TechRadar, on Apple Arcade’s highly addictive game, Grindstone:

Anyone who’s played Grindstone can attest to its engagement: the novel puzzle game centers around killing like-colored enemies in sequence to rack up big combos, with plenty of items to spare. But anyone versed in free-to-play games can see how easily Grindstone could include in-app monetization: there’s in-game gems and consumable health items that feel tailor-made for players to drop real-life money to buy. It’s so apparent that it seems like the game would have released with in-game purchases had Apple not come calling.

To me, this is a tremendous value point for Apple Arcade. You will never be held up for in-app-purchases that you need to, say, complete a level, or save yourself from an unreasonably, unnecessary grind.

Continuing:

In other words, part of what’s so engaging about Grindstone’s gameplay loop overlaps heavily with addictive loops that free-to-play games deploy to get players spending real money on in-app purchases.

There’s nothing preventing Apple from adding more games to Arcade that use such gameplay loops to keep players subscribed to the service without betraying Arcade’s no-monetization policy.

Interesting take, all the way around. The takeaway I got from this is that Apple Arcade has found its sweet spot. And they are tuning their future game acquisition model to home in on games that keep people engaged.