Apple's subscription service for games, Apple Arcade, has so far mostly been amassing new titles, but what happens when a game exits the roster?
Last week, Apple Arcade started showing a new tab called "Leaving Arcade Soon," with a list of titles which are about to be removed from the service.
This is all fine and dandy when a game you don't particularly care about goes away, but what happens when your favorite game is on its way out?
Well, we've got good and bad news. In an updated support document (via 9to5Mac), Apple has explained what, exactly, happens with these titles.
"Games might sometimes leave Apple Arcade. If you download a game before it leaves Arcade, you can play the game for at least two weeks after. If you try to launch an Arcade game that is no longer playable, you receive a No Longer Available message," says the document.
Two weeks isn't a ton of time, but it's better than nothing. The bad news is that there seem to be no guarantees you'll be able to continue playing, even at an additional cost. Per Apple: "After a game leaves Arcade, the game developer might choose to make their game available on the App Store. These games might vary from the Arcade version. If the developer makes their game available on the App Store and allows you to load your saved progress, you can pick up where you left off in the Arcade version."
We strongly suggest (and hope) that developers do exactly that. I really don't want my daughter to have to play through the entire Sneaky Sasquatch again.
Right now, a total of 15 titles are on their way out. Apple provides no explanation as to why a particular game is being removed from Arcade, but MacRumors has heard that three-year contracts with developers are ending, and Apple is choosing not to renew some of them.
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