Monthly round-up: Apple Arcade removed 15 titles from the service

From July 2022 to August 2022, 91 games were added to the services tracked (down from 158 last month) and 50 were removed (up from 33 last month), raising the overall number of titles in Ampere’s tracked games content subscription service to 5,644.

These are the main games subscription catalogue changes in August 2022:

• Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (across Console and PC, and EA Play) was the most active service for added titles in August 2022. Of the 20 titles added, five (25%) were published by Microsoft: An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire, Quake 4, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard, and Wolfenstein 3D. All of which belong to franchises owned by ZeniMax Media prior to the company’s acquisition by Microsoft in 2021. All the titles were introduced to subscription services in August 2022 and were brought to PC (and therefore Ultimate) as part of Microsoft’s endeavour to bolster its service with catalogue content from its acquired studios.
• Apple Arcade removed the most titles from the tracked services in August 2022, including notable titles Various Daylife (Square Enix), Cardpocalypse (tinyBuild), and Dread Nautical (Embracer Group). All 15 titles removed were exclusive to the Apple Arcade catalogue and were added to the service on launch day in September 2019. This suggests that developers may have signed a three-year contract with Apple Arcade, and some have chosen not to renew this. One of the titles removed, Various Daylife announced that it will launch on the Switch, PlayStation, and PC in September 2022, after being exclusive to the service.
• Six games were released on ‘day one’ on Xbox Game Pass Console and PC (and therefore Ultimate) in August 2022, up from five the month prior: Midnight Flight Express (Humble Games), Commandos 3 – HD Remaster (Kalypso Media), Immortality (Half Mermaid Productions), Tinykin (tinyBuild), Two Point Campus (Sega), and Turbo Golf Racing (Secret Mode). Two Point Campus’ predecessor, Two Point Hospital (Sega), was available in Xbox Game Pass from 2020 and is scheduled to be removed from the service in the weeks following Campus’ release. Removing the title would redirect traffic to the franchise’s new release and improve its performance in the service.
• In August 2022, PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium added nine titles including Bugsnax (Young Horses), Trials of Mana (Square Enix), and Dead by Daylight (Starbreeze Studios). PlayStation Plus Premium also added one exclusive trial for Rollerdrome (Take-Two). Game trials are a feature exclusive to the Premium/Deluxe tier of PlayStation Plus, and Ampere has identified 18 trials on the service to date, including Cyberpunk 2077 Trial (CD PROJEKT RED), Farming Simulator 2022 Trial (Giants Software) and Horizon Forbidden West Trial (Sony).

Amazon Luna launched on the Samsung Gaming Hub for select Smart TVs and monitors

In early August 2022, Samsung launched Amazon Luna and all its channels on the 2022 smart TVs and smart monitors via the Samsung Gaming Hub. The Gaming Hub is a discovery portal hosted within Samsung’s smart TV application. It hosts several game streaming services, including Nvidia GeForce Now, Google Stadia, Utomik, and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. It allows users to stream games directly to their TV using cloud technology, eliminating the need for additional hardware. Introducing Luna to Samsung smart TVs marks the first time that the service is available directly on TVs without the need for additional hardware, such as Amazon’s Fire TV Stick. By broadening the service distribution channels Amazon can reach a wider audience, including those that are less engaged with the company’s hardware or broader gaming hardware. For Samsung, the Gaming Hub adds value and stickiness to its products. However, both Samsung and the games streaming services are unlikely to reap the full potential of this opportunity until the Gaming Hub is available on older models, or adoption increases for supported models.

Netflix tests social gaming features in a bid to drive engagement

In late August 2022, Netflix confirmed that it has begun testing a new social gaming feature in a small selection of its mobile titles: Into the Breach (Subset Games), Bowling Ballers (Netlfix), Mahjong Solitaire (MobilityWare), and Heads Up! (Ellen Digital Ventures). The feature lets players create unique usernames that link to online play and competitive leader boards; highlighting that Netflix’s long-term gaming strategy is deeper than simply creating/publishing games for its subscribers. It is developing systems that encourage users to deeply engage with the platform long-term and prevent them from migrating to other services or churning, or indeed not play games at all.

Keeping subscribers engaged is one of Netflix’s key goals. App tracking company Apptopia recently estimated that Netflix’s mobile games currently have 1.7m daily active users. While this is not a significant number compared to the company’s 221m subscribers, it has yet to really drive usage through platform promotion. Netflix has made some smaller acquisitions in the games space with two announced in 2022 to date, and it is currently developing titles based on its own original IP (e.g. Too Hot To Handle). As the quality of Netflix’s content improves and the service develops a stronger gaming strategy, the share of subscribers engaging with Netflix games is expected to increase.