Some of it has to be IP building right? To take a chance and make some new IP (instead of worrying about cross platform ports) could net future sales down the line. Some of the hurt here is that games like God of War and Gran Turismo probably didn’t cost a lot of money to develop initially (they probably spent more on marketing to be honest) but grew to be iconic on the platform in question. These days production value is more expensive because AAA games tend to have to look pretty to be noticed (I guess) and artists have to eat, lol.
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A gamer's lament: Apple please let us game on the Mac!
- Thread starter groove-agent
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Do you mean Apple? Look at how Google, and Amazon stumbled out of the gate with developing new IP and trying to get into the gaming sector. They've both spent hundreds of millions and for what? Google shuttered their gaming studio, and Amazon's game was burning out RTX 3090s.
From what little I know, not being being involved in the development of games, it appears to cost upwards of 100 million dollars, though some can be done in the 60 million range. I don't that qualifiers as not costing a lot to develop - maybe I'm not understanding your point here.
The question to ask Amazon is has New World hit the point where they have made their money back?
It is possible God of War cost 100 million to make, which makes God of War 3’s 44 million seem massive, but we don‘t know for sure. It is presumed that God of War (all versions) at least made enough money for Sony to cover the cost of making the game(s) otherwise they would have scuttled it, right?
I wonder what the latest is on New World? In my guild for several months everyone was hot playing New World, now no one is.
For myself I have stepped back from online multiplayer gaming. New World is a WoW clone, been there done that, and the games I’ve played most recently like ARK: Survival Evolved has a lot of base building. I built some big beautiful bases, many hours invested, just to watch the server shut down, because the gaming group I used to game with moved on to the next game. Some of these people live online and tend to tear through games faster than I want to.
No idea, but here's how I see it, will apple spend upwards of 100 million dollars on a targeted audience group that is somewhat niche, i.e., a percentage of mac users, or will they spend it on other services that offer a greater return on that 100 million?
Apple while having a ton of cash is not going to spend money willy nilly, like any business they want to maximize their investment and get the most money back.
In my opinion, right now, in 2022, I don't see the Mac being a game changer for apple in the gaming sector. Will that change in the future, I don't know. But here's the thing, with the market consolidating, and MS, EA, and Sony pushing their subscription services, its an uphill battle for Apple to carve out a piece of that pie - especially given the cost of Macs, the reputation of Mac as a gaming machine and Apple's reputation of being cold to gaming on the mac.
They could of course choose to spend billions on EA and that could certainly upend the entire industry, but is that core to Apple's market, focus? Apple has long been accused of ignoring the Mac and promoting their other business divisions, does buying a large gaming publisher fit in with Apple's direction and philosphy?
Here's a related article, but it plays into how Apple would benefit from games
Research shows developers are becoming less interested in the Mac App Store
If the MAS is not an attrative solution for developers, it only makes it harder for apple to profit from gaming.
This plays into one of my points earlier - what's in it for apple?
If apple is going to spend money to get AAA games on the mac platform, what's in it for them?
1. If the developer avoids the MAS and instead puts on Steam, they won't profit from the sales
2. Will this cause people who normally would not buy a mac suddenly buy a mac?
Research shows developers are becoming less interested in the Mac App Store
If the MAS is not an attrative solution for developers, it only makes it harder for apple to profit from gaming.
This plays into one of my points earlier - what's in it for apple?
If apple is going to spend money to get AAA games on the mac platform, what's in it for them?
1. If the developer avoids the MAS and instead puts on Steam, they won't profit from the sales
2. Will this cause people who normally would not buy a mac suddenly buy a mac?
I could see a Mac Mini / M1 Pro compete in the Playstation / XBox market segment. Its certainly capable enough.
However, question is if Apple intends to follow that path. They do not seem to even try to increase the Mac's market share, whatever the reason may be. As long as they are happy with the sales figures they got right now, there is no point in pursuing the gaming market. Kinda sad, imo
However, question is if Apple intends to follow that path. They do not seem to even try to increase the Mac's market share, whatever the reason may be. As long as they are happy with the sales figures they got right now, there is no point in pursuing the gaming market. Kinda sad, imo
Good point there, although Apple would profit from more people buying hardware where Sony/Microsoft have much tighter profit margins on their consoles. Stuff like this could be considered marketing spend.
They don't have to get AAA conversions which are already available to on other consoles - if people wanted a Call of Duty scale title they'd get it on the most powerful console if available.
