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Apple CAN’T do AAA gaming [Merged Megathread]
- Thread starter Admiralbison
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And none of them would have made it if it were not for someone with a plan outlining how much money will be made with such a game. Do you honestly think someone would blow $100M on making a game because someone wants to have fun doing it? On the other hand, many people sit at home after their day job making games for fun at night and not expecting profit. Those are not AAA games, which require significant investment.
I picked a few AAA games, there are others. Some of which are not AAA.... what's your definition of AAA title?
A game doesn't have to be subscription to be AAA, but in general requires a large upfront investment and long development times and those are only green-lit when it's clear they make a certain amount of money. Otherwise they would not get the go ahead.
Amen to that. I still keep scratching my head why people pay for skins of any sort or extras to make a game really playable. Content in form of DLC, sure. Things relevant to the game, depends, but yeah. Path of Exile is such an example. The game is free, but they know very well people really playing it and not just checking it out, will pay for stash tabs and that is ok. I probably paid around $60 for stash tabs when they were on sale and it's perfectly playable that way. No further investment needed, which means it's a full price game. I've never paid for skins, animals, weapons, whatever else... and hell is going to freeze over before I do.
You're making an incredibly obvious and uninteresting point that games, like any entertainment content, are developed to make money. I don't really want to get roped into arguing about something that I already agree with. It's just an exercise in nothing. There are plenty of other people around here to oppose for the sake of opposing. We already know what people want (high-production games on macOS), we already know that it's probably not going to happen, the cycle of understanding is complete.
It’s directly related to social pressure to make players feel as if they need to buy skins, etc. Modern games that sell cosmetics and the like are deliberately made to pressure players into purchasing skins (or worse chances of getting skins) as a form of predatory monetization.
I’m of the opinion that any gameplay in a game with storefronts is secondary to the storefront itself (see Fallout 76, of all the glitches, the in-game store worked perfectly.)
Gamers are idiots. As started with horse armor in WoW and Mann Co. crates in TF2, it’s been proven that shiny jpegs and dice rolls can be immensely profitable. And as shown by the popularity of franchises like Battlefield, Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Overwatch, along with the standard sportsball games, these practices are no deterrent.
I believe the problem will continue to creep in until it’s ubiquitous.
And I still don’t understand the obsession with AAA. Pretty much every favorite game I’ve played in my life hasn’t been AAA. I’d venture to say that the best games anymore aren’t AAA. Certainly the most popular seem not to be, if steamcharts is anything to go by.
If anything, the lack of AAA games isn’t really a “problem.” It just seems like people use it to circlejerk over raw performance.
If anything, the lack of AAA games isn’t really a “problem.” It just seems like people use it to circlejerk over raw performance.
Well, you were the one to suggest people make games for pure fun. Glad you agree that's not the case for AAA games and outside a learning curve for developers.
Depends for me. My peak gaming days are long over, so when I play a game these days it's either to have fun with old friends (who still play more than me) online or to get a nice story. Games these days are more like movies for me. I do enjoy games like Spider-Man, Tomb Raider, Uncharted, Last of Us and similar games. It's like sitting down and play/watch an interactive movie. That's why I don't want games to be too long, not level packed with endless searching, they should get to the point and tell a great story.
The other type is games like Trackmania (online with friends), which are perfect to play 30 minutes whenever I have time. Or Path of Exile, also with friends for the fun of figuring out the math behind the system. Will try BF2042 (online with friends), but mainly for nostalgic reasons as I played the beta of BF1942 20 years ago and enjoyed it a lot back then. But even if I really enjoy it, I can't see myself playing it more than 30 min. maybe an hour per week and very likely not every week. For all the rest and other games, I just don't have the time.
Larian is not an AAA studio. They used to make indie games, and the development of D:OS2 was largely funded on Kickstarter. The unexpected success of that game won them the license to make BG3, which is the first game thay are making with an AAA budget.
>99% of all PS5 are used for gaming.
<20% of Macs with Apple Silicon were bought primarily for gaming
So if the 52 weeks global shipment of both are identical in volume their use cases are drastically different.
For Mac gamers to receive same parity with PS5 gamers then Mac global shipment volume must be >5x what it is today.
Windows PCs are >11x those of Macs/PS5 so assuming <20% of those PCs are bought primarily for gaming then they have a user base of >2x of the PS5. This makes the PC a desirable platform to develop for.
