Along with the official release of iOS 13 and iPadOS, Apple’s subscription-based gaming service is now available in Malaysia. Apple Arcade has a monthly fee of RM19.90 per month, although this can be shared with 6 “family members” with Family Sharing—potentially meaning that you can share the costs of the subscription fee.
If you missed the announcements thus far on Apple Arcade, the service basically works in a Netflix-style membership program. You pay a fixed fee per month, and get access to over 100 exclusive games in Apple’s game library, with supported devices that run on iOS 13, iPadOS, tvOS 13, and MacOS Catalina.
Unlike competitor Google Stadia, Apple Arcade games can all be played offline (provided the games are downloaded first, of course), and the experience will be free of any ads or in-game purchases. We haven’t had a chance to try many of the games yet, but some of the headlining titles include Ubisoft’s Rayman Mini, Pac-Man Party Royale, and Square Enix’s new RPG, Various Daylife.
The monthly fee may be RM19.90, but this membership can be shared within 6 users, provided they’re all members of your Family Sharing plan. This will mean that your family can share iTunes, Apple Books, and App Store purchases, an Apple Music family subscription, a single iCloud storage plan, and more. Theoretically, they don’t need to be your actual family members, although members of the Family Sharing group will be able to access the primary credit/debit card of the owner of the plan.
This means that if the costs of the subscription is shared across the family, you’re looking at just over RM3 per month, which is certainly an affordable number. Members’ accounts can be set as “Parents or Guardians”, while children’s accounts can have permissions so that purchases cannot be made without consent of a parent account.
To sign up, head over to the App Store on your device, and click on the new “Arcade” tab. You can 1 month of membership for free, following which your primary payment method will be charged RM19.90 for the following months.
