Crossy Road Rush puts four-player online racing behind Apple Arcade's $6.99 subscription

The description on Crossy Road's YouTube channel ends with an invitation: "Ride solo, or connect locally and online with up to 4 players!" ^[7] The three friends that invitation goes to are the audience the game has to win.

Apple's own pitch is the obstacle course. Players "swerve, jump, and smash their way across an island obstacle course packed with quick-fire challenges and hazards at every turn," according to Apple ^[5]. Here's what teams tell themselves users do with a pitch like that: recognise the Crossy Road name ^[1] and sign up. With a four-player game, I'd expect users to do something smaller. They ask the group chat who has it. The answer depends on who pays $6.99 a month for Arcade or gets it inside an Apple One bundle ^[11].

On Apple's side, the release day shows what the game is for. KAMI 2 and Food Stylist, both existing App Store games, arrive on Arcade the same day ^[8]. Rush is the only new title of the three ^[13]. Apple and Hipster Whale announced it jointly ^[2] without disclosing deal terms, so whether Apple paid for the exclusive, and how much, is not on the record.

For a studio weighing a subscription exclusive of its own, I'd sort the decision on two axes: whether the game needs other people, and whether its likely players already pay for the service. A solo game aimed at existing subscribers gives up little by going exclusive. Solo players outside the service have to be talked into the fee by one game. Social games aimed at subscribers work when whole friend groups are already inside. The hard corner is social play aimed at non-subscribers. There, one title has to persuade several people to start paying at roughly the same time.

I'd take a social exclusive only when the subscriber base already holds the friend groups. The cost of that rule is reach: it means turning down deals for games whose players mostly sit outside the service. Rush, with solo play and online races for up to four ^[6], belongs in the social column.