Apple should invest in iOS exclusive titles if they wish to invest in reasons for customers to get and keep services (Apple Arcade) as well as purchasing new hardware be it iPads, iPhones, or AppleTV. To be fair, they are spending some money on low key titles but at the moment there's nothing there that people would say is worth having Apple Arcade or a piece of iOS hardware for.
I'm not sure that M1/M1X is that technologically superior to the hardware that the latest generation consoles are being equipped with but Apple aren't even interested in competing price wise so any idea of an Apple games console will be dead in the water anyway.
If they aren't even investing in keeping their DirectX competitor up to date, be it OpenGL, OpenCL or Metal/Metal 2 then how can developers hope to produce decent games if they were sufficiently motivated to develop for the platform?
It's been said here that Apple should concentrate on iOS as the games platform - and by install numbers and market percentage that makes sense. In theory, any decent titles could then be ported to the Mac platform.
Apple will hope to reap bigger profits from device sales if a must-have title suddenly appeared on the iOS platform - thing is, without it being a big name AAA title, possibly with groundbreaking visuals/tech, it'll probably just end up being lost somewhere in Apple Arcade or up against the other free to play games on the platform.
I wouldn't be sure if people buying a Mac on that basis, and iOS devices don't seem much more likely as purchases unless Apple are aiming to capture lightning in a bottle with the next Pokemon Go for instance.
There are two established ways of making money in the gaming hardware market:
Console model: Put an M1 Max in a $500 Mac Mini and make money from exclusive games. The hardware has to be cheap, because people are paying more for their games than in the other model. This model also requires that you take game developers' concerns seriously, because your success depends on the quality of the games rather than the quality of the hardware.
PC model: Become a gray faceless bureaucrat selling boring interchangeable hardware and make money by selling better hardware than competitors. Single-platform app stores are inferior to cross-platform stores like Steam in this model, because gamers don't want to risk losing their games every time they upgrade their boring interchangeable hardware.
The Apple model with expensive hardware and vendor lock-in through single-platform app stores does not seem viable.
What about 4A, from Ukraine? They have, presumably without carrot nor stick, offered all three of their Metro games, to the Mac.
How are they able to do such a phenomenal job porting their AAA games to our platform?
Are you saying that Apple has no games on neither the App Store nor the Mac App Store? How do Apple make more profit selling games on iOS than do Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo combined? It seems like you’re claiming without evidence that Apple - the biggest player in gaming - can’t use some of that 3 trillion market cap to strike while the iron’s hot and buy a studio or two, because you personally don’t believe that they’ll make it back?
Because they have Embracer group money.
EDIT: at least for the last game… I imagine for the other two at least one person on the dev team must have had a Mac they wanted to play the game on…
Apple isn’t a game publisher or game developer, so they dont have any games on their own stores. Is this not common knowledge?
https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1557585762 Metro Exodus comes to Mac
Total War: ROME REMASTERED
Before you buy, please expand this description and check that your computer matches or exceeds each of the requirements listed. Total War: ROME REMASTERED is the genre-defining real-time strategy game Rome: Total War, reborn with an extensive graphical overhaul and improvements to almost every...
apps.apple.com
Disco Elysium - The Final Cut
Winner of 3 BAFTAs, The Game Awards, DICE, Game Developers Choice Awards, South-by-Southwest, Dreamhack, and many more. PC Gamer - Game of the Year 2019, Gamespot - Highest Rated Game of 2019, IGN - Best PC Exclusive 2019, Metacritic - Absolute Must Play of 2019. Features – Unprecedented...
apps.apple.com
Frostpunk
MINIMAL REQUIREMENTS: OS: macOS 10.15 Processor: 2.6GHz Intel Core i7 Memory: 16 GB RAM Graphics: 4GB AMD Radeon Pro 5300M, Radeon Pro 560X or better Storage: 10 GB available space Additional Notes: The game is supported on the following Macs. To check your Mac model and when it was released...
apps.apple.com
Transport Fever 2
Discover a whole new world by navigating transport routes through land, water and air. May progress and prosperity find their way! Provide the world with the transport infrastructure it needs and make a fortune with custom-made transport services. Watch your trains run on rails, your buses and...
apps.apple.com
And Apple's acted as publisher for some of the indie Apple Arcade titles on iOS and Mac.
They don't develop, but they certainly publish, and certainly have games on their own stores.
Apple is making more gaming profit from iOS than are Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo combined! They’re hardly struggling in the industry, and the fact that they’re expanding their own custom silicon, and its unified memory architecture, to all of their Macs, means they have a plan to expand on lessons learned from iOS to grow everything else.
There’s more than just consoles and pcs, and obviously I don’t agree with your take that Apple’s strategy isn’t viable.