Now concerning unity... there is still a cost associated with flipping the switch as you still need people and equimpent to validate and squash bugs with.
STEAM provides good marketing data for developers to base rational business decisions on. Based on the past headlines it appears that it isn't economical to develop on the Mac.
If you value your time then buy a PC or video console to play games on.
Maybe some of us also want to play games on our Macs even though we have a PC and/or Console(s).
Uh... Larian have actually gone native M1 + Metal so.... if they can do it at "very very low cost" anybody can.
I don't think a lot of people realise how conceptually similar DX12, Vulkan and Metal actually are vs. the bad old days of OpenGL vs. DirectX9 or whatever. Which makes porting the small part of the engine to do rendering relatively easy vs. past APIs, which had huge differences in the way they were architected.
And BG3 doesn't look "dated". It looks pretty damn good actually.
I mean if I am already using my Mac for other stuff in my living room it seems like it would be easier to fire up a game of Halo Infinite on it versus having to either go in my sons room to play the Xbox or go into our spare room to play on my PC. I mean if it were available on PS5 I could play it there, but it isn't...people just want to argue to just argue
all this back and forth debate/arguement about AAA games for the mac is why I posted the question saying one of the editors from macrumours should contact the game publishers asking them why they wont make their AAA game titles available for Mac OS.
It's a very simple question to put to them..MR Editor: 'Macrumours is a forum dedicated to all things mac. A topic that continues to get passionately discussed about by our members is that of Apple mac gaming and the lack of AAA game titles being publish for Mac OS platform, titles such as (then you run off a list of top game titles that members have mentioned) games which our members would like to see on Mac OS. Therefore the question our members would like to know is, why do you not make your AAA game titles available for Mac OS'.
OR....
'Macrumours is a forum dedicated to all things mac. A topic that continues to get passionately discussed about by our members is that of Apple mac gaming and the lack of AAA game titles being publish for Mac OS platform, titles such as (then you run off a list of top game titles that members have mentioned) games which our members would like to see on Mac OS. Our members have discussed at length their own views and opinions as to why this might be, things such as it not being financially viable to produce AAA games for Mac OS due to the low number of Mac OS gamers.' How you you like to repond to that. (put to games publisher).
Then depending on the responses back, the editor could then ask the game publishers MR Editor: 'Do you feel it is like the chicken and the egg scenerio, the game publishers want to see higher numbers of Mac OS gamers before they commit resources but to get higher numbers of gamers there has to be AAA games made for them for the number of Mac OS gamers to increase. Without games, no increased numbers of gamers and with no increased number of games, no commitment to make them. Is this a fair analysis of the sistuation? (put to the game pulbishers).
Yes members have mentioned that the game publishers are more than likely going to be very standoffish or reluctant to give straight answers but it is still better than nothing.
It's a very simple question to put to them..MR Editor: 'Macrumours is a forum dedicated to all things mac. A topic that continues to get passionately discussed about by our members is that of Apple mac gaming and the lack of AAA game titles being publish for Mac OS platform, titles such as (then you run off a list of top game titles that members have mentioned) games which our members would like to see on Mac OS. Therefore the question our members would like to know is, why do you not make your AAA game titles available for Mac OS'.
OR....
'Macrumours is a forum dedicated to all things mac. A topic that continues to get passionately discussed about by our members is that of Apple mac gaming and the lack of AAA game titles being publish for Mac OS platform, titles such as (then you run off a list of top game titles that members have mentioned) games which our members would like to see on Mac OS. Our members have discussed at length their own views and opinions as to why this might be, things such as it not being financially viable to produce AAA games for Mac OS due to the low number of Mac OS gamers.' How you you like to repond to that. (put to games publisher).
Then depending on the responses back, the editor could then ask the game publishers MR Editor: 'Do you feel it is like the chicken and the egg scenerio, the game publishers want to see higher numbers of Mac OS gamers before they commit resources but to get higher numbers of gamers there has to be AAA games made for them for the number of Mac OS gamers to increase. Without games, no increased numbers of gamers and with no increased number of games, no commitment to make them. Is this a fair analysis of the sistuation? (put to the game pulbishers).
Yes members have mentioned that the game publishers are more than likely going to be very standoffish or reluctant to give straight answers but it is still better than nothing.
