Stuck in the Apple Arcade

April 17, 2020 1:11 PM

My son wants to unsubscribe from Apple Arcade (he's 13, and it's my $4.99/mo, so I fully support him in this effort.) It's not showing up in his subscriptions. When he tries to download a game through it, however, it lets him for free. I have read explanations online that indicate it's supposed to show up in your subscriptions like any other subscription. But it's not. I am more than $5 worth of annoyed about this. Does anyone have any insight? If you're subscribed, does it show up in your subscriptions?

Apparently this is the $5 hill I am going to DIE ON.

posted by chesty_a_arthur to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

My Apple arcade subscription shows up on my Mac and iPhone, under -> Subscriptions on the phone, or -> Media and Purchases on the mac. I see it under "expired," but believe it was under active before I canceled it.
posted by Alensin at 1:31 PM on April 17, 2020

My subscription to Apple Arcade shows up just like any other subscription.

Are you sure he's subscribed through the Apple ID you're looking at? Could it be another Apple ID? (Unlikely, I know, but worth asking/checking.)
posted by jdroth at 1:35 PM on April 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Could he have paid for a year in advance? So there is no monthly fee?
posted by dgeiser13 at 1:49 PM on April 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Is it possible he has access via Family Sharing? I don't know if this would cause it to show up in Subscriptions or not.
posted by exogenous at 1:52 PM on April 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Yeah, if you've subscribed under your account, he would have access if you were all in the same Family Sharing group.
posted by sideshow at 2:01 PM on April 17, 2020

I should add: your subscription would not show up under his account, even through he can take advantage of it. Same thing would happen with News+/TV+/Music subscriptions.
posted by sideshow at 2:02 PM on April 17, 2020

Are you being billed the $5? Any new devices? Not an Apple person but seem to recall some sorts of 'X time of Apple Arcade' for new users/buyers/etc. Could it be some sort of free trial period for some reason? I think some phone companies give out Apple+ stuff on new contracts and such. Otherwise... The Apple user answers.
posted by zengargoyle at 5:13 PM on April 17, 2020

Not an Apple person but seem to recall some sorts of 'X time of Apple Arcade' for new users/buyers/etc.

Every Apple hardware purchase currently comes with a free year of Apple TV, which may be what you're remembering. I'm moderately confident there's no such offering for Arcade but that may be regional (I'm in Canada).
posted by cCranium at 3:31 PM on April 20, 2020