Build Your Own Apple Arcade, For $400

Apple Arcade has been out for a little over a month, and I’m not entirely thrilled with it. It’s definitely an interesting idea, but it leaves a lot to be desired, especially in fulfilling its commitment to letting folks “play anywhere.” Still, at $4.99 a month, it seems like a very reasonable value proposition that is getting better and better as new games get added to the service.

The greatest strength of Apple Arcade is definitely the variety of games given the price. I am now more convinced of that than ever because I went ahead and built out a list of games you could add to your iOS library to mimic the offerings of the service, and it’s not exactly cheap. If you wanted to capture the breadth and depth of offerings that Apple Arcade currently offers users, it would cost you about $400 ($384 more precisely) in total.

The full list of these games is below. Each game is grouped by genre and includes a link to their review (if possible) and store page.

_{Any games marked with an asterisk(*) are free-to-play games that you can’t fully unlock with a single purchase. I vouch for them, though. They're all incredibly fair with their monetization.}

19 Arcade Games

Candies n’ Curses (Free/$9.99)

Bouncing Hero ($2.99)

holedown ($3.99)

Flipping Legend (Free/$1.99)

Beat Racer (Free)*

Barbaric: The Golden Hero (Free)*

Treasure Buster ($0.99)

BackFire ($0.99)

Xenoraid (Free/$9.99)

The Bug Butcher ($3.99)

Million Onion Hotel ($3.99)

Planet Quest (Free/ $0.99)

Particle Mace ($2.99)

Ball King (Free)*

Wild Bullets (Free/$4.99)

Solar Explorer: New Dawn ($2.99)

Jumpgrid ($2.99)

Twinfold ($3.99)

Hitman: Sniper ($0.99)

21 Puzzle Games

Ticket to Earth ($4.99)

Peter Panic (Free/$2.99)

Path of Giants ($3.99)

The Gardens Between ($4.99)

Starbeard ($2.99)

Twinfold ($3.99)

Void Tyrant (Free/$4.99)

You Must Build A Boat ($2.99)

Pipe Push Paradise ($3.99)

Minesweeper Genius ($1.99)

Tiny Bubbles ($3.99)

Meteorfall ($3.99)

The Room: Old Sins ($4.99)

Gorogoa ($4.99)

Card Crawl ($4.99)

Sidewords ($2.99)

Old Man’s Journey ($4.99)

Typeshift (Free/$1.99+)*

Splitter Critters ($2.99)

Agent A: A puzzle in diguise ($6.99)

Evergarden ($4.99)

15 Action Games

Time Recoil ($5.99)

Grimvalor ($6.99)

Death Road to Canada ($14.99)

Neon Chrome ($6.99)

Space Marshals 2 ($4.99)

Implosion - Never Lose Hope ($9.99)

Sneaky Sneaky ($2.99)

Wayward Souls ($6.99)

Ninja Smasher ($3.99)

Stranger Things (Free)

Portal Knights ($4.99)

Crashlands ($6.99)

Barbearian ($8.99)

Xenowerk ($1.99)

Tower Fortress (Free/$3.99)*

4 Multiplayer

Subterfuge (Free/$9.99)

Armajet (Free)*

Vainglory (Free)*

Shadowgun War Games (Free)*

2 Card Games

Spellsword Cards: Demontide (Free/$2.99)

Age of Rivals ($3.99)

7 Platformers

Oddmar ($4.99)

Ordia ($3.99)

Shadow Blade: Reload ($4.99)

Golf Zero (Free/$1.99)

Suzy Cube ($3.99)

Bubbles the Cat ($3.99)

Spitkiss ($0.99)

1 Tower Defense

Kingdom Rush Vengeance ($2.99)

7 Strategy

Xenowerk Tactics ($6.99)

Rebel Inc. ($1.99)

Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander ($6.99)

Iron Marines ($4.99)

A Planet of Mine (Free/$4.99)

Warbits ($4.99)

Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville ($4.99)

2 Runners

Alto’s Odyssey ($0.99)

Punch Quest (Free)*

1 City Builder

TheoTown ($3.99)

1 Fighting Game

Street Fighter IV CE ($4.99)

5 Sports Games

Trail Boss BMX ($3.99)

Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 ($1.99)

Pocket Run Pool (Free/$3.99)*

Dog Sled Saga ($3.99)

Grand Mountain Adventure (Free/$4.99)*

15 Adventure Games

Astrologaster ($4.99)

Florence ($2.99)

DATA WING (Free)

Technobabylon ($4.99)

Red’s Kingdom ($2.99)

Kathy Rain ($4.99)

Gemini - A Journey of Two Stars ($1.99)

Ryan North’s To Be Or Not to Be ($6.99)

Reigns: Game of Thrones ($3.99)

Where Shadows Slumber ($2.99)

SIMULACRA ($4.99)

A Normal Lost Phone ($1.99)

Maginary (Free/$4.99)*

The Pillars of the Earth ($1.99)

Abi: A Robot's Tale ($0.99)

6 RPGs

Star Traders: Frontiers ($6.99)

Attack the Light - Steven Universe Light RPG ($2.99)

Pixelot ($1.99)

Cat Quest ($4.99)

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain ($7.99)

Dark Quest 2 ($1.99)

2 Racing Games

Rush Rally 3 ($3.99)

Riptide GP: Renegade ($2.99)

3 Idle/Management Games

Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! ($4.99)

Punch Club ($4.99)

SPACEPLAN ($2.99)

What can we glean from a list like this?

For starters, buying everything above would cost the equivalent of paying for Apple Arcade for almost 6.5 years. This also only captures what Apple Arcade looks like now and doesn’t account for the fact that the service plans to continue growing its library over time.

On the other hand, if you wanted to pursue your own Apple Arcade-like library, there are some advantages. First and foremost is the fact that you only have to pay once for these games. You can also pick and choose which ones you actually want, which—depending on how discerning you are—can result in you paying way less than $384.

Personally, I’m still more interested in paying for individual premium games than buying into a subscription service, so I hope more games like the ones above continue to hit the App Store. That said, I understand and am grateful for things like Apple Arcade in their attempt to reinvigorate a platform that has been overrun with free-to-play games.

I’m curious to know how other mobile gamers feel about this. Where do you fall? Let us know in the comments below!