I am of the same. If I am on my iMac doing some video/picture work and I want to play a quick game of Ghost Recon or Divison 2 before bed I can't, I would have to move over to my PC to do that but then I am like, what's the point, i only wanted to have quick games before bed, why go throught the effort of closing down the iMac and powering up the PC. I shouldn't have to but alas due to the stance Apple and games publishers take, I have to.
Now that makes more sense.
Everything you describe sounds awesome from a consumer point of view. But what's the business motive for it? It's like saying I wish everything was free or I get paid to use it.
The business motive depends. If we were talking about say Battlefield 2042 (or really any multiplayer fps/tps) then it would be time spent in game maybe buying loot boxes, aside from having to buy a copy for PS5/Xbox/PC+Mac.
I'm glad my 2+ decades on the Mac knocked all the gaming out of me.
Although it made me into an Apple troll. lol Perhaps I'd have more friends if I was into BattleField 2042!
Apple needs to pay for a six month (???) GTA6 exclusive on Apple silicon, totally optimized for Metal & raytracing, and have GTA6 preloaded on every Mac sold...
And a commercial with Justin Long (I'm a Mac) and John Hodgman (I'm a PC) where PC is looking excited over Solitare, Mac is all "Lame...", PC moves on to Minesweeper, Mac yawns loudly, then launches GTA6, PC is blown away, cut to in-game scene where they are picking up hookers... ;^p
Every time I think I have a machine from Apple that I can play games on, I get a few short wows, the tech moves on and after a while I am unable to get the latest. Support is left behind or tech changes, powerpc to intel to m1 to OS that won't support 32 bit and so on. Since 98, gaming on the Mac has been very frustrating (HALO was fun). I don't expect that to change and now, if I get a game that I like that runs well, I enjoy it whilst I can cos sure as hell, from past experience, that will wane quickly. Unless the M1 will change things some.
Problems I suppose of buying an all in one that I cannot upgrade or something. Last big hit was loss of 32 bit support. Lost a lot of titles there.
One bonus I suppose is Deus ex HR is now playable on the M1 but not in 4k. Picked up in a steam sale some time ago but wouldn't run on the 2013 iMac.
That is my view as a user. Always nearly looked like they will but never get to the starting blocks. Time will tell.
Problems I suppose of buying an all in one that I cannot upgrade or something. Last big hit was loss of 32 bit support. Lost a lot of titles there.
One bonus I suppose is Deus ex HR is now playable on the M1 but not in 4k. Picked up in a steam sale some time ago but wouldn't run on the 2013 iMac.
That is my view as a user. Always nearly looked like they will but never get to the starting blocks. Time will tell.
It is a common theme that Apple destroys the old to usher in the new. That's a big reason game publishers aren't very excited about putting in the work to bring their library over.
By the way, expect more transitions in the future; we aren't even close to finished. There's still RISC-V, custom Apple instruction set, quantum processors, who knows what else is on the bingo card (OS transitions, likely). Only a fool thinks we are finally at the end of this road.
By the way, expect more transitions in the future; we aren't even close to finished. There's still RISC-V, custom Apple instruction set, quantum processors, who knows what else is on the bingo card (OS transitions, likely). Only a fool thinks we are finally at the end of this road.
Maybe one of the game publishers could put out a test sample to test the waters to see what happens. What they could do is put up polls in online places that are frequently used by Apple mac users with a list of their AAA game titles and ask us, the mac users which game we would like to see made of Mac OS. The game publisher then codes the game for Mac OS, sit's back and see what happens. If the uptake is low then the game publisher and the mac community will have had it's definate answer.
I cannot see why such a scenerio cannot be done because lots of other companies use this method to see if it is viable to mass produce something or not, they test the water first by making a one off to see if it get's people interested or not. A game publisher could do the same thing with Mac OS gaming (maybe it's already been done, I don't know)
I cannot see why such a scenerio cannot be done because lots of other companies use this method to see if it is viable to mass produce something or not, they test the water first by making a one off to see if it get's people interested or not. A game publisher could do the same thing with Mac OS gaming (maybe it's already been done, I don't know)
It fails at the first hurdle. The numbers just aren’t there for AAA.
To match their first month sales (in a lot of cases) they’d need to sell their game to every single Mac user that has steam installed.
Why spend all the time and money porting a game to such a small market?
The truth is that any mac owners who are interested in AAA gaming will have a PC or Console anyway.