m sure, comes down to what everybody considers gamers/games. Balatro? Unquestionably a game, does it count for your statistics? I don’t know. From my phone on a brief search, the total market was somewhere around 180 billion last year, and $90 billion of that was mobile, and Sony made $17.5 billion in services, though I’m not sure if that includes the actual consoles.

Capital G-amers on consoles are a smaller market than Mobile thanks to Gacha and Casuals.

It sort of feels like some hiring managers just hired his mates and apple hasn't noticed because the entire acquisition was to the tune of $50 and an iTunes gift card.

It's just a really weird way they announced it as if it was some major event.

So what.

I had to look up what the hell games arcade was because I've never heard of it, which rather proved my point about it being a limited platform.

I've spoken to a few friends who have iPhones and none of them have anything to do with games arcade, and only one of them even knew what it was.

I'm not questioning whether or not the game is good, just wondering why Apple would want to limit their customer base so much.