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You’re partly wrong. Apple does publish every game on their stores, meaning they take a cut from every game sold. You’re right, however, that Apple isn’t a game developer.
I dont think that is how that works. I mean I could be wrong, but then that would imply that they have published every game in the App Store making them the largest game publisher (which from my understanding of all the charts, they are not on the list at all).
It would be like saying every Kindle book was published by Amazon (which we know isn’t true) just because it was sold on Amazon. Right? Or am I missing something here.
Yeah there are games on Apple Mac App Store. But Apple didn’t publish those games. Metro Exodus was published by Deep Silver for example.https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1557585762 Metro Exodus comes to Mac
Total War: ROME REMASTERED
Before you buy, please expand this description and check that your computer matches or exceeds each of the requirements listed. Total War: ROME REMASTERED is the genre-defining real-time strategy game Rome: Total War, reborn with an extensive graphical overhaul and improvements to almost every...apps.apple.comDisco Elysium - The Final Cut
Winner of 3 BAFTAs, The Game Awards, DICE, Game Developers Choice Awards, South-by-Southwest, Dreamhack, and many more. PC Gamer - Game of the Year 2019, Gamespot - Highest Rated Game of 2019, IGN - Best PC Exclusive 2019, Metacritic - Absolute Must Play of 2019. Features – Unprecedented...apps.apple.comFrostpunk
MINIMAL REQUIREMENTS: OS: macOS 10.15 Processor: 2.6GHz Intel Core i7 Memory: 16 GB RAM Graphics: 4GB AMD Radeon Pro 5300M, Radeon Pro 560X or better Storage: 10 GB available space Additional Notes: The game is supported on the following Macs. To check your Mac model and when it was released...apps.apple.comTransport Fever 2
Discover a whole new world by navigating transport routes through land, water and air. May progress and prosperity find their way! Provide the world with the transport infrastructure it needs and make a fortune with custom-made transport services. Watch your trains run on rails, your buses and...apps.apple.com
And Apple's acted as publisher for some of the indie Apple Arcade titles on iOS and Mac.
They don't develop, but they certainly publish, and certainly have games on their own stores.
Maybe because they and Larian Studios (BG 3) chose to ask Apple for help for optimization and Apple gave them free technical help, instead of spending time and money trying solve their problems by themselves like others who say they don't have time and money to test and optimize for Mac? Apple offers tools and free help but many don't even take that or know they can get help. At least so it seems.
Yeah, Apple's more a retailer/customer support. They don't publish every title, because that would open them up to hilarious amounts of liability, plus add in another layer of hurdles that need to be crossed.
But Apple do publish titles, and do provide technical assistance. It's just that they don't really talk about it much, which is a mistake, imo.
Apple does not have significant gaming revenue in any meaningful sense of the word. They don't make games or dedicated gaming hardware, and the app store revenue comes from acting as a middleman, much in the same way as credit card networks and cloud service providers.
Mobile gaming is fundamentally different from PC/console gaming, because people play games on devices they have anyway. On the PC/console side, most of the revenue comes from people with dedicated gaming devices. If Apple wants to compete in that market, it should start making something that is competitive as a dedicated gaming device. It could be cheap and convenient like Switch, cheap and powerful like high-end consoles, expensive but versatile like PC, or something completely different.
I guess the question to be had, what gaming titles (macOS ideally) has Apple published?
That doesn't sound right. So using that logic, does that mean Steam is a game publisher as well, what about GameStop? Just because someone sells a title doesn't mean they're publishers. I'm not trying to split hairs, but I think there's a clear difference between store fronts and publishers.
There must also be reason for the existence of this:
”Metal-cpp is a low-overhead C++ interface for Metal that helps developers add Metal functionality to graphics apps, games, and game engines that are written in C++.”
developer.apple.com
And of course:
developer.apple.com
”Metal-cpp is a low-overhead C++ interface for Metal that helps developers add Metal functionality to graphics apps, games, and game engines that are written in C++.”
Getting started with Metal-cpp - Metal - Apple Developer
Metal-cpp is a low-overhead C++ interface for Metal that helps developers add Metal functionality to graphics apps, games, and game engines that are written in C++.
And of course:
”Metal Developer Tools for Windows
Bring your high-end games and assets to Mac with the Texture Converter Tool and Metal Shader Compiler.”
Metal Overview - Apple Developer
Metal powers hardware-accelerated graphics on Apple platforms by providing a low-overhead API, rich shading language, tight integration between graphics and compute, and an unparalleled suite of GPU profiling and debugging tools.